Christopher Skarda, you are an IRONMAN!

Wow, what a day.

To recap how we got here, Christopher figured he should try a full Ironman while lying on his back exhausted after last year's half Ironman.  Which was only 4 months after his first ever Triathlon.  That should give you an idea of how crazy and determined my husband is.  He and another co-worker got into a "if you sign up, I'll sign up with you" pact, and rather than pick a nice and easy Ironman for their first time, they signed up for the toughest Ironman out there.  The St. George Ironman was the closest and most convenient, but also had 5,000 feet of climbing on the bike course.  They made the run a bit flatter than in the past (though it was still worse than most), but at least one swim should be the same as another.

We had to be in town by Thursday at 4 to sign in, and then he spent almost all day Friday testing out the water in the reservoir, setting up his bike and turning in his gear bags.  Friday night we went over to the house my aunt and uncle rented to have a family dinner.

That was the awesome part of doing a local Ironman - we had such a huge support group!  My aunt and uncle have come down to watch the Ironman before even though they didn't know anyone running it, simply because they thought it was so amazing to watch.  (They have both run many marathons, triathlons, and relay races, so it is right up their alley.) So when we told them that Christopher signed up, they were thrilled. Two of my cousins came down with their families to have a weekend vacation and come watch with them.  And then one of my brothers jumped on the chance and drove up from Las Vegas with his family to cheer Chris on as well.  They have run a few races themselves, and my niece (with the red hair in the picture above) has already started triathlons.  In fact, she ran one at 10 years old and pulled a 3:15 minute half mile!  She told me she couldn't imagine ever trying something like this, and I told her that Christopher remembers thinking the same thing when he was a kid.

Saturday morning was an early start for everyone.  My brother drove Chris down to his shuttle at 4 am, and then we headed out to the spectator shuttle at 5:30.  Since my kids had been up late for two nights in a row, they were not very happy with me when I woke them up.  The amazing part was that after we waited in the long line of cars to park, gathered our gear, and hustled over to the shuttle, my aunt and uncle walked coincidentally into line right in front of us.  It was fantastic.  I never did find my mother-in-law, who came down with a grandson to watch as well, but I was really glad to have my family all day.

And Daddy even found us in the sea of people before the start of the race!

Watching them start was amazing.  They sound off the cannon, and off went almost 1500 swimmers!

Notice the kayaks and boats on hand to help out?  Yeah, they got important really fast.  The swim started  in nice and calm water, but the wind picked up not more than five minutes in.  It got worse, and worse, and by the time they turned the corner and headed into the wind it was up to 40 mph and created 4 foot waves.

It was mass carnage.

On land, we had trouble merely walking in the wind.  My kids were frozen, and I ended up keeping them tucked behind a large rock so they didn't feel the worst of it.  And soon we saw athletes coming in by the dozens, walking like zombies over to where the spectators were watching the finish line to tap their families on the shoulder and end their IronMan day.  Unfortunately, Christopher's friend was one of them.  By the end, over 200 of them didn't finish that swim.  The race director is quoted as saying that had the wind picked up 15 minutes earlier, it "would have been a no-go."  With all that goes into putting on a race like this, that isn't a decision to be made lightly.  But with everyone already in the water, all we could do was pray the volunteers kept everyone safe and will your particular person to shore somehow.  I was huddled at the barrier, shivering and craning my neck to watch everyone step out while muttering "come on hon, you can do it . . ." under my breath.

On Christopher's end, he said that when he felt the first wave he stopped and looked up "to see what idiot was driving their boat so close that I felt the wake."  When the wind really picked up and he realized what was going on, his first thought was "oh no, Russell isn't going to make it", since the swim was his friend's weakest leg.  But as it got worse, he said his thoughts went to "oh no, I'm not going to make it!"  One of the things that kept him going was seeing how busy the volunteers were pulling out the ones that needed help, and deciding that he didn't want to add to that.

