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MOCKINGBIRD SWIM IS ALSO THERE IN HILLSIDE VILLAGE. IS THAT WHERE YOU WILL DO THE SWIM TRAINING?

No. We will have our own pool, which will be more like a treadmill pool. It’s called anEndless Pool. But we send our son to Mockingbird Swim. I’m working on a deal with them where kids could be dropped off at the pool, and parents could come to the center. Then people won’t have an excuse not to work out.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVESOMEONE WHO WANTED TO ATTEMPT A TRIATHLON FOR THE FIRST TIME?

I would tell them to buy a used road bike, in the range of $400-$800. That way, you don’t spend a lot of money. Road bikes are more comfortable than tri bikes in the beginning. And then I would take it to a reputable bike shop and get a bike fit. That’s more important than the bike itself for preventing injuries. Then I would recommend going to a running store like RunOn or Luke’s Locker. A lot of injuries that we find are because people don’t have the right shoes. And then invest a little bit of money in a session with a coach to get the basics of the swim, bike and run technique.

IS IT TRUE THAT MOST TRIATHLETES COME FROM A SWIMMING BACKGROUND?

Most professional triathletes start from a swimming or running background. But amateurs typically come from two sources: Either they have a running background and they’ve had an injury and they’re trying to cross train, or they’re people who want to lose weight. There are a lot of professional coaches who are recommending triathletes to pro and college athletes in the offseason because it’s a good way to maintain fitness.

I ASKED BECAUSE THE SWIMMING PART SEEMS A LITTLE INTIMIDATING.

We have gotten so many clients that didn’t know how to swim at all. They couldn’t swim 10-15 yards. And one of them just finished his first Ironman last month. He finished 2.4 miles swimming. Another, I was able to get him in three weeks to do a half Ironman. We get a lot of people who come to us for the swimming, and then they find that we have a lot of other services that are good. —RACHEL

let’s do lunchboxes

The teacher sent a note home from preschool: Please don’t send big sandwiches in your kids’ lunches. Send a variety of foods in small portions, and please don’t use those nonrecyclable plastic baggies. Ashley Leake and Misty Quinn, whose little ones were classmates, took the request to heart. So they set out to find proper containers for their kids’ lunches. But they never could find just the right thing. That’s when they got the idea for their business, My Square Meal, which produces compartmented lunch boxes based on the Japanese bento box. The lunchboxes come with cute carrying cases, which are sewn in Dallas and embroidered at Keep U N Stitches on Buckner. They cost about $35-$40, and each one comes with a list of lunch ideas. “What we encourage parents to do is go through these lunch ideas with their children and let their children take part in deciding what they eat for lunch,” says Leake, who lives in Lakewood. That helps them learn about portion control and making healthy choices. Plus, kids are more likely to eat a lunch they picked out themselves. Leake and Quinn started selling the lunchboxes in 2009, and they sell to people across the nation on their website, mysquaremeal.com. The lunchboxes are in more than a dozen boutiques, including Bebe Grand in the Lakewood Shopping Center. The lunchboxes are good for kids in preschool as they are easy to open, and there’s only one lid for many compartments. And they’re easy for parents to pack. There’s no searching for plastic containers with lids that match. Leake says her husband takes one to work every day too, although “not the one with the butterfly embroidery, I should say. But he takes the bento box and puts it in the fridge at work.”

Near the end of each school year, the former teachers usually bring a packed lunch for their kids’ teachers as a thank-you gift. One of the best advantages of My Square Meal, they say, is that it’s environmentally friendly. They don’t use any of those plastic baggies. If a student uses three of those a day, plus one plastic spoon, Leake and Quinn figure that to be about 720 pieces of trash. Their lunchboxes are recyclable, and the sporks that come with them are biodegradable. —RACHEL

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