Poor Harry.

When we arrived in our hotel the first night in Cozumel, Adam began the tedious task of pumping up all our tires with a hand pump.  He was very annoyed (which doesn't happen often) because it took about 30 min of intense pumping to pump a single tire and he still had three to go.  I thought he looked pretty attractive, sitting on the porch with his shirt off because he was sweating so much, glistening ironman muscles, pumping that tire in his angry, intense way.   After admiring him for a bit and having a few laughs at his expense, I suggested we head down to the lobby and try to borrow a real pump from another ironman athlete.

That's when we met Harry.  One of those really kind people that you feel blessed to have crossed paths with.  He was happy to lend us his pump after he took his mother for a walk.  You see, Harry travels the world doing Ironman races and he takes his aged parents with him because he is their caregiver.  In each race city, he hires a caregiver for the day of the race and drops off his parents pre-race, while he goes off to do an Ironman and then picks them up afterwards.  No big deal.

I saw Harry quite a bit on course, as we passed each other back and forth and exchanged greetings.  He gave himself hyponatremia on the run, just like me, and was also sick, slow and in rough shape.  Apparently he did pass out on course briefly and a nice volunteer offered him a sandwich, which got him off and running (or I should say walking) again.  It just so happens that Harry finished RIGHT AFTER ME.  I say poor Harry because it seems that Adam and I ruined Harry's finish line photos with our endless hugging.  Oooops.  Sorry Harry.  But thanks for the bike pump.

Poor Harry also got a badly infected foot from the sewage water on the run course.  He had to have the infected area cut out by a doctor at a Mexican hospital.  Poor, poor Harry.