After 5 hours and 43 grueling minutes, Jason completed his second half-ironman triathlon!
The countless hours of training, stretching, icing, carb-loading, biking, swimming, running, and resting finally paid off as he made his way to Buffalo Springs Lake on Sunday. He awoke bright and early that morning to arrive at the race sight at 4:30 AM in order to get all his gear set up and prepare for the competition. The actual race started at 6:30 AM, but due to the large number of participants in the race, his wave didn't start until about 6:50. Jason started out the race swimming 1.2 miles in the oh-so-lovely Buffalo Lake water (yes, I said MILES...yikes!). He then hopped on his bike to complete the 56 mile ride which took him up out of the canyon, nearly to Slaton, and back into the park. Once that portion is completed, he puts on his running shoes and finishes the competition with a 13.1 mile run...that's 70.3 total miles!!! Not to mention the level of difficulty of this particular course; this race is a qualifier for THE Ironman race in Kona, Hawaii and people come from all over the world to race (the overall winner was from Australia). He finished the race around noon with a big smile on his face.
Impressive.
Here's where Mollie was giving her Daddy a high-five!
Jason finishing strong.
You can't see it very well, but Mollie was supporting her Daddy by wearing her "future Irongirl" shirt...I hope she loves running as much as her dad!
And here Mollie shows evidence of how we all felt at the end of the day...especially Jason. You better believe he came home and took a nap, too!
We are very thankful, though, that MaryAnn and Paul brought their RV out that day, as well. It was nice to get out of the heat for a bit and relax in the shade/air conditioning!
To add to the excitement of the day, Jason's two hobbies sort of collided...the Cactus Theater was hired to provide the entertainment at the awards ceremony later that evening, so guess who had to perform at his own awards ceremony!! Haha!
WE ARE VERY PROUD OF OUR IRONMAN!!!
2 comments:
way to go jason!!! love you!!
yeah! We are so proud of you Jason, and philip is of course way impressed and jealous! and I think you have the cutest little fan there ever was for a daughter too!
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