Your Kid's First Tri: Do's and Don'ts

Ben did his first triathlon this weekend: 75 yards in the Y pool, four laps around the ¼ mile track on his bike, and then 2 more laps running. He rocked. He was proud of himself. He got a medal, as did all of the other kids who finished the race.

After the race, he ate lots of bananas and claimed to be too tired to do anything other than watch TV the rest of the day.

The New York Times website ran an article today on kids’ triathlons, examining their increasing popularity and their associated risks (discussing their benefits: not so much).

Judy Berman, a contributor to Salon.com’s “Broadsheet”, commented on the Times’ article in today’s blog. One of the gems in the commentary was the following:

“…There is something distinctly disturbing about inducting preschool-aged children into a sport that, according to the Times, saw 14 deaths in official USA Triathlon-sponsored events between January 2006 and September 2008.”

I will discuss this assertion, as well as others contained within the articles, in a subsequent post, after I have finished gluing my head back on, because it’s about to blow off the rest of my body.

As pissed off as I am about the misinformation and erroneous conclusions contained within these articles, I do have to agree with some of the observations about The Triathlon Parent . These are triathlon’s equivalent of The Stage Parent. These are the parents that ruin it for the rest of us, and give our sport its sometimes bad rep.

From the Times:

“Robert Jones, race director of the Silicon Valley event, got an e-mail message two years ago from the mother of an 18-month-old, asking if her child could take part in the triathlon. He refused..”

I have witnessed years of egregious behavior from parents at kids’ triathlon. Sadly, I have committed a sin or two myself before I saw the light.

So, Multisport Parents: for the benefit of your little newbie triathletes, and to preserve the reputation of the sport in general, I present to you a list of the Do’s and Don’ts for your kid’s triathlon. I shouldn’t have to be telling you this stuff, but I understand that we just can’t help ourselves sometimes, and that we have to be reminded that we are behaving like idiot poser loser parents who are living their unfulfilled lives through their children.


Don’t show up with the tri bike tricked out with aerobars, a disc wheel and a set of Speedplays.

Do bring the bike with the streamers and the playing cards in the wheels.

Don’t call out split times, how many minutes he’s behind the leader in the 8-10 year old division, or how far he’s behind his brother.

Do leave your watch in the car.

Don’t unrack his bike, re-rack his bike, or tie his shoes—stay the hell out of transition altogether.

Do let him do it himself, even if transition takes twenty minutes and he leaves with his helmet and shirt both on backwards.

Don’t run with him, because you don’t think that he can do it alone. Trust me. He can. He should.

Do jump up and down, cheer, holler, take pictures, hold signs and wave pom poms-- by the side of the road.

Don’t critique his performance. No tips on how to improve his swim technique, transition time or run split. Period.

Do make sure he wears his medal to school on Monday. And try not to wash off the body marking, when you wash off the dirt.

Don’t immediately start him on a training program for a sprint triathlon. Kids’ triathlons exist for a reason. It’s because they are too young to do adult triathlons, and kids shouldn’t be “in training” for shit.

Do make sure he chills out and has fun. Triathlon is a big accomplishment, sure, but it’s also supposed to be fun- yes? It’s why you do it- I hope? You’re encouraging your kids to tri to get them off the couch and moving and running around with their friends and fostering a life long love of the outdoors and health and fitness- right?

I hope that you are nodding your head in agreement-- you agree that triathlon should be fun. If you, however, feel that your kid should learn that triathlon is a metaphor for life and is an exercise in discipline and the pathway to a glorious athletic future—kiss my ass, you idiot poser loser parent.

And a message to your kids from me: get out there, have a blast, get sweaty, get dirty, get a medal, and stick all of the leftover bananas at the refreshment table in your pants for later.

Snakes Alive!

Six compelling reasons to mow the yard here in Waresboro:

1. Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake
2. Pygmy Rattlesnake
3. Canebrake Rattlesnake
4. Copperhead
5. Water Moccasin
6. Coral Snake

These, of course, are the six venomous snakes found in Georgia.

