Triathletic Boys

Saturday, our family was out at Lopez Lake near Arroyo Grande, California, to watch our two older boys compete in the Scott Tinley Triathlon.

(Tim, center, waiting for the swim to start)

Several years ago, Tim, was downtown for a Farmer's Market, when he came across a flyer for a local triathlon and decided to do it.  Kristine and I were a little apprehensive, but Tim had fun and surprisingly did okay for a guy his age.

(Tim scrambling to enter the lake)

So he competed for the next few years doing the kid version of the same triathlon, but last year he moved up to the adult version and again surprised us for how well he did.  The course he competed in was the on-road sprint version which was 1/4 mile swim, 12.4 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run.

(Tim swimming the quarter mile in the lake)

Because of his age, he was in the back of the pack to start the course, but we were pleasantly surprised to see him emerge fifth (out of 117 guys) from the lake with a time of 7 minutes 55 seconds!

(Tim out of the lake ahead of the university team!)

He was looking really good and probably in his best form ever.  His training for water polo certainly paid off.

(Changing for the bike portion.  The clock doesn't stop)

We knew he would probably lose some time on the bike and run.  He doesn't have a professional road bike and he's always lost time there, but after watching Tim leave on the bike, we left to get Andrew to the lake to start the kid version of the race.

(Andrew happy as can be, warming up in the chilly lake)

Andrew is our middle son and 11 years old right now.  I can't tell if he really wanted to race for the race sake or because his older brother has done it.

The youth course is a little different.  It's a 200 yard swim, a 4 mile bike ride, and a mile run.  Like his brother, Andrew was out of the water pretty quick.

(Quick change in transition)

(Off he goes on the bike portion.  Like Tim, he really should be using a road bike)

At this point in the race, I was getting a little concerned.  Based on his previous times, Tim should have been back by now, but his bike wasn't stacked where it should have been.

(Andrew coming down the final stretch)

Andrew finally finished his race.  He finished second in his class, so we're thinking we may have to start looking for a used road bike for him too.

(Two brothers after the race)

We finally found Tim.  He had hit a patch of gravel about 3/4 of the way through the bike course and wiped out, scraping up his hip and left arm.  He tried hopping back up, but his derailleur was all bent and he couldn't get it working.  He was a little frustrated that he couldn't finish the race, but took it in stride.

There's always next year!