Click on the image to see a closeup.

pre_run

A Podium Finish!

On September 16th, Ella competed in the Oswegoland Have Fun? You Won! Triathlon. Each leg of the race was separately timed. Ella's only in second grade, but she raced with the third graders, as they were the youngest group. Many of the kids had never done anything like this, and other than a few kids that were clearly on swim teams, the swim proved to be the biggest challenge. Most kids rested between laps, and quite a few had "angels" to swim alongside them for their last lap or two. A couple even pulled themselves along using the wall or lane lines.

There were seven girls in her division, and starting off the swim, it was clear that she and another girl (Julia) were swim teamers. Julia finished about half a lap ahead of Ella, and the two of them were the only ones who completed the swim without resting between laps. As Ella would say, "4 laps? Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy" (or "ain't no thing but a chicken wing").

We had plenty of time before the bike, and in talking about it, Ella wanted to keep it in the big ring. We put her in a decent starting gear, and talked about when to shift and why. It turned out to be a bit steep, as she ended up standing the whole time we could see her! She didn't seem to be in any trauma, and we tried to yell to her a couple times to sit down and shift to a spinnier gear, but we seemed to be bugging her, so we let it drop. There was a solid headwind in the finishing straight, but she nonetheless kept standing and hammering. She was briefly dropped by a girl named Evan, who was about a head taller and had a big-wheeled bike with gears, giving her a bit of an advantage. However, Ella pulled her back and finished second, again to Julia. Julia had a very uncommon, but cool bike that coincidentally, I've seen at the velodrome and the Chicago Triathlon, a skinny, light, racing BMX bike: the Redline Proline Junior 24 that was obviously well suited to the event.

The photo above was right before the run, and she seemed to be quite happy. She and Julia were chatting it up before the starting gun. It's worth mentioning that the two of them were the tiniest ones in the group, and when the run started, it was clear that long legs were something of an advantage. Julia fell back to last place, with Ella just ahead of her. We could see Ella check out Julia's position, and we were convinced they were just jogging along and chatting at one point, but Ella says they were just running together. Julia's 3 siblings (who incidentally all medaled, one's in the background in the photo above) took up in the infield, running alongside and cheering for both of them. Ella finally opened a lead on her and even moved up two spots, but one girl was resting up and blasted past in the final turn. Ella was closing in on Evan, who was clearly in a world of hurt, when Ella pulled into the finish at 5th.

Waiting around for the awards, we weren't really sure which way it would go, since some of the runners finished well ahead and could have made up some time. However, Ella sat up front and waited patiently for her medal, since she was pretty convinced that she would take second place...and she did! Julia, Ella, and Evan took home the top three spots! We celebrated with Italian food and ice cream.

Race splits

Distances: 100M swim, 3 mile bike, 1/2 mile run

Overall Rank (F 3rd Grade)	Swim	Swim Rank	Bike	Bike Rank	Run 2	Run 2 Rank	Total
2/7	02:30.13	2/7	14:50.67	2/7	04:16.80	5/7	21:37.60