It is venomous, not poisonous, by the way—venomous critters inject venom; poisonous critters harm you when touched or ingested. I have a favorite rest stop in Interstate 95 in Florida, around St. Augustine (work with me, here). There’s a huge chain link fence around a little pond, and a big sign that says “Beware of Poisonous Snakes.” I guess Floridians don’t know the difference. And they obviously didn’t consult my favorite Park Naturalist, my stepdaughter Jenni Smith, who has educated me about venomous snakes.

I’ve gotten to the point where I can admire and appreciate the little bastards, but, still: NIMBY. Not in my back yard, baby. You can demonstrate your beautiful markings and show off your gargantuan dimensions, but do it when I am zipping by you on a bicycle, please.

I have been surfing the University of Georgia website tonight, hoping, please, please, please- don’t let that be a Water Moccasin that I almost stepped on when I went out to feed the chickens this evening. Please let it be something fat and brown and non-venomous. Like a Brown Water Snake. I think that I’ve convinced myself that it is a Brown Water Snake.

I would have taken a picture to share, however:

1. I am sane.
2. I was too busy being horrified, screaming and fleeing for my life, to get my camera out.

Allen, however, shares neither of these traits. This is why we have some spectacular pictures of the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake that came to visit when Libby was mowing the lawn last month.

When we returned from vacation, our lawn was way overgrown. The snake was happily slinking through the deep grass and minding its own business, more or less, when Libby happened upon it with the John Deere.

Libby did not scream in mortal terror, and only sounded mostly alarmed when she hollered for Allen to “Come here!”

“Are you bleeding?” I called, even though it really didn’t sound like the cries of a bleeding child. But I had to check, because she faints at the sight of blood.

“There’s a rattlesnake!”

This got my full attention. It was time to go help save Libby. This is what we moms do, even moms who are terrified of snakes, when their child is threatened by a rattlesnake. We would stomp on its head with our bare feet if we had to.

I was not sure what to expect when I got to the side yard. Libby had made herself as small as humanly possible on the seat of the lawn mower, feet curled under her. She pointed over to the unmowed lawn. “There! Can you see him?”

“No….”

Yes.

“Holy sh**!!” (I really need to stop swearing around my children).

I saw him, all right. At first, only his tail with the rattles was apparent, and then he slowly slithered into sight. I don’t think that a snake that size can move other than slowly. He was heading back towards the woods, and wanted no part of us. He tried to look as unobtrusive as a three-foot Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake could, as he slithered back over the lawn. “Just act natural,” I could hear him think to himself.

So we got Allen. And we got Libby off the seat of the lawn mower. And then we got Ben. And then we got the camera. And then Allen got the camera. And then Janna started screaming at Allen: “What are you, an idiot? Get away from that thing! What are you doing so f***king close to the thing? It’s going to bite you! I am going to be a widow! No! I do NOT want a close up picture with the macro lens!!”

Ok. I was over-reacting a bit. He meant us no harm. After watching him for a while, I think that we all realized how magnificent he was. Ophiophobe (that’s a person who is severely freaked out by snakes) that I am, I nevertheless didn’t want to see it killed. However, there was no denying that he could be big trouble for a lot of creatures on our farm. We were torn.

So we feigned trying to dispatch it: we went into the house to get the shotgun, but-wouldn’t you know it - the trigger lock was on, and we weren’t sure where the key was, or whether we had the right shells….

And-- wouldn’t you know it—when we got outside, he was long gone, back into the pine woods. I’m sure that he’ll stay there, as long as the lawn stays short.

The lawn is a little shaggy again, which explains the Better-Not-Be-A-Cottonmouth that I saw slithering into the grape arbor this evening. Thank goodness Libby will still mow the lawn; however, she demands that Allen perform a “snake check” of the perimeter before she heads out there. Venomous creatures have not dissuaded her from her most lucrative money-making operation—she is a teenager, after all.

I have my white lab coat on today. It's long- down past my knees- and has long sleeves that I roll up to keep them out of my way. Hospital logo on the right side, my name and my specialty over the left breast pocket.

These days, it's uncommon for me to be wearing my lab coat- it's pretty laid-back here in the department. I've never ever seen the other pathologists in one. I usually wear mine only when I'm cold.

But I love my white coat. It feels like home when I wear it.

