Now that is a nicely laid out transition area. (This is transition 1 - number 2 was in another place altogether.)
The kids and I didn't roll out until about 9:00. (I just couldn't see the value in getting everyone up and out the door by 6:30 on a Saturday.) While we were enjoying the hour long drive, Shawn was busy taking pictures of the start.
There is just something exciting about seeing all of the racers lined up at the start of a race.
There were helicopters all around.
(Apparently, pro races draw a little more attention than the typical triathlon. And I'm sure the fact that Lance Armstrong was there didn't hurt.)Shawn snapped this photo of Lance putting on his wetsuit in the transition area.
It's a little hard to see on this small picture, but Lance is that front, center orange cap.
These are the pros starting their swim.
And the rest of the racers waiting their turn.
We got there in time to watch the pros come off of the bike and transition to the run. I could have reached over and knocked Lance off of his bike. (Of course, I would never do that, but it was still cool to be close enough that I could have.)
We moved to the finish to watch the pros come across, but my picture of Lance wasn't as successful as the bike one, but it was still plenty close. Then there was a lot of waiting. The kids kept themselves mostly entertained although there were several declarations of, "I'm bored." "I'm hungry." And so on.
Jonas made himself comfortable - at Peter's expense.
The fall colors were beautiful and the weather was perfect.
More entertainment.
Shawn also made his way across the finish line after suffering a bit on the mountain bike. He said it was steep and technical. Plus, he got a flat tire and after stopping to fix it, his back brakes kept seizing up and stopping his bike, so eventually he just disengaged them and made his way in. (One of the pros that came in rode in on only his rim with a completely shredded tire. It looked pretty cool. I guess when you've got sponsors you can afford to do that to your bike. Apparently Shawn needs to get some sponsors.) And at least he didn't end up with a demon thorn in his leg like last time.
At this point the kids were ready to move on to something else.
So we took a quick ride on the gondola to the top of the mountain where we stopped for a little snack.
And then we headed back down. We were in a bit of a time crunch.
Everyone was happy for a few minutes at least.
The gondola provided more spectacular views of the fall colors.
We drove all the way back home, dropped the kids off, changed clothes and headed up to Soldier Hollow for the Dirty Dash. We missed our original start time, but slid in just in time to go with the last wave of runners. It was a blast, and true to it's name, we were dirty at the end of it. It would have been impossible to stay clean in this race. It was so slippery and muddy, but so much fun.
Here we are with some of Shawn's co-workers who also ran the race although they had clearly already gotten cleaned up by the time we found them. (I even had jello in my hair, thanks to Shawn. Not sure why they passed that out at the aid station!)
We were cold and glad that we had forked out a couple extra bucks for the warm showers.
And to top it all off, we saw Moses and Kaylee from the Biggest Loser. Shawn stopped for a picture.
(A banner day for seeing famous people - Shawn also ran into Elder Scott at Cafe Rio later that night.)Whew! Like I said, a crazy, busy but fun day. We were ready for a day of rest!
1 comment:
I love Moses..he was one of my favorites. I would have been more excited to see and talk to him than lance:)
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