Kid tri training guide/plan (Meek & mighty)

I've looked around before and never found anything. If you find something pass it along, please. It is exciting to have your son want to do a tri. I worry about them doing to much or pushing themselves to much. I like that many kid tris have increasing distances as you get older so the oldest kids are doing 50-70% of a regular sprint but usually lighter on the run.

For my daughters just turned 11 and 9, we worked around their soccer and track/cross country schedule which gave us 3 days a week to do stuff.

My oldest daughter took training very seriously. She did a duathlon last Sunday. We found a course in our neighborhood that was the same distance and she practiced 2-3 times a week..she'd run, bike, run. It helped her learn how to pace herself and she took the hilly route which helped her biking. She won her AG by about 15% less time than #2. Most kids don't really train.

For tris, I'd take the girls outside, make them get their feet wet and run around a tree 10 times, then practice transtioning to the bike, then after biking onto the run. It helped them do better in transtions. Many kids really lollygag along in transtions. We'd go to the pool at family swim time, I'd do laps, the girls would play and once or twice during the time, they come do laps. Your son sounds like he is way far ahead of my girls in swimming sills.

I found from doing 2 kids tris and a duathlon, many kids need more help at pacing themselves and also with transtions.

Emily our oldest wants to do a sprint tri with me next year. She is over 5' and should be able to do it. I asked my coach about tri'ing for her and he just said she needs to build up her run distance 3-4 weeks before the event. I am trying to get her to do a long run each week but she resists the idea, so I drop it. But when she brings up training and what she should do I suggest it again. She also thinks riding her bike 10-15 miles is daunting. She is amazing and flies up the hills and really doesn't know what  all she can do. I often ride with her about 20' or 5 miles at the start of my bike rides and use it as a warm up and then drop her off at home and go. I would go with her on her run-bike-runs, but would ride the whole time since she runs much faster than I do. I like doing some of my training with my kids...you may try that.

We are thinking of making up a calendar for them so they have a trainning plan like I do.

My 10 year old did 2 kid's tris last year.  Basically I just tried to encourage her to swim, bike or run most days.   A lot of times I would take my cel phone with me when I biked or ran, and I'd give her a call when I was 5 minutes away from home, then her workout was my cooldown.  Closer to race date we did a practice tri on the actual course, altho it was shorter than her race. We did a couple of very short bricks too. 

She's not very athletically inclined so my goal was to keep it fun and low pressure, just to get her active.  She had a lot of fun and is already talking about next season!  Which means I have ANOTHER bike to buy