We are an ironman family!

At the finish line at 11:30 p.m.

Mark completed his second ironman on Sunday. I will start from the end and work back to the beginning. He finished the race at aprox 11:30 at night. They allow kids to sign up and run in with their irondad or ironmom, I am pretty sure they will never have an ironmom unless Mark remarries and his new wife does ironman and the kids call her mom. Anyways, sorry for digressing, but I am that sure I will never do an Ironman. Plus, why do a race named after a man? Anyways, Markie got signed up at about 10:45, because I thought the earliest Mark would finish would be 11:00 based on when I last saw him running or rather walking about 6 miles from the finish. Well, for the next 45 minutes Markie asked me every 30 seconds how much longer til his Daddy would run up. He was sooo excited to run in with his Daddy. When he saw his Daddy coming, he took off running for him and grabbed his hand, and started running with him. Markie and Mark rounded the corner for the final couple hundred yards and the crowd was cheering and people from the stands were high fiving Markie, it was very thrilling to watch, so thrilling there was no time for pictures. The pictures you are seeing are right after. I really cannot put into words what it is like watching your husband finish a race he started 16 and a half hours earlier. It is very thrilling. Fore every finisher the announcer shouts out the finisher's name (if he has it visible on his bib) and says, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN! He will also say a few words about some of the finishers, like while we were waiting for Mark to come in they announced the oldest woman finishing, 65 years old. It is worth dragging your 4 year old and 1 year old down at 6 a.m. and back and forth until 11:30 at night. Markie, Bella and I were heading to the car at 11:55 when we heard a finisher come in, so we stopped off near the finish line at 11:57 to see if there were any last finishers. There were a lot of late finishers, but nobody else came in in the last three minutes, but it was fun to stay and see if anyone would make it. See, at midnight the race is just over, if you are still running the marathon, you can't finish. It is just over until the next time. An ironman is not really a spectator sport, you wait for hours and hours to catch a glimpse of the one you went to watch get out of the water, or zoom past on his bike, or jog past. But all the same, something draws me back down there throughout the day for that glimpse. I told Markie and Bella they were iron kids, they watched their Daddy start and finish the race. I have to say, I am glad it will be another 18 months until the next one, it is exhausting for everyone. He will try for his third in November of 09 in Tempe again. Another post another day with more race pictures and details of the start when I can!