Our kindergartener participated in her very first duathlon at school this week. After a quick warm up to dance music, the girls from all four kindergarten classes ran to their bikes. In the first part of the duathlon, they rode their bicycles around the block. After disembarking, they ran around the school's soccer field and finished to applause, and snacks. There were nearly as many volunteers as there were children participating. The girls were followed by the boys, all the way up to grade three.
The vast majority of kindergarteners still had training wheels on their bikes. We had removed ours last fall, and had practiced many times. As of last week, our daughter could ride over 1km on her on, and start, but not stop. So I asked the organizer for special permission to leave my volunteer post to run along while my daughter rode, just in case she ran into difficulty.
What I had not anticipated was that with Papa away at a work-related conference in the United States, our daughter would refuse to bike with me as her helper. In fact, she screamed, cried, and had me hold her handlebars the entire route. After a painful lap around the block, she disembarked, ran speedily, and surprisingly did not finish the race last. She was very proud of the participation ribbon the received at the end.
When discussing her behaviour later on in the day, she claimed that I was not "very good" at helping her with her bicycle, not "like Papa"...And sure enough, the day after the duathlon, with her father by her side, she was riding without a care in the world!
Thankfully, we have another year to get her accustomed to riding alone alongside someone other than her father...
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| Bike drop-off |
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| The warm-up |
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| Nearing the finish line |
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| The finish line |
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| A cool snack |
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| The day after the duathlon! |
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