Finally the time has arrived for Jeremy to complete his first Ironman down in the Woodlands, Texas. In some ways it seems like it took forever to get here, and in some ways it's hard to believe it's already done. Jeremy took Kelton and McKenzie down to Texas a couple days before I arrived with the other two kids. And while I missed a little bit of the pre-race excitement I still have a pretty good idea of what the butterflies were doing in his stomach. Also in his stomach, a protein-packed breakfast that was intended to hold Jer and Brody off for the next two days. Good luck with that boys!
Packing their transition bags.
And the coveted, glorious athlete wristband.
I did manage to visit Ironman village before the race and Jeremy fit in one last session in the squeezy chair. This is becoming very real!
The morning of the race, Brody, Jeremy, Alysha, Bruce, and I went down to the start line. We passed the Timex truck and that really got the boys excited even though they knew it was the last time they'd see it that day.
The kids wanted to surprise Jeremy with temporary tattoos of their favorite things: a lizard, hedgehog, pirate gold, and Daxton "chose" a turtle. Jeremy put them on his forearms to have his kiddos close to him during the race.
All suited up and ready to go!
Now it was time for the spectators to worry. The boys were part of the thousands of athletes ready to race for the next twelve hours. Even though both of them had earned bronze status black caps, we couldn't identify them in the water. We cheered for the chaos anyway.
While we waited we saw this. We pretended it was for Bruce's birthday.
We waited in T1 long enough to see them rush past on their bikes. Brody beat Jeremy out of the water by twelve minutes, which we expected, but they both looked confident and excited so that was a really good sign. It was such a brief moment watching them run by and then it was gone. More waiting.
We headed back to the house to see what the kids were doing. Leesa had them all dressed and ready to go when we arrived. (Having the King's house just fifteen minutes from the race venue was definitely a huge bonus). But before we loaded everyone up in the car for a long, hot afternoon watching racers, Alysha, Bruce, and I parked by the bike course for one more quick Ironman sighting. Mckell and Pam had scouted out a place for us and we met them there. We parked the car just in time to see Brody cruising by and I was happily surprised that Jeremy was now only about seven minutes behind him. I was a little worried he was going too fast and that he would burn out, but I tried not to stress about it too much.
Back in the car, and back to the house to get the kids. Waiting for them was very hot. I had packed bubbles, a misting fan, water bottles galore, and sidewalk chalk to help keep them entertained but there's only so much you can do.
Luckily the run was a multi-loop course so Jeremy and Brody ran by frequently. Jeremy ultimately passed Brody on the bike and came through T2 so fast that I missed him. I tried chasing him down, but it didn't work. So I was very anxious while waiting for him around mile six. I knew his splits were still looking good-he held his bike pace- but I wanted to see his face to make sure everything was actually all right. He came cruising by us looking so, so good! I was so relieved! True, he still had twenty miles ahead of him, but he was looking good for now.
We waited and waited for Brody and when he showed up he did not look good. He was talking about quitting but Aly walked with him for a few minutes and he was able to keep going. I know these boys are competitive and it just wouldn't do for one of them not to finish the race.
By this point all of the kids were roasting. It was hot and humid like we expected Texas to be, but that didn't make it any better. We moved our camp down to the splash pads along the course and that worked really well...
until it started to rain. This wasn't just rain though, it was a Texas thunderstorm complete with lightning and hail! We found a spot to take cover until it cleared, but we didn't know what the athletes were doing. All we know is that the course was eerily empty. No one's timing chip was updating so we had no idea where they were. It took about an hour, but the storm finally passed.
It was still soggy and damp, but we could stand outside again. Slowly athletes started reappearing. Based on Jeremy's pace before the storm hit I figured he had about six miles to go, so I stayed close to the finish line just in case. I received a text from other spotters in our family saying that they saw Jeremy and he was getting close. I made my way to the finish line because there was no way I was missing that. When I saw him come into view I gasped and cried. He was right there! He had made it 139.8 miles by that point and he was going to finish his Ironman! He was still running! He looked happy! I was so proud of him at that moment. He crossed the finish line with his arms raised and looked so good.
I met him at the finisher's chute and even though I had warned him at the beginning of the day that there was no way I was hugging a sweaty man at the end of his race, I did anyway. I couldn't let go. I just cried and cried that he had done it.
He told us that when the lightning started getting really bad they pulled all the athletes off the course as they came to certain stopping points. On the live blog it said they were pulled to safety, Jeremy said they were pulled into a puddle. Since each athlete trickled in, there was no way of knowing what their times were or how long they were stopped. The rain had completely fried the timing stations and almost blew the finish line away. He waited there for about twenty minutes before they released them to finish the race and he said it was tough to get moving again. He was starting to gain speed those last couple miles and was super bummed they stopped him. Bruce and Leesa went back down the course to find Brody and Jeremy and I slowly made our way behind him.
Even though Jeremy looked good when he crossed the finish line, I could tell he was starting to hurt. We found a bench to sit on then Jeremy started to tell me his fingers and toes were tingling, then his hands, and his lips. His speech started getting all jumbly, but I could understand that he needed salt. I had the diaper bag with me so at least I had goldfish. He laid on the ground resting but couldn't make his fingers work, so I slowly dropped goldfish into his mouth. It started raining again so I bent over his face to keep the rain off of it, and continued feeding him. We were laughing so hard. After he finished the bag of gold fish he felt better but we both knew he needed fuel. We walked back to the finisher's tent to get him some grub then went to find the rest of the family.
He said that everything went according to plan. All of his paces, his training, his mental tricks worked and he finished with a time of 10:20:28! That is better than his 70.3 splits! As a bonus he finished 57th in his age group and 485th overall out of 3,030 athletes. That is also something to be proud of (swim split: 1:29:23; bike split: 4:35:26; run split: 4:06:40). It rained while we continued to wait for Brody. Luckily our crew had found a sheltered spot by a conference center along the course and we could sit where it was dry while we waited for him to come by.
It took longer than we thought, and Brody didn't come by for another two hours. His finish time was 12:24:03, but that's not the part that mattered. What mattered was that both of these awesome guys finished their first Ironman! And as a bonus, on Bruce's birthday.
We were all just a little bit proud of them. Nice work boys.
"Jeremy Rogers, YOU are an Ironman!"
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