Ironman 2010

I am beyond proud of Mike and Sean. This last weekend we all travelled to Tempe, Arizona for the 2010 Ironman competition. For those of you who don't know what a feat this is, the Ironman consists of three parts: a 2.4 mile open water swim, a 112 mile bike ride and finally a 26.2 mile run. That's a total of 140.6 miles and the contestants are given a cutoff time of 17 hours. The pros that won the race did it in 8 hours and 7 minutes, but for me it was way cooler to watch the "average Joes" finish. There's something about seeing a normal person push themselves to do something so amazing that was just fantastic to watch.

Mike and Sean both finished before the midnight cutoff and I honestly couldn't be prouder of both of them!

Here's Erin, Sarah and I saying goodbye (and good luck) to the boys just before the race:

The swim start... that's seriously a lot of people:

Our cheering squad - we had some bright shirts made so that the boys could see us when they passed on the course:

Here's Mike on the bike:

And on the run:

And, finally, at the finish - I was incredibly happy he was still alive and judging by the look on his face in the picture, he was happy to have pizza:

Like I said (and can't say enough!) I'm so proud of both Mike and Sean... what they did this weekend was such a huge accomplishment and is utterly amazing to me. Here are both of the boys at the finish line with their medals:

This was a fantastic trip and it was so much fun for the cheering crew to run around for 17 hours screaming at the top of our lungs! Our families and friends back home got to track Mike and Sean on the internet (Ironman has a great website) and were following along the whole way!