IRONMAN 2010

The girls were so excited when we went to the airport to get Papa!

Can you tell they love him?
Papa came all the way from Oregon to help watch the girls for the weekend while I went to watch Chris compete in Ironman Florida, in Panama City.

Ironman weekend, November 6, 2010

6 weeks prior to this Chris decided to do the Ironman for the 3rd time, in the spot of a friend who was unable to compete. If you are like me.....and normal....you are probably thinking "WHY?"

I don't really know the "why" other than Chris has a mental toughness, competitive drive and natural ability like I have never seen. Oh, and the social aspect helps. If friends are doing it, then you might as well hang out with them while doing 100 mile bike rides, right? :) I was being a bit sarcastic, but in reality I could never imagine training for something like this without a group of friends!

This year I decided to watch from our hotel balcony. I had wanted to see the view from up high as all those wet suits got in the freezing cold water.

The gun goes off! The swimmers have to swim a 1.2 mile square twice. In the middle they come out of the water, through the timer to get their split and then back out to do it again for a total of 2.4 miles.

After the initial start, we got coats on and went down to the beach to see it all up close.

Here he is. 1 hour 6 minutes.

Swim down....there he goes!

He made it! 112 miles just under 6 hours.

Somewhere around mile 55 they are given their lunch bags that they made prior to the start of the race. This can be filled with whatever food or energy they need. When Chris got to this point, they could not find his bag and he had to go on without it. LUCKILY our dear friend David Watson had come down to the race with his Harley in tow, and took it out on the bike route. When he found Chris he had just hit the wall and was starving. David sped off to Subway and got him lunch. Chris says it totally saved him!

Here he comes! After I saw him come in on the bike I ran past the transition point to where the marathon run starts. I got his attention and he stopped and chatted for a second. I was by myself as all us wives (spectators) were at different points waiting to see our boys. After he left ALL the people around me were in shock and said "that was the happiest person I have ever seen come off a bike!" HaHa I told them it was because he was a pretty good runner and he was relieved to only have to run 26 miles!

Halfway through the marathon the athletes get another one of their pre-packed "special needs" bags. Chris always puts in an extra pair of socks and changes them at this point.

Halfway through the marathon.

Chris Duncan.....(aka Greg Maples) you are an IRON MAN!

I cannot imagine completing such an amazing feat, but coming in as a close second is being a spectator! Being just as (or in my case MORE) nervous than your competitor, watching hundreds of faces in the hopes that you will pick them out of the crowd for a split second, sprinting through transition points with a camera in hand for the next split second when you have a photo opp, waiting for hours while they ride a bike and then cheering into the darkness as you wait for everyone you know....and don't know.....to finish the race before the 17 hour cut-off time.

And.....here we are! Look at all that energy! Kim and her green "CLAPPER" helped many.....many athletes get across that finish line! Christine and I were just her helpers. In this picture I was privileged to hold the clapper, but only for a moment. :)

And here we are........at midnight. Tired, sore throats, leaving all the cheering we could out there at the finish line for the athletes.

NOTE***a nice lady in the elevator took this picture for us as we tried to capture the energy-less moment. Clearly Kim had a hard time following instructions.

Is this picture just amazing? Kim took this while playing around with the camera! I love this picture! It completely represents Ironman weekend.....lots of great things happening by chance.

I was SO thankful for this weekend. I had more fun and laughed harder than I have in a long time. My sweet Dad was such a trooper to hang with the girls, and I was so at ease knowing that he was there with them and I could just relax. I don't get to have my family around as much as I would like and I really appreciated it!

Another SUPER JOB by Daddy Chris!