My Sunday started at 6am. It would have started earlier, but I thankfully didn’t hear his alarm go off at 4:30am. 

G’s Olympic distance triathlon was this morning – held in downtown Portland.  The Portland Freshwater Trust Triathlon is considered one of the greenest races in the country. They hold it in a location where there is little need for people to move around via car. The course continually loops onto it self in a manner making it easy for spectators to walk a few blocks to see the racers.  And, like in the water, there was one motor boat. The rest of the support crew were in kayaks, canoes, a dragon boat, and many people on paddle boards. They don’t heavily mark the course with ropes and such – relying instead on amazing volunteers to keep it all together.  As G said after coming out of the water, it was neat to see a human chute from the water to the transition area. Last year, it was a loud guy yelling and pointing “that way”. This year, the volunteer in charge rallied the spectators to form this chute. The racers loved it.  The only downside about racing on downtown streets? The streets are bumpy – really bumpy. Last year, the downhill resulted in many people losing their water bottles during the first lap. This year, G lost his. Thankfully it was right in front of us. And since the turn around is the start of the uphill again which meant we could hand bottles back.  The volunteers were great with regards to that. They were collecting them – and handing them back as the riders came back around.

In the end, G did pretty good for someone who, in his words, “spent too much time under his bus and not enough time in the water or on the bike or on the road”. He finished in a hair over 3 hours. Last year, he did the sprint in 1hr 45 minutes. The swim and run are double the distance with the bike going from 16 to 26 miles.

They had solar and wind power to power some of the electrical stuff at the finish.

After the race, G wanted waffles. We have been having bad luck with waffle makers as of late, so I took him to Wicked Waffles near our house. Imagine in cinnamon waffle with three scrambled eggs in it – folded like a taco.  Yeah, that was his post-run recovery breakfast.

After we got home, we took a recovery nap while the rain that had threatened the day finally came down.  It wasn’t a bad day.

But, I don’t want to be G tomorrow. He’s sore now – but it’ll be MUCH worse tomorrow.