Do the Du Duathlon

Ashley did it! She completed her first Duathlon. There was no timing for this event, which I think is fine since it's kids. There were probably only about 30-35 kids running the short course of this event with Ashley. They ran .5 miles on a paved path around some baseball fields, then a 2 mile bike in a neighborhood, and then back on the paved path for .5 miles more. Here is Ashley at the start (in the bright pink shirt, glad she wore that so I could see her from far away):

And here she is coming into transition to pick up her bike. She ran the entire .5 miles, and I think she was excited to get on the bike.

And here she is in the transition area....first rule - get your helmet on! Then they had to walk their bikes out of transition, which is hard for kids. They just want to get on and ride.

Here she is coming at the end of the first lap of the 2 miles on her bike. The guy in the yellow shirt is her escort. I was worried about her as the neighborhood she had to ride through had a ton of parked cars on the side of the streets, some hills, and she just didn't know the area. I was not the only psycho parent requesting an escort for their kid. It kind of sucked though, because the last part of the loop was uphill and in the middle of that, the kids had to stop and get marked saying what lap they were on. This meant they lost momentum.

And here she is crossing the finish. They had a "tape" for the all the kids to run through which was cute. Her friend Alyssa is right behind her. Funny story though, as they were both taking forever on that last run part. Alyssa's Mom ran to see if they were okay as Alyssa had pneumonia earlier in the week and Ashley was having allergy issues and a sinus infection. Of course they were fine, they had just stopped to pick dandelions. Yes, you read that right. They finally got running again when Alyssa's Mom reminded them they were in a race. Oh, and Alyssa's Mom is the one I ran the half with a few weeks ago, so that was kind of cute.
And here the two of them are at the finish. Yes, they are the same age. Ashley is not an amazon, she is just a little tall for her age, and Alyssa is a little short for her age.

Surprisingly, Ashley did not crash after this. In fact, the race was held at a park, and we spent another hour playing there and then Audrey had a birthday party to attend at a park later that afternoon where the two of them played for another 2 hours. I asked Ashley if she was sore this morning, and she said only a little. Now she wants to do a triathlon....