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**”

Janna, Allen and The Green Fairy

La fée verte. The Green Fairy.

A mystique surrounds the drink that earned this moniker: absinthe.

Bohemians. Hemingway. Absinthe houses. Art. Literature. Hallucinations and madness.

I had to try it.

One of the ingredients in absinthe is wormwood (other ingredients include fennel, and the anise which helps to give it a very distinctive scent and taste) which contains compounds (thujones) once thought to produce mind-altering effects- described by some as a “clear-headed drunkenness”. This theory has subsequently been debunked- most of the mind-altering effects of absinthe were actually caused by consuming large quantities of the high-proof alcohol. However, many enthusiasts still ascribe a unique sensory experience to the drink, whether from the ingredients of the wormwood or due to the other herbs in the mixture.

Absinthe was banned in the early 1900s in the United States, due to its purported negative effects. It was finally allowed to be legally produced and imported in 2007, after a very long hiatus, with the restriction that the drink must be thujone-free (damn- I hope that the other stuff in absinthe will do its magic).

The additional history, social effects, and culture surrounding absinthe are fascinating, but too complex to discuss here. However, I will describe my personal experience with the stuff, which is not nearly as complex.

Allen gave me a bottle of Lucid (one of the first absinthes imported into the United States after 2007) for Christmas. It is contained in a beautiful dark bottle with two green cat eyes imprinted on it. Along with the absinthe, there were two traditional absinthe glasses, and a silver absinthe spoon.

We spent months trying to find the perfect time which to drink it. No occasion seemed special enough to celebrate with absinthe. Finally, one night last month, I just opened up the bottle. We celebrated the time-honored absinthe ritual in the kitchen of the house in Waresboro.

This was not exactly what I had envisioned: sipping the drink in some sophisticated setting, and enjoying deep and meaningful conversations as the effects of the absinthe descended upon us. But we don’t seem to have any absinthe houses in our neighborhood. And, anyways, we were feeling adventurous that night.

I managed to clear a spot on the kitchen counter, and placed our two new absinthe glasses down (A little additional trivia: absinthe glasses have a characteristic shape- the bulbous part at the bottom hold the requisite amount of absinthe, while the top part of the glass holds the ice cold water). I found the box of sugar cubes that I had saved for the occasion. A few were missing- the kids apparently like to snack on them. I searched for an appropriately elegant carafe from which to pour the ice water. All I could find was a Mason jar. The prospect of preparing absinthe with a big jelly jar cracked us up, and we had to take a picture (see above).

Having assembled all of the necessary implements, the ritual commenced. I placed the slotted spoon over the glass, set a sugar cube on top, and slowly dripped the ice water from the Mason jar over the sugar cube and into the glass containing the absinthe. It wasn’t perfect, but the liquid turned a cloudy opalescent greenish color- the classic louche , which brings out some of the flavors of the drink that have been overpowered by the anise, and looks really cool.

We approached the mixture with trepidation.

The aroma: definitely a lot of anise, and other aromatic herbs that I couldn’t readily identify.

We raised our glasses and drank. We looked at each other. We took another cautious sip.

I finally spoke up and stated the obvious: the stuff tastes like shit.

This must be the well-kept secret of absinthe drinkers. How were we supposed to get this down? No refined sipping for us. We just shot the stuff in one great big gulp.

We thought that perhaps that we had made an error in preparation on the first go-round, which may have accounted for the foulness of the mixture. So we made another attempt. This time we used more absinthe and less water. I dripped the water more slowly over the sugar cube. The result seemed a bit better this time. This may have been due to the additional sugar cubes that I finally dumped into the glass; it could also be that the effects of high-proof alcohol on two relative teetotalers were beginning to take effect.

Although we began to think that the drink might actually start tasting good after a glass or two (or three or four) more, we elected to retire to the couch to contemplate absinthe’s magical effect on the senses. Instead of “clear-headed drunkenness”, we fell dead asleep on the sofa, the cat dozing between us.

The epilogue to this story is similarly anticlimactic. In order to counteract the “potency” (my nice word for the fact that it tastes like crap) of the absinthe, we used one of the drink recipes supplied with the bottle: the Mint Muse (below). Allen liked this concoction; I was unimpressed.

I am still open to enjoying absinthe, and I am committed to enjoying it in the traditional way, as I am a purist. However, I am thinking about trying the famous “Death in the Afternoon” cocktail (below) - any drink concocted by Ernest Hemingway deserves attention.

So I do hope to receive a visit from The Green Fairy at a later date. I will keep you posted.

__________________________________________________________________



The Mint Muse (From the Lucid website)

1 1/2 oz. LUCID®
• 2 oz. Pineapple juice
• Muddled mint leaves and lime wedge
• Topped with Sprite or 7-Up
• Garnish = mint sprig

Muddle 6-8 mint leaves with the lime wedge along with the LUCID®. Add ice, the 2 oz. of pineapple juice and shake briefly. Top with Sprite or 7-up and add the mint sprig.
This name is a play on "The Green Muse"

Death in the Afternoon (From http://www.blogger.com/www.absintheonline.com)


“A recipe verified in the 1935 humoristic celebrities' cocktail book titled 'So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon' edited by the famous journalist and author Sterling North and Carl Kroch. Hemingway wrote: "This was arrived at by the author and three officers of the H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders' fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale." It seems highly unlikely that Hemingway would have drunk this concoction if given a choice. In most cases the mixture ruins both ingredients, which would have annoyed him. In this case, they most likely took advantage of the mixture to ward off the effects of a bad day in rough water, as champagne was considered a sea-sickness 'cure'. A lighter absinthe is best, such as the Pernot distillery's White Fairy. - 1 jigger of absinthe added to a champagne flute- Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness.”

