Race photos

Believe it or not, even aside from the race itself on Sunday our trip to Mont Tremblant and Montreal was amazing and a ton of fun. The place is certainly worth a visit! I have a bunch more photos to go through, but here are some of the event itself, courtesy Melissa, Jess, various iPhones, and the official race photographers.

The beginning of the swim at 6:42 AM was chaos



So it was pretty amazing that I managed to find my cheering section before we took the plunge.



And there we went...



This was the part I was most nervous about going in: never having done a competitive swim before, never mind in these conditions, I was warned countless times that I was liable to "freak out" at the chaos of the start. I did, a little bit, but only for about 30 seconds or so. Thereafter the swim was my favorite part of the race. It was incredibly beautiful out on the lake... and I wasn't exhausted yet!

After a volunteer-assisted wet suit strip it was onto the bikes. Another sighting of the cheering section!

That white thing you see in my mouth is a salt capsule. It was 87 degrees and humid at the height of the day. I must have downed 30 of these things.

After a final transition we were into the marathon.  By now the challenge really was mental as much as physical... and the physical component was mostly about getting hydration and calories into my body and keeping it in a stomach that wanted no part of any of it by this point.

The run course was an out-and-back, two times deal. That meant we came REALLY close to the finish line at the half way point before heading back out of town for 13 more miles. Seeing my family at this point was a huge pick-me-up.

This shot was just after I nearly got sick. The smile is fake as fake can be. I remember the moment well. By this point I had about 5 miles to go.

The final stretch is called "the chute."



Running down it felt... like this:

...and stopping felt incredibly weird.

I was ready to be pleased with 16 hours. Especially given the heat I was pretty thrilled with my finish time.

But not nearly as thrilled as I was to see this crew.

All-in-all the experience was an incredible one. I can't say I want to do it again any time soon, but I'd be surprised if I don't do it again sometime. Crossing that line... whoa.

Huge thanks to Melissa and Sylvie for putting up with the training, and to my Mom and Dad for trekking to Canada to be part of it.