Iron Man

6/12/2010

The day Oscar has been training for (off and on) 18 weeks has finally arrived.  He has been looking forward to or dreading this day for about 6 months now. 

The night before he had to take a sleeping pill just to make sure he would sleep.  He has a tendancy to be up all night the night before a big event, like beginning of hunting season. *smile*  He is also never organized unless it envloves hunting or in this case the Iron Man.  Here is his prep work before we took off to Boise..

Lily was his number one fan!  Oscar was sponsored by the Idaho Beef Council and ran for 'Team Beef'.  He got a t-shirt, a tri shirt, cow bell, posters, and inflatable cheering gear.  Lily is testing out the cow bell, and sure enough it works.

I took Oscar in to get all set up at his transition stations.  First we stopped at transition two the bike to run one, but first he needed to get some last minute chatting done. *smile*

Transition Two set up....

We stopped by Winco to get some energy snacks for along the way.  Man he takes this job serious.... *wink*

Then I MADE him stop for some lunch before driving him up to Lucky Peak dam to get ready for the first part of the race the swim.  Here he is picking out a delicious Subway sandwhich!

Then it was onto the drive up the road.  I dropped him off at the base of the dam and he had to hike up the trail to the starting place.  I told him good luck, have fun, stay safe, listen to your body (all the mother hen stuff) and that I would see him later on the run part. 

While he was up there preparing for his turn he had a small panic attack, he couldn't find his goggles.  He had on his wetsuit and his cap and had given his bag of clothes to the volunteers.  He told a buddy of his 'I can't find my goggles' and then takes off running.  Meanwhile those who were standing around him were snickering watching him run off to the volunteer truck.  When he got to the truck he asked if anyone turned in goggles, they said they hadn't so he took off back to his buddy.  When he got back he reached up and slapped his forhead in frustration and realized 'Oh my goggles are on my head!' hahahahaha That's why those guys were snickering!

Here he is getting ready for the 1.2 mile swim... (these pictures were taken by Oscar's friend Josh, THANKS Josh!)

And they're off....

Out of the water in 38 minutes, 18 seconds!  AWESOME time!  When I was tracking him online the time was 33 minutes so I still say it was that!

Transition One:  Always the show off!  You can see him doing some kind of superman towel flinging and of course the bootie shakin  *smile*

This was hillarious to hear about afterwards.  He is trying to get into his biking spandex outfit but is having a 'little' trouble.  First he puts his feet through the arm holes, so he has to take it off and try again.  Then he puts it on backwards (as you can see in this picture), and has to take it off again! 

Third time was a charm and he was finally off after have a huge t-time of 7 minutes 41 seconds (that is not that good for a transition time, yikes!)

Starting the 56 mile bike ride!  I found out later that at mile 50 his thigh muscle cramped up on him and he fell!  I was so nervous after that point, I told him he just needed to focus on having fun and not the time.  He was able to finish the bike portion with a time of 3 hours 57 minutes 22 seconds, with a transition time of 5 minutes 51 seconds.  What a trooper!

My mom was able to come up for the event and watch our three youngest, while I was able to go watch and support Oscar.  Our ward youth group was able to secure an aid station for the race.  The youth, parents, and other ward members signed up to man the station from 3pm to 11pm.  We were to pass out cups of water, gatorade, soaking sponges that sort of thing. Their reward was to watch Oscar, support other 'Team Beef' racers, encourage all other racers, and receive a whopping $1200 too!  WOW what a fundraiser.  I took Zachary in with me and Oscar (aka O-Town or Lil O) met up with us later since he was coming home from a camping trip.  This is what we did while waiting for Oscar to run by.

Getting ready for the runners by setting up tables with glasses of water, gatorade, coke, ice, sponges soaked in cold water.  We also had tables with fruit, goo, and chips.

We were the last station on the route, but they had to make a u-turn and come back our way, so we got to see the athletes a total of four times.  Here is the station.

Our Young Woman's President upon finding out Oscar was being sponsored by the Idaho Beef Council was able to get them to sponsor the aid stations so to speak.  They said they would give us more cheering gear and supply us with hamburgers and hotdogs too!  So here is the 'Team Beef' area.

Zachary LOVED being on the 'sponge' crew.  I think he liked it a little too much, because he was always soaking wet!

Here is Oscar coming by our aid station for the first time.  We all erupted with cheering and cow bells ringing, and of course that was a HUGE motivator for him.

He made the u-turn and came back through and the youth thought it would be great to tag him with water..

This time he took the opportunity to eat a bite of hamburger to pose for the camera.  BUT he almost threw up eating it so he spit it back out.  It was all for the picture anyway *smile*  If you look close in the background you can see Zachary trying to chuck a soaked sponge at him and me cheering with the cow bell!

The third time he ran through I yelled 'Oscar when you come back I want a Kiss!'  I guess there was a lady who heard this and was a motivator for Oscar later on in the race.  When he stopped and started walking she said 'hey you need to start running again, I heard a lady yell she wants a kiss, and I want to see it'  Oscar said 'yah I heard it too and I hope it was my wife!'  hahaha he is exhausted but still has time to make jokes! LOVE HIM!  So he started to run and when he came back Josh captured the moment....

He was so excited from the kiss he had to do his famous handstand too!  Really, does he know he is in a race and is being timed?  *wink*

After he came through the fourth time, me, Josh, Kip, and Morgan ran to Josh's car and raced to the finish line to get pictures of him crossing the finish line.  It's a good thing we ran there, because we got there just in time!  Kip was able to hand him some cow bells to shake as he made his final stretch into the finsh line.  Here is his doing his famous finishing dance *smile*

I was so happy for him, I was jumping up and down and screaming and shaking the cowbell!  I'm sure somebody thought I was a crazy woman, but I didn't care one bit!  He finished the run in 2 hours 30 minutes 22 seconds.  Total race time was 7 hours 19 minutes 34 seconds!  WOW what an accomplishment!

All that effort deserved another kiss!  *smile*

It was so amazing to watch Oscar accomplish something so challenging.  To just be apart of the aid station was amazing too, watching all the different types of athletes and supporting them too.  Oscar is all ready to go again next year, and may even have some folks joining him.  The youth are all ready signed up for running another aid station too.  The Idaho Beef Council and the IronMan staff were very pleased with our volunteer efforts.  Many of the athletes commented on our enthusiasm and hard work.

Way to go honey 'YOU ARE THE MAN'!!