IRONMAN 2018

Get ready for a TON of pictures!  This year I was the T1 Support Captain again except I had no co-captain this year because Josh was doing the IRONMAN!  Shayne was not only the Lifeguard Captain but she was also Swimming the leg of the IRONMAN for her relay with Laynee Wells.  Joel and Konnor and Spencer were all doing it and Kyle and Mason were doing a 2 man relay.  Kyle was swimming and biking and Mason ran it.  So I will tell the story as we go along with the pictures.
So we started out like every year with stuffing packets on Wednesday and then going to our captains meeting right after that.  Then Friday going to the Ironman Village to get the athletes race packets picked up and make sure that there aren't any deals that they can't miss out on.  

 Then we take the bike's out to the Lake.  A special thanks to John for letting Josh ride his bike.  Josh has an OK bike but riding John's made all the difference in this race.  

 Kyle, Joel, Josh, Konnor and Shayne.  Pretty cool!

Then that night they set everything up and make sure that they have it all. 

 The next morning bright and ugly, we woke up and were out at the Lake at 4am!  Athletes started showing up at 4:45am and couldn't get into their bikes until 5am.  But I had all my volunteers lined up ready to go!  

 I put this picture in even though it is blurry because you can see Evan, in the middle, holding up his marker ready to mark the next athlete.  

 This was the swim finish line. 

 This year they changed the way they send people into the water.  It isn't by age anymore.  They figured that there had to be a better way because people were swimming over top of other people.  So this year they did what was called a Rolling Start.  They went by how fast you think you can swim it in.  This is the man guy was in charge of getting the new swim signs and holders in order.  JoEllen is my person in charge of sign volunteers so together they got it all taken care of.   I'm so glad that she decided to volunteer this year.  It's so much better when family is there with you. 

 He was the last of the last.  And boy did he take advantage of it. 

 JoEllen took this great shot before it started.  Thank you!

Then it started and the pro's went first.  Then my double amputee Sidney Smith from Vernal went.  So did Konnor, Josh and Shayne.  It was exciting.  Syd's dad is his handler and has everything he needs to help him transition to the next phase.  Here is his phone tracking where Sidney was in the race.

 After he was all set his dad led him to his bike with his biking legs on. 

 The next couple picture's are just of my awesome volunteers helping out, by striping wet suits.  I had the regular YM from our ward, the youth from the 11th ward, random people and this year I also had John and his family and for the 1st time ever...Brian and his family!  It was awesome!  They were a big help.  

 Holly and Kristal teamed up and they were great!

 Here are Holly and Kristal getting Konnor's suit off.  He was the first of ours out of the water.

Next was Josh right behind him.  

 Since Holly and Kristal were the first ones, Josh went to them too.

 He's put on a little weight since last summer so his suit was a little hard to get off. 

 About 15 minutes later Shayne came Breaststoking her way in.  Apparently she had a panic attack at the first turn and had to stop and couldn't get enough air.  It would have helped if she came out to the lake at least once to practice.  But she didn't.  SOOOOOOO.  Yeah. 

 She got to run past everyone because she needed to keep her wet suit on to get back out into the lake.  We had put her paddle board at the end of the dock so she could just jump back out onto it after she was done.  So she ran in and handed her timing chip off to her relay biker, grabbed her hat and captain lanyard and then came back out.

 Just as I was standing there talking to my next amputee's handler I heard Kyle say, "Hey Penny!"  It's a good thing he did!  I didn't know what color cap he was wearing or when he started so I didn't know when to expect him.  I took a couple quick shots of him and followed him up the dock.  I wish I had more room up there this year.  Every year it's so different.  This year's layout was worse than last years.  This year they went deep instead of long.  Which was really bad because everyone was hitting everyone with wet suits and the athletes were running into each other trying to get to someone who could help them.  

 This is Allen.  He is my single amputee and is on a relay.  He does the swim and bike and his buddy runs.  His darling wife is holding his leg in this shot.  Last year I had 3 amputees, Sidney and 2 others.  One of which had no handler at all.  So, I had Darby help him.  It was awesome!

 Here is Shayne trying to keep the sheep from getting lost.

 We had 2 of these flying around.  

 About an hour passes by and you could see the last boat coming around the last turn and still no Joel.  Just as I was thinking on leaving and going to check the med tent for him I saw Shayne starting to paddle along side someone making her way into the dock.  It gave me a little hope that the cap was actually green. 

 But then they stopped. And slowly made their way in.  Sure enough it was Joel!

 He walked right over to Brian and John to help him out of his suit.

 Then he high-fived everyone on his way to his bike where David had been waiting for over an hour. 

 Notice how many bikes are left in the shoot.  This makes for a VERY long day.  As soon as he left we started to break down the bike racks and clean up so we could go home.

 After I got a good couple hours of sleep we got up and headed to the finish line to see Josh.  Shayne had texted me with these picture's saying that he had 4 miles left.  So we went to our usual spot that no one gets to go to because they aren't a team captain.  The Main street round-about.

I think the city put this new sculpture in just for me.  I LOVE IT!!!  It's 16 feet tall.

 While we were waiting for Josh to finish guess who was just starting?  Yep, this Yahoo runs past us and sees us and turns around to give us hugs and say hi then runs off.  I was floored that he was just starting!!!  That meant that he wasn't going to be done for 2 more hours!!!!  I was not planning on sticking around for that long.  I still needed to go to Michael's and get supplies to make a corsage for Josh's Sr. Ball that was later that night.  BUGGG! 

 Meanwhile Mason came running by.  I didn't even recognize him until the last minute.  I'm glad I did though.  Shayne told me that Mason was behind Josh when they passed her so I started to worry.  But as soon as I got back around to the front of the round-about I saw him.

SQUAASH!

 Josh started to pick it up right here. Luckily Kyle was right here to take these pictures.  Thanks Kyle!

These next two are for Sophie...Ivan did the Ironman for the first time and came in about 15 minutes after Josh.

 Then our good friend Pam Clarkson finished about 5 minutes after that.  She said that she PR'ed by 21 minutes!

 This guy came out to celebrate Cinco De Mayo and started dancing on the table but no one was cheering him on because they were all cheering the runners on so he stopped. 

 So 45 minutes after Josh finished I sent Ben up to the other round-about on North Main by the Post Office, to see if he could find Konnor.  10 minutes later he called me and told me he was coming.

 Here's Ben trying to run back. 

 His Grandma, Jordyn, Mom Mindy, Shayne, Jana and Kaleb were all right there to cheer him on.  It was so great to have them all there to see him finish the race and to give him that support. 

 While we were waiting for Dad, Sidney came in.  He said that he had a bad race.  The run was not good. At least he got done in time and wasn't disqualified.  We were starting to worry about Joel.  At this point he had a half an hour left before they were going to turn the clock off. 

Meanwhile, somewhere back on the course...

Here he comes...

 FINALLY CROSSED!!  With 12 minutes to spare!  Cutting it close.