National Ice Cream Day!

July is National Ice Cream Month, designated by President Reagan in 1984. Sunday (how fitting), July 19th is National Ice Cream Day! A celebration is in order: make mine a hot fudge sundae with lots of hot fudge and whipped cream, a maraschino cherry, and no nuts, thank you.

So, in celebration of this wonderful holiday, a few brief comments on ice cream and some really good recipes for home made ice cream:

According to Wikipedia, frozen treats have been around for centuries. Ice cream, however, seems to have first appeared in the 18th century in England and in the Colonies. Making early ice creams seemed to be a pretty laborious process, due to the complexities of obtaining sufficient ice. Therefore, it was served only on very special occasions. It is believed that Dolly Madison served ice cream at her husband’s inauguration.

Ice cream didn’t take off until the nineteenth century, when improved ice cream making techniques, such as the hand-cranked ice cream freezer, were introduced. Ice cream reached its world-wide popularity with the advent of refrigeration.

Ice cream has played a vital role in the dietary history of my family for decades. My mother has been most central to this history, as a serious ice cream addict. Hot fudge sundaes were allowable meal substitutions in my family. My mother possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the location of every ice cream shop in South Florida, and will frequently substitute a hot fudge sundae for a more traditional meal. I frequented many ice cream parlors in my youth. Each of the stores, of course, had their own unique flavors and presentations, from Jaxson’s Kitchen Sink (dozens of scoops of ice cream with a bunch of toppings and a heap of whipped cream, served in an actual kitchen sink) to Carvel’s flagship dessert, Fudgie the Whale (check him out- he’s a South Florida icon).

My early attempts at home-churned ice cream have been less-than-stellar. The finished product has been a disappointment: slightly watery, grainy, not-so-flavorful. It seemed like a whole lot of work for not much.

In my older age, though, as a brand new retro farm wife, I have decided to give it another go. It seems like the right thing to do at the farmhouse in the summer: churn ice cream. Making ice cream seems to go along with growing a garden, putting up preserves, and raising chickens.

I started all over with a brand-new Rival ice cream maker, purchased at WalMart for about 20 bucks. The first attempt was a test run, using a prepared cherry vanilla mix and whole milk. Much better than I have ever made before, but nothing like I wanted. So I headed back to the cookbooks and the Internet.

Ice cream generally comes in two varieties: Philadelphia-style, which is made from milk and cream and sugar and no eggs, and French or custard style, which contains eggs. I opted to try the latter, as it is supposed to produce a smoother, richer dessert, as the eggs emulsify the mixture and make it very smooth.

I learned a few tips about ice cream making:

- ­ Be careful about the rock salt and ice mixture, as too cold produces a bad result, and too warm won’t freeze right
- Any milk or cream should be heated to just below boiling point, because it produces a smoother product
- Always add salt, to counter the sweetness of the sugar
- Cook the ice cream mixture down for a few hours in the refrigerator before freezing to produce a better ice cream

Success! I churned the ice cream for around forty minutes, and pulled out the dasher (the part of the churn that does the mixing) to reveal a beautiful, smooth, pale yellow concoction. We all fought over licking the beater! I let the ice cream ripen in the freezer for a couple of hours, and we enjoyed the result with waffle cones.

Here’s the recipe that I pulled off www.allrecipes.com for Old Fashioned Vanilla Frozen Custard and used for my masterpiece. I highly recommend it. The booklet that comes with the ice cream freezer has some great recipes, too. I gleaned the ice cream making tips from Cookwise, by Shirley Corriher, which has some great recipes and really good food science information. I love the book.

Note: instead of whipping the cream and adding it to the partially frozen mixture, I just went ahead and added it to the cooked mixture. I froze the mixture in the ice cream churn, of course, not the freezer.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup half-and-half cream
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
In a heavy saucepan, combine first three ingredients. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cool. Pour into chilled ice cube trays without dividers or a shallow pan. Freeze to a mush (do not freeze hard). Whip cream; add vanilla and salt. Fold into partially frozen mixture. Return to trays or pan and freeze.

Have a good holiday, and let me know how your ice cream comes out!

The Meaning of Tri

As far as triathlon goes, I am in what I like to call a “rebuilding year.” I have plantar fasciitis, and my foot needs some serious rebuilding before I can continue comfortably in the sport. My training and racing this year has been minimal.

My love of the sport, and the triathlon lifestyle, remains, even as I sit on the sidelines. Triathlon, for me and for many others, has its own mystique.

Why the mystique? It’s a question that I’ve often considered. What is it about the sport that attracts us? Why do we do it?

The easy answer, of course, is that most of us in triathlon are uncommonly driven, and the extreme endurance needed for the sport provides the challenge that we crave. But there’s more to it. Tennis is challenging; swimming is challenging. But what is it about triathlon, specifically the race itself that catches our attention and imagination so much?

In short, for me, triathlon has been about celebration and commemoration. The extremeness of the sport, besides attracting us Type A’s, leads athletes to ascribe special meaning to the endeavor. We use it to celebrate life and important milestones in our life; we use it to punctuate and commemorate special moments.

This very subject was also of interest to the people at Mindset Triathlon. They sponsored an essay contest on The Meaning of Tri, exploring the topic. The winning essays were posted in an e-book by the same name. Somehow, my take on the topic was selected as the winning entry. It’s also been published on the USA Triathlon website, if you want to take a look.