Christopher's a Half-Ironman!

It's just really beyond words, what Christopher accomplished on Sunday. He completed the Silverman triathlon in Henderson, Nevada (their tagline: "The world's most grueling triathlon.") in 6 hours, 45 minutes (15 minutes under his goal time).

What this means is that he swam 1.2 miles in 31 minutes (a REALLY fast time):

The swim start in Lake Mead. It was beautiful...the weather and the scenery.

The kids played in the dirt during the swim.

He's coming out of the water. It's tough to see him: see the red flotation device on the ground there? Look just above the left side of it. C is running in his black wet suit with a yellow cap.

This was FASCINATING. The people in the yellow shirt are 'wet suit strippers'. They pulled the racers' wet suits off of them before they transitioned to the bike. Christopher is lying on his back on the ground...you can see his feet peeking out to the left of the red sign.

Another funny "perk" of this race: sunscreen applicators. Christopher's on the far right of the picture getting sunscreen applied by three volunteers.

Then he biked 56 miles in 3hrs, 35 minutes:

Climbing the hill at mile 35.

Happy to see the kids. Ready to be done.

Waiting for Christopher at T2 (triathlon-speak for the bike-to-run transition). This was the ONLY sleep of the day for either kid: Si's 20 minutes in the stroller. Rough.

Rolling into T2. He handed his bike to the volunteers and then ran to a tent to change for the run.

And then he ran 13.1 miles in 2hrs, 30 minutes:

Mile 4.5 and feeling the pain.

FINISH! Amazing!

Christopher totally snuck up on me (I didn't expect him to finish so fast), so this was the only shot I got at the finish line. I was wrangling kids when I saw him running in, so when I pulled out the camera to take a photo, I ended up shooting a movie instead. It's really not for public viewing since half of it is me "asking" Millie not to throw rocks/run in the street/hit her brother. Whoops.

Still standing AND carrying kids (after lots of coke, juice, potato chips, at least 4 donuts, and some pasta).

Apparently, the race organizers did the impossible and found a run course that was almost entirely uphill. He said it was just killer. And though the bike course was beautiful, it was also rolling hills nearly the entire race. He finished in the top half of all competitors, which is awesome for his first race at this distance.

The kids and I had quite a day...our own marathon of sorts. The race set up was awesome for us to be able to see Christopher a number of times during the day. We caught the swim start and finish, drove and parked on the side of the road to cheer him in the middle of his bike, saw the bike-to-run transition, and saw him twice during the run before we made it back to see him finish. Overall, the kids were really great. The back of the car was trashed, their shirts were totaled before 9:00 am, and lunch was cobbled together from all the random snacks stashed in the backpack. It was a fun, emotional day watching the culmination of months of dedication to a goal. Congratulations, Christopher!