Race photos & Cliff-jumping.

First, let's talk a little about Ironman-induced delirium. I mentioned that K had a difficult day out there. There were copious amounts of vomit. But she fought hard to come back and after suffering through the first 13.1, she ran like crazy to catch up with a 3:35 marathon split. Katherine is an incredibly talented woman and I am always impressed by the way she seems to do it all, and do it well. But it turns out that she is no good at putting sunscreen on her own back. In her depleted state, she decided to sunscreen up with a face stick at some point on Saturday. It kind of looks like she tried to write foxy across her lower back:


Some folks out there on Saturday were living for the finish chute. This is the moment I was living for - it's all about getting to T2. Thanks C&KY for the photo:

It's funny how quickly you can tell what's in (or isn't in) your legs. The grimace-smile at Wee sums up that oh-crap-this-is-going-to-hurt feeling I had as I started the marathon:

As I ran up Palani Hill I found myself really, really dizzy and thinking about walking it. OK, I was dying to walk it. Then I looked at the Timex banners all lined up and thought "run past Timex before embarrassing Timex" and made it up somehow. I dove for the first salt score right after this shot. Note that the dude on the left is having a really hard time shaka-ing with his right hand. He must have overlooked that in his training regimen.

This is the end: the turn at the bottom of the hill onto Kuakini. I was a little delirious, because I didn't recognize Aaron as I came up on him, and realized who he was as I passed and he patted my shoulder and said something encouraging. He's the CEO on my left - the fittest CEO in the world. In my memory it's dark out at this moment. I have no idea why, but apparently my brain was playing tricks on me. If you look closely, Ramsey is just off his shoulder, running down to catch me at the finish:

Thanks Jon for the photos!

Sunday morning Tom, the maker of Team Timex, picked Ramsey and I up to go jump off the cliffs at Keauhou. It doesn't look very high in the photos. But trust me, it was scary. This is me pointing out to Ben, Tom & Scott that it's a long way down and maybe we ought to rethink that whole ladies first thing:

Tristan, Tom, Ben, me & Keith - Ramsey told us to stick out our guts. Only Tom fell for it:

Awards were wet. There were rivers running across the parking lot and shelters being built out of tables. I took cover from the pouring rain under my bowl while on the podium, and Bob Babbit gave me hell for bringing my beer up with me. Some of the Oahu gang during the rain - Billy, Mark, John and Cliff. As expected, John swam faster than Andy Potts - 47 and change and went 9:22 in his first Ironman.. with a flat! That's crazy fast.


Ramsey and I braving the floods to head out to the parties..

The responses to my report were so encouraging, and as time goes by I find myself more and more satisfied with what I did out there on Saturday. Thank you everyone who cheered me on, in Kona and on the web! A big shout out to Haley, who also left it all out there, including the entire contents of her stomach. I found her on Alii suffering through her first Kona as a professional. She ran with me a bit, but was too sick to run for very long. She fought it out though, and finishing when it all goes wrong is an incredible feat and a win in itself. You rock, Haley!