My Hubby, The Ironman

While we're waiting for Jonathan's Beach2Battleship race report, I thought I'd talk about watching a full iron distance race from the spectator's point of view.  It is one of the most amazing, inspiring, motivating, and exhilarating thing to watch.  These people have trained for the better part of a year to get to where they are for the race and watching it all come together is simply beautiful.

Jonathan and I started the day at 4am.  He had already check his bike, his T2 bag, bike special needs, and run special needs (special needs bags = bags you get at the halfway point of that particular activity) the day before.  After breakfast, we drove about a mile to transition for him to check his T1 bag, check his bike (tire pressure, uncover the seat, aero bars, etc.), and get body marked.  Then it was back to the house to get the wet suit on and head down to the swim start!  Our parents met us down at the swim start, where I had my bike so that I could see him for both the swim start and T1. Once the sun rose enough, they let everyone on the beach to get ready for the start.  There was music, the emcee was getting everyone pumped up, then counted down to the start!  The mass start was awesome.  I almost got a little emotional because this was the start of everything these months of training have been about!

The swim was mega fast and I am glad to have had my bike to take me from start to T1!  I took a few pictures and wished him luck for the long bike ride ahead.  Knowing he'd be on the bike for a few hours, I went back to the house for breakfast with the families and to get ready for the day.  We left the house around 11:30 to stake out our spot downtown so that we could see him three times on the run.  The bike took place in four counties, so unfortunately, we couldn't see him on that.  We grabbed a quick lunch nearby and then waited to see our boy!

I really enjoyed cheering for all of the other athletes while we were waiting.  And it was awesome because you could tell how much they appreciated it.  I know what it looks like to need a little external motivation, so I was happy to be there to cheer them on as they dug deep to race this race.

The athlete tracking for this race wasn't as detailed as I was hoping for, so it was basically a waiting game of looking down the street to see if Jonathan was coming our way.  Luckily I knew what he would most likely be wearing, so I spotted him pretty quickly once he was coming my way.  (Side note: I'd venture to say that 80% of triathletes wear some combination of red, black, and white, so if you want to stick out for your spectators, wear neons!)  I snapped a few pictures and ran with him for a bit around the 2 mile mark.  We had about 9 miles worth of time before we'd see him again, so we went to a coffee shop for a break.  We saw him again at around mile 11 and again around mile 15 before we headed over to the Battleship to watch the finish.  He really looked good when I ran with him at the 15 mile mark - better than he had looked at mile 2 and 11, actually!  I wish we could have stayed to see him at the 24 mile mark, but it was too big of a risk to do that and potentially not make it to the finish in time.

We found a great spot at the finish line and it is amazing watching athletes of all ages, shapes, sizes, and locations finish the Iron distance.  If you're on the fence about completing one, it'll be just the push you need in order to commit, I promise you that.

After 14 hours and 21 minutes of racing, I saw my 6 foot 7 Ironman coming down the finish shoot!  He did so awesome and I am forever proud of him for doing that race.