Jeff achieved a childhood dream of his yesterday, completing the Ironman--swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running a full marathon (26.2 miles). He not only completed it, but did really well. The kids and I had alot of fun following him around all day. In the morning, we were able to find him among the 2500 athletes in the parking lot of the swim start. Then we arrived at the waterway (canal) just in time to see him swim the final stretch. He was only about 15 feet away from us and waved to us mid-stroke. We saw the amazing volunteers take off his wetsuit in about half a second and then saw him leave on his bike. At mile 90, we went out to the entrance of our neighborhood and saw him pass about 20 minutes later (even though he was about 40 minutes ahead of when he said he would pass). Then we quickly got in the car and travelled back into The Woodlands and walked to the transition just in time to see him pass on the final stretch of the bike. After finding a nice shady spot, we were able to see him pass twice on the run (it was a 3 loop course) and then headed to the finish line chute where we were able to see him pass and cross the finish line. It was a long day starting at 4:30am and ending around 9pm but the kids were great troopers (it was, of course, a much longer day for Jeff). We're all very proud of Daddy!
Thank you to all of you who provided your support throughout the entire training and event journey!
For a photo journal (with captions) of our day, click on the photo above.
To see the exciting finish, click on the video below.
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