About

Parenthlete : You are a challenge driven, adventure seeker, proactive in fitness and healthy living, but most importantly… you are a Parent.

Co-written by husband and wife duo, Parenthlete is a how-to live an active family lifestyle for a healthy tomorrow. Parents  are a childs first role model from before they are even born. An active, adventurous lifestyle does not end at parenthood, it’s the beginning! Health is the best gift you can give yourself and your family.

A note to all the moms, and moms to be…

Standing first in line of my wave of women getting ready to start our swim portion of the triathlon (my first one by the way), I suddenly heard a girl next to me yell out “Go MOM!!”. Her mom was actually in the water getting ready to start her swim. I thought to myself, “how awesome, I cant wait for the day when Issy and I are doing a race together”. I believe that the best role model your child has is you, the parent.   Late last year, my husband and I decided to take a giant leap and do the Nautica NYC triathlon which was on August 7, 2011. I have to admit, it’s been one of the best choices we have made. We train together like a team and along the way we have learned a lot about each other.  Our strengths,our weaknesses…and above all how to trust and support each other.  Triathlons once seemed to the both of us like an extreme sport for people with a lot of extra time, but i’ve realized that with the right planning  its a perfect healthy lifestyle activity for families. Through this blog, we will share our parenthlete lifestyle, juggling work and our start up, training, healthy home cooking, and best of all…spending time with our family. Of-course, things don’t always run smoothly, but we try our best and thats what matters.

and one for the Dads and Dads-to be…

“The time I kill is killing me” – Mason Cooley

I’m the dad element of what is in many ways a fairly typical family. We live in New York, I am from London originally, my wife is from the west coast. Typical in certain high level aspects – I have a busy job, we have a new family just beginning, we like to be active and enjoy ourselves rather then becoming hostage to the rat race.  Through life I have noticed that time is a commodity that becomes more and more valuable as you move from childhood to parenthood. At school you are somewhat in control of your time At college money maybe scare, but never will you have as much control on your time. Working life, particularly going down the corporate route puts a lot of structure on your days. A girlfriend adds move, and those who are married might say this again adds a layer. If you decide to get a pet, maybe a small dog that your wife thought looked kinda cute…well you see where this is going. Add children and its game over, forget about having any time of your own, and if you did well heading down the gym is the last thing on your mind.

Well, that is where we were. We both used to be active,  and then found ourselves in the above situation and decided to be proactive about it. I’ve seen in corporate life what can happen if you do not take charge. What did we do? Well, that is the purpose of the blog.

My wife and I raced the New York Triathlon together this year, we signed up for this as our first Tri and each completed a sprint distance one in june as part of our training. My wife as a way to get back in shape after having a baby apr 2010!  This was a major undertaking for us, not just as it was our first triathlon, but also, we were finding it hard to work out, let alone step up to a challenge like this. Well, we realized that we had got to the point where we were in life by embracing challenge. So finding a the right challenge was key to kickstart things. It had to be interesting, fun, difficult and important to us. Racing a triathlon, while raising money for American Cancer seemed like the perfect choice.

I am tremendously happy with how in went i all ways, not only did we finish we finished respectably and made great gains in personal satisfaction, but also how it just fit in with everything else that we were doing, and added to out lives. This is not a blog about doing triathlons, that is an example how this event fits into being Parenthletes. We want this to be a place to read about how we have chosen to do this, and provide a forum for others in a similar mindset to share ideas, products, events and more which they find useful.

Don’t waste your time, but view it as a precious commodity and invest in in, your future and your families future. How you spend time wit your kids we believe will influence how they in turn spend the rest of theirs.

“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” – Theophrastus