Outlaws at the Ironman Coeur d’Alene
It was a sit and watch sports day unlike any other. When I think of watching sports I think of going to a game, be it baseball, football, basketball, hockey, etc. Or maybe even going to a track meet. Or perhaps if it’s on TV, I’ll watch tennis or golf. Or the olympics, I’ll watch the olympics.
When I watch sports, there’s usually a favorite, a team at a minimum or perhaps an individual person. Baseball is A. Rod. Football is the Seahawks (simply because I grew out of my Dallas and Denver stages and Seahawks is as close as I can get to a home team, stupid NM…I digress). Basketball I don’t care about much. Hockey, I like the ducks. The mighty ducks, they’re a real team right, the one from the disney movie from when I was a kid (can you tell I really don’t watch hockey either). Golf is Tiger Woods, he was the man all the girls fell in love with when I was a sophomore in high school. If tennis is on, I really only know Venus and Serena. Ok, so truth be known, I really don’t watch sports all that much.
But yesterday, was a different kind of sports day. It was the Ironman Coeur d’Alene. I wanted to watch it, I wanted to have people that I was rooting for. The thing is, it was in Idaho, and I’m in NM. But that didn’t stop me. I had the little news ticker thing open and they were talking about this years favorites (I guess those were the pros) and who was going to win it. That really meant nothing to me because really I’d only heard about the Ironman say, in the last I dunno, 5-7 years or something. It (Ironman) hasn’t been in my sights long, so I don’t exactly know how they work beyond the swim, bike, run part.
Anyhow, I had the athlete tracker page going and I kept refreshing the pages every half hour to an hour. Which I know is probably more than I needed to refresh it, but I was so excited and I wanted to know when the peeps I were watching were passing the time mats. So I checked and checked and checked. And at one point I panicked, because I thought for sure a time should’ve been posted, and I wondered, what happened, where was the time, and then I continued to check and check and check and I think the time was just delayed.
So, who was I watching, well, I was watching a couple of the Outlaws. I didn’t really have anyone else to watch. And being that I had met (if only briefly) GeekGirl during the NM TdC, I figured that if I was going to track anyone, she was the best to track, because I could say I knew her. And then of course, that led to me tracking Baboo, her husband. And of course, since I had been reading GeekGirl’s blog, I was also keeping tabs on SWTriGirl, Mighty and Sluggo (who are also Outlaws).
I was very excited for all of them, they all finished. And that is just such a huge accomplishment. 140 miles in 1 day. 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling, and the a whole marathon (26.2 miles of running). It’s extraordinary. If you asked me today what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d say that I want to be like them when I grow up.
One day…I’ll do an Ironman.
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