Sweater Project

So, last weekend, Thomas did his third triathlon. He’s done progressively
longer events each time, and this one was a ½ Ironman. The 1.2 mile
swim and the 56 mile bike ride I can understand, but the half marathon run at
the end would just obliterate me. Actually, a 5k run at the end would
obliterate me since my back does not work too well.

But Thomas proved equal to the tasks. He finished, and he did it within the
time limit. I’m very proud of him.

Here’s the finish line being erected early in the morning.

Right around the time I took this, he asked me why I hadn’t slapped him yet.
“Why do you guys let me do this???”

The swim went off in two waves. Thomas was in the second - but he passed a
couple of people in the water.

When the Maori do this, it means “I’m going to devour you!”

Heading out for the ride.

Back from the ride, and looking totally undaunted.

If you can’t tell, this is the face of ultimate suffering. That’s a grimace, not a smile. Seriously, he was in pain at the end. Later in the evening, he couldn’t sit still for very long because any position he settled into, he’d start cramping up.
That white on the bottom of his shirt and his shorts - that’s salt from all the sweating he’d been doing. Did I mention that on the run there was no shade?

Luckily the finish line was only a few meters from lake that they’d started
in, so here Thomas shared some reminiscences about the eight hours of torture
that had just transpired with a fellow victim. Er, competitor.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 18th, 2004 at 11:27 am and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.