St. George IRONMAN

Warning: Very long post!

Last weekend we went to St. George to watch the Ironman. It was awesome and exhausting; and I didn't even race. Sam and I left Thursday with my mom and Dan and my dad came down Friday night. Sam did pretty good on the drive down. He slept for maybe 45 min. which I was pretty disappointed with considering he hadn't had a nap yet. He doesn't watch shows or movies for more then like 10 min. so the DVD idea didn't work too long either. Let's just say I am glad we didn't go further then St. George. He did fairly well but I was sick of entertaining him. Thursday when we got into town we met up with my sister Michelle and her family (husband Robie was the one doing the Ironman) and my other sister Kath and her husband for dinner.
Friday we kind of just followed Robie around with what he had to do to get ready for the race. I loved it! We first went out to the swim start so he could set up his bike and his swim stuff. The road was closed Saturday so we weren't going to be able to watch the start so I was happy to go see where they were going to be starting. It was cold in St. George which I was totally bummed about. The day after we left it was a beautiful 77 degrees. Seriously just my luck. I digress. Here we are at the swim start. I actually got a picture of me and my son how about that?

Here are my nieces and mom with Sam. I loved having these girls around to play with Sam. It really does help. Maybe having more then one kid wouldn't be all that bad. It is so fun to have them get older. It's fun to talk to them and have good, fun conversations. It still seems weird to me that they are getting so old but I guess that is what happens. 

Look at all those bikes. I think there were like 2200 participants signed up. That' a lot of crazy people wanting to do an Ironman. After the T1 transition setup we stopped at Pizza Factory for lunch. Why didn't I ever know about those amazing breadsticks? I could have eaten 20 of those things, they were delicious. After lunch we went and got Robie fake tattooed (spelling?). They were doing like spray tattoos, I thought it was pretty sweet. 

They had shops full of cool Ironman gear. You better believe I wanted to get myself a cool sweatshirt with Ironman on it. Mostly to make people think I was an Ironman, not really. I just thought it was cool but wasn't willing to pay the ridiculous prices for the gear. I am however still thinking about the headsweats that they had. Michelle and Robie were shocked I didn't have one, little lone didn't know what one was. They are visor with stretchy back. Super comfy, I'm kind of regretting not getting one but I'm sure I could easily find one online. Digressing again, sorry folks!

My mom took Sam on a short car ride until he fell asleep so I got to enjoy 2 hours of him sleeping, and me not chasing him around, it was awesome! This is pretty much the only place Sam napped while on our short trip.  Poor kid!

His outfit is pretty sweet. Those shoes have holes in the bottom b/c he has worn them so much. I myself am having a hard time letting them go. They are so easy to put on and the other shoes I have for him are too big so he can't walk in them very good. I have loved these shoes and they will be sorely missed. He is wearing a shirt with black in it with Navy blue pants b/c he had leaked onto his other pair of pants. This is a common occurrence with him, quite annoying. On top of it all all of his winter clothes are getting too small. Picture belly shirts and flood pants. The poor kid is in a transition phase so his outfits will suffer until it is FINALLY warm enough to wear the summer clothes we have for him. 

We went with Robie to this bike/run transition area before the girls ran a little race. They had a fun 1 mile run for the kids and all of the girls did great! 

This isn't the best picture but the guy in the background is  Mike Reilly, the announcer for all of the Ironmans. We thought it was pretty sweet they got a picture with him. Of course my picture is terrible but I'm pretty sure Robie got a great one. Dan and my dad got it right before the race and I was happy to have them safely there. It was really windy on Friday so Robie and I'm sure most of the athletes were freaking out about race day. The course is one of the hardest in the nation and with a head wind that would be terrible. Ended up being much more calm on Saturday, thankfully. 

