Here’s the last catch-up for my recent newsletters. You can read the full story of the Ironman here.
Waking up early, I drove about forty minutes to the starting line of this monster of all races. It started at 7:00 AM for the general entry and 6:45 AM for the pro entry (which I missed). I think there were about 2000 contestants covering the entire beach in Penticton, BC for the start.
As they swam out into the distance I waded into the cool water and waited about an hour by the finish line before the first swimmers arrived.
When the water became shallow enough, they pushed off the bottom and did the butterfly with their arms. Soon they were hopping and running through the water to the shore, ripping off their wetsuits as they ran to grab a bike.
Being a swimmer for many years in school, I spent relatively much more time at the water’s edge than covering the biking and running. But eventually, I did move over to Main Street where the bikers set off for their 112 mile bike ride.
I then followed the race south about 15 miles and found everyone passing MacIntyre Bluff on Lake Vaseux.
I went home, had a nice lunch, spent the afternoon doing various things almost forgetting about the race until about 4:30 PM. I knew the pros would be done, but I also knew there would be tons of people still running the marathon. Sure enough I found a steady stream of runners at the half-way point of the run.
I didn’t make it to the finish line… but I can only imagine what the war-zone looked like there.
You can see a ton more photos of the race in the Straight From the Camera Section of my site.