IMC Swim

I lay awake from 3am to 5:30 when I got myself out of bed and headed off to the swim start. Man that is one sight to behold. 2600 of your closest friends forming the largest mass swim start in Ironman history. It was a party on the shore for the spectators. They opened up the beach and the spectators all moved onto it. Many waded out in the water to form the lines guiding the swimmers to shore. They stayed there for over 2 hours! It was great to see the fast guys come in. But because of my summer I was cheering for the last few. I should mention I bumped into Mike and Jennifer from my Running Room days and they were here to cheer on Greg. Now Mike, Greg, Geo and I all started Tri at the same year. Greg is the first of us to put his toes in the sand at an Ironman. Greg is quite the character once you get to know him, which is difficult for some people. So he did not have a support crew like some of the people at IMC, one person had 3 vans following her. We cheered like crazy when we saw him out of the water and he was smiling! Jen said the swim is not Greg’s strongest event so for him to be smiling he did alright!!

So we are getting close to the swim course closing and there are three people getting close. The announcer says if they stand up and they are in waist deep water they get to keep going. The crowd went ape shit!!! I have never seen so many people giving out so much positive energy. The closest two made it, the third of that group did not. There was also 2 other people out in the water. So for 3 people plus the 3 that called it quits in the water and came back by boat, their day was done. There was no Chris King asking for the family of the people still in the water what there times were like, how good of biker are they. It broke my heart. If I had not been with a few friends I would have openly cried for the people that didn’t make the cut off.