Where there's smoke....

What a week! What a weekend!

This past week I spent three hours each morning entertaining my three year old as my children were learning to swim. There are few non-negotiables in my house. Learning to swim is one of said items. My three oldest children have been involved in swim lessons since they were three years old. (I never did the mommy and me program. I don’t need that kind of bonding with my kids)

Each summer our swim program does a two week intensive swim camp. The first couple years we participated it was not so bad. Those would be the years that Captain Destruction did not know how to move on his own. After he started terrorizing – oops I mean moving on his own, swim camp/lesson has turned into my own little personal ….

Well, there are so many things and places he can hurt himself, it is an aerobic workout every time we are there. There are bleachers he can roll down. There are concrete stairs he can roll down. There are construction barriers that he can break down. Vending machines he can vandalize. Bathrooms he can flood. Potential hazards are everywhere. I guess it is unreasonable to expect the university where swim lessons are held to Captain-proof their facility, but after Thursday maybe they will start.

On Thursday, Captain Destruction did the naughtiest of naughties and I really am not exaggerating. If there were a hierarchy of naughty things you are able to do, what he did would be on the top.

I know what you are thinking, he’s only three what deviousness is he capable of? Well, you need to remember this incident. And then there was the time when he called 911 at the tender age of 18 mos. Oh, and remember when he did this?

I would rather have a repeat of all of those incidents over and over like the movie “Groundhog Day” if it would erase the events of Thursday.

Thursday, is the day Captain Destruction pulled the fire alarm…. Emptying the pool of the swimmers, parents, and instructors (about 100 people in all)… emptying the building of all of the college faculty and staff…bringing the bicycle campus police to the building in record speed.

Now, if it were not embarrassing enough that it was my child that caused this chaos, he pulled the alarm during the girls’ swim lessons, which are first, which left me sitting with a restrained Captain on my lap for an hour and 10 minutes after the time he pulled the alarm, listening to parents and swimmers and swimmer siblings all trying to deduce who was capable of such deviousness.

Who knew the emotional torture for me was just beginning?

This weekend I swam for my friend in the Trek triathlon. In previous years, this past weekend was always the Danskin triathlon. The Trek weekend procedures mirrored Danskin’s. Saturday was packet pick-up and bike racking. Sunday morning was the race. Because the relay was not my A race (that is in 6 days YIKES!), I needed to train. I had a three hour ride on tap so I drove to the packet pickup area with my bike and decided to start my ride there so I could meet my friend when packet pickup opened.

I started out by riding the bike route for the next day’s race. I have done the race several times when it was the Danskin and liked the bike course. About 25 minutes into my ride, my bike felt a little squirrely. I stopped and looked at the back tire (the one that always flats on my rides) and was surprised to see that it was still inflated. I started off again only to feel less in control of the bike and then spotted the problem. It was indeed a flat, but it was the front tire.

Now, I know how to change a tire. I have had to do it enough as I seem to flat all the time. Just because you do something all the time, it does not mean that you are good at it or quick about it (like swimming, biking, and running for instance). It took me F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to get the tube out of the tire. So long in fact that a man who lived in a house near where I decided to change my flat came out to make sure I was okay.

Yup. I was that slow.

Anyway, I did get it changed (without help thankyouverymuch) and 30 minutes later I was on my way. (Yes I said three-oh minutes). I rode just a little faster once I got going to let off some pent up steam.

My delay caused me to arrive back at packet pick up 5 minutes late and the lines were already out of hand – 5 minutes after the doors opened. I guess everybody had the same idea of ‘in-out-no one gets hurt”.

We wait in line after line and finally after a 30+ minute wait we were at the t-shirt table. At first, the kind volunteer did not want to give me a shirt. My friend showed her the slip of paper that said we were entitled to as many goodies as relay participants, but that wasn’t good enough. The volunteer had to ask her station supervisor. Finally, I was given permission to get a shirt and I was told that only size large on up were left and I am certainly not a large. I thought “How could this be? I know my friend asked my shirt size and checked the appropriate box upon registering. How can they not have my size when we arrived to the table less than one hour from the opening of packet pick up?” A little miffed, I took the large and decided that I could use it for biking and perhaps for sleeping and I guess that was okay.

Next, I decided that I would take a quick look at Trek triathlon bikes while my friend looked at the other merchant booths in the area. I wanted to size up a WSD to see if it would really be a better fit and more comfortable to ride. Lately, I have found after a 4 hour ride, I do not really like my bike so much. As I wandered into the booth, I expected it to be like a used car lot – you know vultures circling and a lot of talking about what it would take to get me to buy today.

I was wrong.

I asked a question about sizing hoping it would begin a dialog. I received a one word answer and the big brush off. Apparently, Trek is not hurting too much in this economy. (More miffed)

We leave the vendor area and go to rack my friend’s bike. She had brought her daughter with her for the festivities as she is participating in a kid’s triathlon in mid-August. My friend thought it would be a good lesson on how to rack and talk about racking location, finding your path to all of the entrances and exits, setting up a transition area – kind of a dress rehearsal for her real thing. As we are about to enter the bike racking area, we were told that children were not allowed in transition. NO EXCEPTIONS. So, I sat outside of the area with her daughter as my friend racked her bike. Now, this situation was not so bad as I could go in as soon as my friend came out, but a situation with children that was much worse occurred while I was awaiting my friend’s return.

Another athlete came to rack her bike and she had all four of her children with her as her husband worked on Saturdays. The children ranged from 8 to about 3. The older three children followed directions and waited along the transitions fence. The three year old started to wail, so the mom/athlete began to carry him in and she was told that the sobbing three year old could not be carried into the transition area that he needed to wait outside.

This broke my heart and made smoke come out of my ears simultaneously. Logically, I understand that the volunteers were enforcing the rules which were created to keep all of the athletes’ belongings, particularly their bikes, safe. I also know that these women only triathlon series were created to remove some of the roadblocks to women participating in competitive sports. If an athlete is not able to get childcare for the day before the event and must bring her children with her, not allowing children in the transition area, especially small children, is roadblock. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people milling about. The volunteers enforcing this rule indirectly states, “Your children’s safety is worth less than the bikes that are housed in this transition area.”

Additionally, I feel that children of women who train for these events have developed, or are developing a respect for the equipment. My children have learned at an early age that you do not touch Mommy’s bike. They also know that the “no touch” rule is doubly enforced with other people’s bikes.

If they were going to enforce the “No children in transition rule”, they owed it to the participants in this event to post the policy in the athlete instructions so no one would be caught off guard like my friend and this other athlete. We were there at 10, how many other moms did this happen to during the packet pickup/racking time which ended at 3:00?

Shockingly, race day came and went with out much incident. I felt that the swim course was not marked well as it was very difficult to sight. My friend improved on her bike time and run time from the previous year. It didn’t rain. It wasn’t burn your brains out hot and we all had a great time. It was rather anticlimactic considering my rage from the day before and my agony from the week.

I am hoping that all my difficulties from this past week and weekend equal nothing frustrating or debilitating for my race to come!