Southern Living: August 2011

I woke up the morning of the race so nervous. Jason was very calm. I thought of all the things that could go wrong and all the time and energy and money and sacrifices that we had both put towards this one race. I just wanted it to go well.

Starting line. It was overcast and cool and rained on and off, but Jason vastly prefers that to heat.

It's hard to see, but there are tons of athletes who aren't even in the water yet. Crazy!

There was a roughly translated line one of the brochures that said something to the effect that the athletes would set the water to boiling. A very appropriate description.

Swim 2.4 miles: Check!

Jason did so much better on the swim than he expected that I almost missed him. Here he's setting off on the bike. I saw him halfway through the second loop and couldn't stop smiling once I knew he'd conquered the hills...twice!

Bike 112 miles: Check!

Loop 2 (of 4) of the run. I started crying at this point because I knew for sure he was going to finish. And I cried again when he crossed the finish line. But I also cried when he finished his first sprint triathlon in 2007, so I'm just a crier.

Run 26.2 miles. Check!

Finishing chute.

Congratulations, Jason. I could not be more proud of you!!

On August 1, Ann flew into town to take the kids for a week while Jason and I flew to Europe so he could enter his first Ironman. We took the overnight flight to London. I slept a little, Jason didn't even try. We had to stand in line forever at customs and immigration. It was so hot, and I was so tired, with that horrible lack of sleep headache...it was miserable. We spent a little time in Heathrow before boarding another flight to Munich. We had a terrible time with our rental car and finding our hotel. It was actually an absolute nightmare, not improved by our complete lack of sleep. I've always thought Amazing Race would be fun, but after that experience, I don't think I'm cut out for it. After such a rocky start, the rest of the trip went incredibly smoothly. We took a double decker bus tour of Munich, then walked around the city center. We had dinner in a pretty courtyard in the main square, then went swimming and to the sauna back at the hotel. We were asleep by 9:30. I didn't take any pictures in Munich for some reason, but it was a very pretty, clean city. The next day, Jason got up at 7:30 and biked around the city for an hour to stay loose while I worked out in the hotel gym. We packed up and drove to Salzburg. I should mention that Jason and I are VERY aggressive vacationers. We overschedule our vacations with overambitious plans, but we like it that way. We stopped Chiensee along the way to walk around the lake, and stopped and got a cream donut at a McCafe on the side of the road. I know it sounds crazy and I should be ashamed to admit it, but it was the best donut I've ever had in my life. We walked around old town Salzburg and then took the tram up to the fortress. Toured the fortress, then drove to Halstatt...a beautiful drive to a gorgeous town.

We got to Halstatt and walked up to the tram just as the last one of the day was headed up the mountain. The town itself is totally worth visiting, though. Unbelievably beautiful. We had a great dinner in town, then a very long walk back to the car in a complete downpour. We were wringing water out of our clothes in the car. We had a 3 hour drive to Vienna in the dark so missed much of the countryside.

The drawback to our aggressive vacationing schedule is when you arrive in a place that you wish you had more time. I have never had any great desire to go to Vienna and wasn't expecting much. Wow, was I wrong. I love art museums and could have spent weeks in Vienna alone. Instead, we took another bus tour, walked through St Stephens and went up to the bell tower, and ate wiener schnitzel and potato salad at Figlmuller (thanks Kelli!). We were back in the car right after lunch and headed to Prague.

We ended up taking back country roads from Vienna to Prague instead of the highway. The Austrian countryside is gorgeous, and once you crossed the (very open) border into the Czech Republic, the landscape totally changed. It was really fascinating. Once you got through a pretty sleazy, gross border area, the rest of the country was very pretty. We arrived at 7:00 pm, checked in to our hotel, and explored the Old Town, walked over the Charles Bridge, and had another yummy (and late) dinner on a sidewalk. I had heard how amazing Prague was, and it wasn't an exaggeration. Quite possibly one of the most romantic cities I have ever been in. And how great to be there with Jason without the kids! (I love you, kids!!)

The next morning we were up and off to Regensburg, Germany. Another really pretty drive. Once we got into Germany, we got off the highway and meandered through the countryside. We had tons of trouble finding our hotel. That makes us 0 for 2 for finding our hotels in Germany. What's that about? We checked in, then headed over to a little island in the middle of the river for race check in and the info meeting, which was too warm and too long.

That night, we walked around Old Town and had dinner at an amazing Italian place. We followed it up with gelato at another place (in keeping with the theme of the evening). Saturday we went to the bike check in, then drove the bike course. Beautiful, but VERY hilly (basically up the side of a small mountain) at the beginning, then very, very windy around the farm land area. The whole time I was saying, "This isn't that bad." And the whole time I was thinking, "Holy cow, how could anyone bike this? Twice????" (It's a 2-loop course.) Towards the end of the drive, Jason did say, "If driving the course once is getting tedious, is that a bad sign for biking it?" After the drive, we had lunch in Old Town and then got to bed early.

There were Ironman signs everywhere. Yay!