Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Conquering Demons


About a month ago I wrote a post where I mentioned Julian's attempt at IronKids would have to wait till next year.  The reason?  Back to back swim struggles in races.  Sure, he was swimming fine in lessons but on raceday things were falling apart.  Reason number 2?  IronKids is an open water swim, and Julian's idea of open water includes all kinds of creatures he'd rather avoid.  A solution was needed and we turned the same place any triathlete would turn in this situation ...... a coach.  Since then Julian has been making great progress with Coach Sean.  They swim each weekend in the lake just a couple miles from our house.  This is a big stepping stone on the road to Julian's big "life goal" ..... to compete in Kona.

Julian gets some instructions as Coach takes the buoy out.


One of the things they worked on in a recent session was the beach entry and exit.  In these photos you can see Coach Sean talking about when to begin swimming and Julian's first attempts.  He did quite well!



By the time IronKids rolls around again next year, he'll be ready to crush the course.  It's gonna be a lot of fun when that happens!

7 comments:

KovasP said...

OWS is tough for everyone!

Jon said...

Your son is so fortunate to be starting out now. He is gonna be a rockstar when he gets older!

Ransick said...

Your son is starting early and looking good. Like Jon said, he's gonna be a rockstar! Luckily, he's not in my age group :-)

Patrick Mahoney said...

How old is your son? He's looking great, we are still working on getting our son (5) to put his face in the water. Really impressive stuff, let him no to keep on keeping on.

Tri4Success said...

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Patrick, Julian is 9yrs old. He always had the face in water issue too but has really made great strides this year. My youngest, Connor, is 4 and he's a natural. Just wait till I post some video of him.

Unknown said...

Open water swimming is just so different from the pool and it just takes time to get comfortable with it. I think he's doing great, starting small. He's going to rock Ironkids... whenever he's ready for it!

Anonymous said...

No freakin' way Auntie is heading out with you on this one. No way! Tell me when Ironkids is so I can put it on the schedule.