I remember the first time I put on a white coat-- early into my 1st year of medical school. I walked across the breezeway at Jackson, and noticed that people acted differently to me when I wore it. I felt set-apart, somehow. It was a strange feeling.

I went through a second-year rebellion against my white coat. It seemed much more sexy to see patients in my street clothes, with a stethoscope draped around my neck. Besides feeling like a big shot, I could see the point in that attire-- less stressful for the patients. No "white coat hypertension."

However, the white coat became an essential tool in the latter years of medical school- the 3rd and 4th year clinical rotations. It was a long white briefcase/filing cabinet. A friend weighed himself one day on the wards and discovered that he was 10 pounds lighter without his coat on.

At any given time, a medical student or resident's lab coat would contain the following:

- The requisite stethoscope, draped around the neck or coiled up in a deep pocket.
- A flashlight. Hopefully. This was often essential, but most of us either had lost it or it ran out of batteries.
-A wide variety of pens-mostly from drug reps- the Viagra pen was the most sought after...-Sharpies, highlighters, pencils, rulers
-Various and sundry plastic calculators- also from drug reps- to calculate everything from due dates to visual acuity.
-Test tubes, extra syringes, needles, IV lines, gauze, suture kits, band-aids
-Paper, paper and more paper--lab results, lists of patients and their vital signs, notes scribbled on napkins, spare order forms, lecture notes, to-do lists. Paper bulging out of every available orifice in the lab coat.
-Hand sanitizer
-Pocket versions of the most essential medical texts, for reference: The Washington Manual, Merck, Pocket Cecil's, Pocket Robbins (for us pathologists).
-Money (hopefully), IDs, cafeteria vouchers, pictures of the kids that we saw infrequently during those years.
-Pagers. We might have two or three at any given time. Numeric pagers, voice pagers, walkie-talkies.

Obviously, the more pockets your white coat had, the better off you were.

In some medical school traditions, the length of your lab coat corresponded to your status. A short white coat as a medical student and intern, and the full-length coat reserved for the upper level residents and attendings.

I am wearing the full-length version, and have been for 10 years now. Hard to believe it's been 10 years since someone called 'Doctor!'--- and I realized they were talking to me.

How Things Work in My New Hometown

After work, we had to head over to a family event (a viewing, sorry to say) where we met five church members, two of Allen’s co-workers, and about fifty family members. I subsequently learned that Allen is related to basically the same families on both sides, via a family tree that looks somewhat like the wisteria that winds through the trees in the yard. This one had a sister who married the brother of the aunt on her paternal side, who was married to someone else on her maternal side, and his cousin is also his nephew…. My head spins considering this. I am going to draw myself a diagram for further reference.

After the viewing, we head over to a local restaurant, where we see our auto mechanic (who is now basically a family member since we see him more than we see our own family, thanks to the Corvette) and his wife eating dinner. We sit next to a large table of high school students, two of which are in Allen’s class. Our waitress graduated from another high school, but her boyfriend is the stepbrother- well, not exactly the brother, but a friend of the family who lives with them who basically is a family member- of a kid in Allen’s class, who, incidentally, told Allen that he “talked like a girl” (to which Allen replied: “You look like a girl.”). Now the boyfriend of our waitress also had Allen as a teacher (and said very nice things about him and his class). And our waitress is also the babysitter of one of the doctors who works with me in the hospital. And, no, he doesn’t own the late-model Corvette in the doctor’s parking lot, as I had speculated.

Anyways, the owner of the red Corvette is still a mystery, though I expect to meet the sister of the wife of the husband who works in the Emergency Room who heard from a nurse that the doctor who drives that car is….. my husband’s cousin.

Editorial Comment:
On a serious note, I’m sick of hearing about how stifling small-town life is. As humorous as I found the incident above, I see it in a different light after I read about the gunman in Pennsylvania who, according to reports, blew away half of a Latin Cardio class at his gym because he was bitter and angry that he was rejected by women his whole life. We can never say that “it can’t happen here.” But I suspect that he wouldn’t have been so anonymous and marginalized here in Wayx. Instead of a lone blogger, broadcasting his hatred of women and his detailed plan for revenge into the black hole of cyberspace, he’d be “so and so’s weirdo cousin that we had to call the law on back in July because he was talking crazy sh**”