The Superfrog Half Iron Man 2012

This weekend was a big one for the Mallory family.   Peter has been training for months for this event, 70.3 total miles of swimming, biking, and running, so we were all so excited for his big day yesterday.  This was his first ever half Ironman, so we started preparing Saturday.   His game-day beverage was water instead of beer and instead of grilling burgers, we had spaghetti for dinner.   And all of the training hours and weekend preparation paid off, because he did amazing.   Susannah and I were the proudest spectators there!    Here are some of our photos from the event.....

Getting all of his tattoos in just the right spot was one of our tasks on Saturday night.   It was almost bedtime for Susannah....can you tell??

 

 

Here's the swim start.  1.2 miles in the brisk Pacific ocean with some big surf.

Susannah and I didn't make it to the swim, which was apparently pretty crazy......huge waves and undertow......but Peter finished first in his group, 1.2 miles of open ocean swimming in 38 minutes. 

Peter said some people didn't even get in the water-they just walked away. 

Here's Peter exiting the water. 

One of the unique aspects of this race was that Lance Armstrong competed and actually won the half Iron-man.  Peter said it was extremely cool to be on the same race course, see Lance a couple of times on the bike and compete against him.

Here's the bike turn-around.   The bike course was four loops so we got to see Dada more than once.   Guess who else we got to see??   Lance Armstrong.   This picture is of Lance.   

Susannah was such a trooper all day, waiting patiently on her Daddy to come by.

And here he is!!   He is the one in the white t-shirt at the back of the photo.

We were so happy to get our first glimpse of him because we knew he had survived the swim.  

Bye-Bye Daddy!   You can do it!!

Here we are at the final lap marker of the bike.   Susannah and I did our own little biathlon yesterday.....we rode our bike to the first spot and then rode home, jumped in the car with the jogging stroller, drove down near the finish and parked and then ran to see this location.   It was such a fun morning for the whole family.

Here comes Daddy, about to finish his bike leg. As you can see, the entire course was right along the coast.   It was beautiful, but super hot.   It was in the mid 80's yesterday and the course had absolute no shade.

Here is Peter as he starts the run.....notice that he is on the beach.   5 miles of the run is on the beach which was especially tough yesterday because it was high tide.   The rest of the run was on the SEAL base with no crowd support, water or shade.  Peter referred to it as a death march. 

There he goes......only 13 miles to go!

Susannah and I had a couple of hours to kill so we played in the sand.

And had a picnic at the playground across the street.

We had so much fun.

We ran and chased the soccer ball and prayed for Peter.  ;)

It was a very fun Mommy/Daughter day.

And here he comes!!   Almost to the finish!!  

Go daddy Go!!

First stop, drink water in the shade.....  He finished in 6 hours and 23 minutes, 6th place in his group.  Not bad for his first ever half Iron-man.

                           Great Job Peter!!   We love you so much and are so proud of you!!   

One last photo.......this is Lance receiving his first place award.   It was cool to see him, but for Susannah and me, watching Peter finish was the highlight of our day.