Saturday we watched the swim start online. The water was freezing cold. I think they said they pulled about 50 participants from the water or right after the swim b/c they were so cold. My mom had a friend that volunteered where the swimmers come out and she said they were literally dressing the women b/c they were all too cold to dress themselves, crazy people! Robie said he couldn't get his hands to move b/c they were frozen. Doesn't it just make you want to go sign up for an Ironman right now? I think not. 

Saturday consisted of a lot of waiting, waiting, driving and waiting some more. It's a long race so it makes sense that watching the race would include a lot of waiting. It would have been much easier if we didn't have a child to chase after ALL day. By the end of the day Danny and I were exhausted just chasing Sam. He did take another 2 hour nap in the car so that was nice. 

The course for the bike was crazy. They had some crazy hills both up and down. They biked down most of the St. George marathon course so I had MANY memories as we were driving down the course. I have to admit I loved the fact I was driving it and not running it. My marathon bug still has not returned and am not sure it ever will. You should have seen these bikers riding down these hills. They were flying. I would have been pooping my pants and slamming the brakes. I am a huge baby on the bike so this shouldn't be surprising. We actually drove my the winner and he was sooo fast it was crazy. 

Here is Robie at about mile 50 or was it 60? I can't remember, somewhere around there. He was looking and feeling great at this point. 

Sammy was already pooped and was enjoying having Dan carry him around. 

One of the best parts of the whole race was the fact that we had VIP passes. Robie works for Aquasphere so we got the VIP passes from him b/c they were a sponsor for the race. Not only did we have a place to park every time we came and went which was soo nice. People were having to walk blocks and we could come and go as we pleased and always come back to a parking spot right by the finish line, awesome! Along with the great parking we had all the food we wanted all day long. Here we are enjoying our lunch. I quite enjoyed the free soda (don't judge, at least it was diet) and candy. No surprise there right? 

Sam really enjoyed the free cookies and Dan enjoyed the carrot cake. I really wanted some carrot cake, it looked amazing but since I had all the candy I decided I better not. However I did seem to find room for the amazing macadamia nut cookie bars they had with the dinner. I ate really healthy last weekend can you tell? 

As we continually stuffed our faces throughout the day with free food and seats right by the finish line Robie continued to workout. Why do people do this to themselves? He said he actually felt great until about mile 13 of the marathon and his stomach started hurting him. This happened in his last ironman as well, bummer deal. Here he is about 7 mile into the marathon. Amazing that he still has the energy to high 5 those of us spectating. 

The marathon was a loop that they had to do two times. Mentally that would have been sooo hard for me. To come down and be right by the finish line and still have to run a half marathon? Kill me. Let's just say I'm glad it wasn't me. While we were waiting to go see him at mile 7 we got to slip into the VIP area and see the leader finish, it was really cool. He did it in 8 hours and 25 min. So amazing!!

I even managed to grab a picture of our little family while we were waiting during the marathon. 

It did get pretty toasty for about an hour during the day so that was nice. Robie finished the Ironman in 12 hours and 51 minutes. So, so, so impressive. I think it was about 8 o'clock at night by this point. It was a really long day but a really fun day as well. 

The diet coke in this picture was not in the picture by accident. I felt that it deserved a cameo in my collage of pictures because I love it. Some may call it an addiction but I call it a very happy, healthy relationship. :-) This would be a really cute picture if I didn't look like a man with my hair back and headband. I hate having my hair down so that is something I have to deal with. Sam and Dan look super cute though. 

Oh and look, my child is eating something healthy. I had to capture a picture of this to give myself hope that this extremely picky eater of mine does have hope!

It was a great weekend and I am so glad we decided to go down. I thought going to watch might give me a little motivation to want to do an Ironman. It had quite the opposite affect. It's just too long. I use to really want to do an Ironman until I realized I don't like swimming or biking. It kind of made me want to get more serious about doing just little ones and maybe a half Ironman but never an Ironman. No desire really. Hats off to those that did it though. It was amazing to watch these people push their body to its limits. There were some rockin' bodies too. Very, very fit people. Way to go Robie, you are amazing!