IM Boulder

This past weekend was Ironman Boulder, and we had several friends and teammates racing. We also signed up to catch at the finish line - the one main tri volunteering thing we hadn't done yet.

We got in a run that morning and got up to Boulder sometime after ... 12:30p, I would say? We wandered around the Ironman village and restrained ourselves from buying a lot of crap from the merch tent. We did, however, scour the clearance/sale racks and found Brandon a backpack and me a lightweight zip-up hoodie, so there's that. Oops.

We got sushi for lunch and around 2, 2:30ish (I think?) wandered over to the finish line before it got insane so we could check in for our shift, get our volunteer t-shirts and finish area wristbands. This? was a smart idea. We also FINALLY met fellow MaccaX'ers Lisa and Curtis who moved here from Florida sometime early this year. 

After that, we meandered the mile or so to get a frozen bear (mmm, coffee) and then back up so we could make sure to get our friend Sam, who was kicking serious ass that day.


Finish line. That's Lisa in the pink hat.

We missed the first few finishers, but we were able to get Sam ... by hopping on our shift a few hours early. Heh. Sam, I might add, came in sub-10, third in his age group, 13th or 14th overall ... AND, as we found out the next day, qualified for Kona in only his second IM. Beast.


With wife Danielle, who's running Leadville later this month.

That effort about killed him - we took him to the med tent with some nausea, but if you want to Kona qual, that's kind of what you need to do.


Medal basket.

Several hours later, Brandon caught a pilot friend of his, Hugh, and about an hour after that, I shoved about five other volunteers out of the way to snag our friend Scott, who got a solid PR in his second IM.



With Brandon.

Catching made us really realize we miss Ironman. We miss the insanity of the long course. We miss the training. We miss the sheer satisfaction of crossing that finish line. Scott asked his family after, "Remember when I went down to Arizona a couple years ago? It was to watch these guys. They're my inspiration." We miss being that inspiration.

We were going to do this race next year anyway, but being there just solidified it. As did learning our MaccaX teammate Shawn failed his second year in a row (year one: altitude sickness. year two: seaweed attack); we want to race alongside him.

8.7.16. Mark your calendars.


We saw a proposal at the finish; one of the Mexican athletes got proposed to by her boyfriend and as you can see by the hug, she said yes. Totally adorable.