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Triathlon Time
Is Your Child Ready for a Triathlon?
By Leigh Brown Perkins
Relief rushed through us when our son Mac huddled with a dozen other 7-year-olds at the edge of the pool, ready to dive into his first triathlon. We weren't relieved that he was winning – he hadn't even gotten wet yet. No, we were relieved that he wasn't the only kid not wearing a Speedo.
As first-time swim-bike-run parents, we had more than just wardrobe worries: "What if he can't swim the whole way? Is he supposed to have a racing bike? Should we have fed him first or will he get cramps? Why didn't we just stick with golf?" And so, seeing boys in Sponge Bob trunks and girls in Hello Kitty bikinis, we felt like boiling teapots that someone had finally taken off the heat. Phew. These were not buff super-children with perfect freestyle strokes and Tour de France cycles. They were ordinary little kids having the time of their lives swimming, biking and running.
"It's fun," says Tyler Reback, 9, of North Palm Beach, Fla. "Some kids think it's too hard, but I like it." Tyler usually battles out the lead in local triathlons with his sister Ashley, 8, who started racing at age 6. "The best part is getting the medal at the end," she says. Every kid who finishes, regardless of time, gets a medal, a T-shirt and a new sense of what's possible.
Clark McLennan, 15, of Salinas, Calif., started racing in grade school. He is now an elite triathlete on the Tri California Junior Racing Team. "Triathlon is a sport where you don't have to rely on other people," says McLennan, who is also on his high school's cross-country and swim teams. "When you win, it's all you. There's much greater personal reward in that, even though there's not the glory and attention that you would get with other sports like football."
