McDonald's Kids Triathlon

Yesterday was the day Alex had trained for all summer... the McDonald's Kids Triathlon! He was so excited! Jeff and Alex got up early and left the house around 6 am in order to get Alex set up in the transition area. Clara and I slept in a bit and joined them on the beach around 8:30. The race was supposed to start at 9:00am but the adult super sprint took place on the same course before the kids' race and it ran behind (it ended up starting about an hour late).

Here's the scene on the beach...
An excited boy with a cheesy grin...
With all of the extra time, Alex decided to test out the water...
He said it was cold but warmer than it had been earlier in the week at practice...
I blew out the sky in this photo... but I liked it anyway...
The swim course...

And they're OFF.....
(Alex is on the far left in this photo... look for the lifeguard on the left in the black wetsuit and then look for the boy in black closest to me - clicking on the photo will make it bigger)

I really tried to take swim photos, but... it was so hard to track them with the mass of boys and the waves. I did take a few but found out later that I was tracking the wrong boy with a black shirt on... oh well! :-)

Here's Alex coming out of the swim...
(he's the one right directly in front of the orange thing)

This time I didn't want to run around like a maniac so I didn't even try to get bike photos (although I found out later that given the layout of the course, it would have been totally doable... I know that now for next year).

So, I caught up with him again on the run portion...
Here I thought he was smiling and giving the thumbs up to Jeff and Clara...
Later, when he saw that photo, he said, "oh, you took that photo too?"... apparently his coach was near us taking photos too and the smile and thumbs up were for him :-)

With the layout of this course I was able to make it to the finish in plenty of time to see Alex come through.....

I was soooo proud of him!!!! He not only finished... but he finished with a smile! One thing I was really impressed with considering the size of this event.... they announced each child by name as they crossed the finish line!! How incredibly special is that?

Alex couldn't stop smiling after he finished....

He really enjoyed himself and was so proud of himself for not walking at all during the run this time.
Stats:

100m swim - 6:12
4k bike - 10:47
1k run - 7:17
total - 24:17

He took about 3 minutes off of his time from his last tri. It's hard to compare the times of the individual pieces of the races as this tri did not separate transition times as a separate categories from the actual swim, bike, run times. However, it does look like he made the biggest difference in his bike time.

So, here are the final bit of stats...
All 7-10 year old participants - 154/434
All 7-10 year old boys - 90/213
His division 9-10 yo boys - 76/137

He LOVED being part of the tri club this summer and definitely wants to do it again next year (Clara thinks she's going to do it too). He's a bit sad to see the season end but is looking forward to a few 5k's to get him through the fall! :-)