And let me tell you, I was never so relieved to see my husband as when he came up to transition!  I knew that he was a good enough swimmer to be safe out there, but I was so nervous that he wouldn't make the 2:20 cut off and be devastated.  Luckily, he pulled in at 2:02.  He said that he was so nervous that he would go the wrong way around the buoys and get DQ'ed that he ended up going around the outer edge of the lane just to be sure.

By the way, I love that at a race like this, they have "strippers" there to help take off the wet-suits.

As a side story, I had completely not thought about us being cold when I packed for the trip.  St. George is warm, so I packed warm.  And when I realized that it would be cold early in the morning, all I could find for the kids was our beach towels for them to huddle in.  Thank heavens we had those, as they spent the entire morning wrapped in them.  And when Chris came across, I went back to where the kids were with my brother, and he informed me that Kaitlyn fell asleep.

By some utter miracle, Jasmine slept through the entire four hour ordeal snugly in her car seat, and I was glad that my brother kept watch over them all in the back of the crowd so that Kaitlyn could get a nap too.

Anyway, Christopher went through transition one, and headed out on his bike.

He seemed excited to have that behind him, but of course the wind was not kind to the bikers either.

Apparently the first place pro got blown literally off the course at one point because the wind was so strong. Since finding your biker out on the course is nearly impossible, we went back to the condo to rest and watch his progress on the tracking app.  Thankfully, Christopher followed nearly exactly what he had done a month ago when he biked the course with his friend, and since it was windy that day as well he wasn't too surprised by it.   And since he was on track, we knew right when to come down and see him finish the 112 mile bike ride.

We couldn't believe how every time we saw him, he was looking up and smiling.  Time to head out on the marathon.

It felt almost rude, but when the race is 17 hours long, you have a lot of down time.  My brother Gary went for a round of golf with a friend while Christopher was biking.  And when he started the marathon, we took the kids to a carousel in the town square.

And then we found a nice shady spot of grass to watch the runners go by.

By the way, I have to mention that having my brother and his wife along was quite literally a life saver.  I'm not just saying this because I know he reads my blog - I cannot imagine any possible way I could have made it through the day without them.  Watching races is a lot of standing around and watching for your runner to come by, and toddlers aren't much into that.  I can't count the number of times they got dumped with the kids so that I could search for Christopher to take pictures or run alongside him for a minute.  It often took all of us just to carry the gear and the kids.  They were awesome.

This part of the day was actually oddly anticlimactic.  The weather was beautiful, and we could just relax in our chairs, attempt to keep the kids out of the running ditch water in front of us, and watch the runners flow by.  The marathon was three loops that went up and down the street, and many of the athletes didn't have much energy left, so it was a constant stream of them walking up and down in front of us.

Not my husband, though.  He said that he has walked on marathons before, so it wasn't that he was above it - he just wanted to see if he could manage to run the whole thing.  So he did.  He ran every single step of the marathon, and despite what came before it, pulled a 4 hour 13 minute time, which is a great time for anyone on a normal day.

Maya tried to offer him one of our cookies, but I think he was just too focused.

Before we started, we had a lot of discussions on what he expected to be able to do.  He told me he was thinking the swim would be a little over 1:30 (obviously that got off track), the bike would be 7:30 (he did 7:38) and "I'll just put whatever I have left into the marathon".  All told, he was thinking it would be great if he could come in by 15 hours, but "as long as I finish by the 17 hour cut off I'll be happy." Since he made up so much time on the marathon, he finished the day even earlier than he had hoped.  When he turned the corner to the bright lights, all he could see were silhouettes of hands reaching out for a high five, so he decided to duck and weave across his lane, slapping as many as he could.

And at just over 14 hours, he ran in and kissed the finish line post.

I just can't believe how well he did!  Finishing an Ironman at all is a major accomplishment, finishing this particular Ironman with the horrendous swim and mountain climbs is unbelievable, and my husband managed to finish 537th out of  just over 1100 finishers.

My title is literally what they say as you cross the finish line - Christopher Skarda, you are an IRONMAN!  It might be the most amazing title he has ever achieved.  Way to go, babe!