UGLIEST Race Photos

Racing is not always an 'attractive' experience.  I thought it would be fun to share a bit of  the ugly side of racing with you guys.  I had a hard time ranking these because each picture has it's own unique and wonderful side of the ugly.  Hope you enjoy!

#8  Adam looking  kind of weird and wobbly crossing the finish line at Hawaii 70.3.

#7 The triathlon top fit Adam a little tighter back then...

#6 Didn't quite make it to the vehicle after finishing Ironman St George.

#5 Suffering in the marathon of Ironman Cozumel.

#4 What's with the arm??  

#3 That's a pretty amazing sprinting face!

#2 You always want your finisher picture to be a special one that you can you can put in a frame.  Didn't happen in Hawaii.  I have some sweet fly away hairs but Adam really out did himself with the unzipped top and the smeared race number.  Nice!

#1 And the winner is....

Thank you Silvana for capturing this special moment!!  Look closely and you'll notice the evidence that I have a young baby who has not been nursed on her regular schedule.  A definite winner!!

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.

Crafts, Pukes, Concussion, Suppository, and a 4 hour ride.

What do those things have in common you might ask??

Well, they sum up my day today.  I spent the morning visiting with some wonderful ladies at a church activity and briskly moving through craft stations, so I could pick up my kids at Gold's Gym by 1:00.  Adam had a four hour ride as well, so he was doing his ride at the gym this morning and I needed to pick up the kids before the child care closed.  I made it just in time and arrived to my crying little girl being held by one of the caregivers because she had been dropped on her head by her brother.  The story goes that she had asked Riley to help her fly and so he attempted this great feat, accidently dropping her headfirst.

Well, I brought my little ones home and set up a movie for all of us while I started biking on the trainer.  Kyla puked about an hour later and I was concerned but she was talking just fine and could count to 20 and answer any question I threw at her, so I wasn't overly concerned and figured it would pass.  The next three hours passed with Kyla having little naps, puking several more times, Riley helping us both and me attempting to get my four hour bike in between cleaning puke and caring for my little one.

If you think that's a good time, here's the real climax of the day.  When Adam got home, he called his brother (a paramedic) who said that a Gravol Suppository would be good, since she was just puking up the Gravol pill.  So, upon returning from Wal Mart, Adam asked if I would like to administer it, or should he??  I declined the invitation but suggested that distraction would be good so he should get the candy for her mouth and then I would hold her as he administered.  He felt that explaining it to her would be better....so he proceeded to explain the procedure to Kyla, while displaying the medicine to be inserted in her butt.  Of course she freaked out and became somewhat histerical as she shouted, "no daddy, don't put it in my bum!"  So we calmed her down and then I tricked her into thinking that daddy just needed to put a little lotion on her bum.  I know it's deceitful but that thing was not going in with her clenching it shut.  She quickly discovered that it was not, in fact, lotion but the dreaded suppository and cried out, between distractions of watching Kung Fu Panda, to "take it out, take it out."  Even after confirming 15 min. later that it was dissolved by checking the insertion site, she continued to cry out, "take it out, take it out."  Well, that went well.

There is a happy ending though because Kyla felt so much better by 7pm that we all sat down to a nice family dinner and had a good laugh together as we did our tradition of taking turns telling our "UPS & DOWNS" of the day.  I even had a little cry as I told them how in five years we'd all look back and remember the day that Riley gave Kyla a concussion, she puked a bunch and then received a traumatic suppository.

I GUESS THIS IS A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A MOM / IRONMAN.

P.S. I had a two hour run scheduled yesterday, which I did on the treadmill due to the colder weather.  Adam could have worked from home so I could run outside but it's not great preparation for Cozumel to run in these cold temps.  I managed to run 22 kms in those two hours in my aerobic HR zone. Pretty good!

I guess I won't be taking drugs.

Lots of triathletes take pain relievers (like Tylenol) during races.  In theory it can help you race better because then you don't feel the aches and pains quite so much.

It can help dull the pain of sitting on this for six to eight hours :

Besides saddle soreness there are plenty of other discomforts to deal with on the bike: foot pain and numbness (from the repeated pressure on the cleat), neck pain (from looking ahead while in aero position), shoulder and elbow soreness (from leaning forward on the elbow pads) and of course  muscle and joint fatigue in the legs.  

So, I was considering taking tylenol during the race and had started experimenting with it during training.  I checked with my coach to get his opinion on the matter and here is his response:

"Let me put it this way, if you need pain reliever you better not be doing the race. I don`t like that stuff at all. Train to get your body in shape and you don`t need the sh**."

All right then.  Looks like I won't be taking drugs after all.