My Ironman:
On September 25th Joey completed his first half Ironman. WOW. I can't stress enough the hard work that he put into preparing for this race. Six am Saturday and Sunday mornings to avoid the afternoon heat during 3 hour long bike rides and 13 mile runs, weekly weight lifting, lunch hour lap swims, evening week night runs, interval training. Joey ate, slept and breathed Ironman.
We packed our family into the minivan early on a Friday morning, drove to Oklahoma City, spent the day at the zoo, picked up his race packet and dropped off his bike, ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, a place that can guarantee you a carb load (and I got a cheesecake slice practically to myself...woo hoo;) and then headed for our hotel, courtesy of Uncle Bryant's Starwood Director position;). The next morning Joey was up by 6 am and the kids and I, in our jammies, drove him to his race. I asked him if he was nervous and he said not really. He was lying;) The kids and I went back to the hotel to get dressed and pack up. Our plan was to return in time for his bike to run transition.
But I got lost (if you know me at all, your not shocked..and yes I had a Garmin). Isaac has seen this so many times that he no longer trusts me AT ALL behind the wheel!! We found a spot for our lawn chairs along the run route and saw this:
After swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles and 2 miles into his run he greeted us with a smile. "You'll never guess what happened." No, I wouldn't have. "My pedal came off my bike while I was standing up and I crashed." Ahhhhh!!! His knee and arm were all bloody and he had a large scrape on his chin. "I'm fine. It hurts but I'm fine." The kids cheered him on each time he passed (four times) and even on his last leg he smiled and talked to us. We cheered him into the finish line and heard over the loud speaker, "Joey Merback from Altus, OK. He'd like to thank his wife Ashley for all her support." ;)
After gathering up his gear he began hobbling back to the car with us. And, strangely, his wrist started KILLING him. It felt so bad he was sure it was broken. He had fallen off of his bike less than halfway through the race and not felt any wrist pain after the initial fall. Isn't adrenaline amazing!? Lo and behold, it wasn't broken, just a bad sprain but, still!!! Joey held up impressively well for the rest of the day and into the next. Just after the race he had said that he couldn't imagine doing that TWICE in a row....no way. Full Ironman-ers were nuts! By Tuesday or Wednesday the next week he was talking full Ironman. Like a new Mom a few days after giving birth, he had forgotten how painful it all was.
This one's for you, Dad. This guy looked about your age and was a half ironman finisher. Go ahead Dad, let the training begin!!
Here he is at the finish line, as spry as a young chicken!
And here we are back at the hotel. Daddy pooped us out;)
And Juliet slept through the whole thing. I can tell she's going to be LAZY!
And here's Georgie playing on the beach the night before.
Isaac too;)
The Zoo
Our visit to the Oklahoma City Zoo was awesome. Hands Down, the best Zoo experience I've ever had. We actually had some personal interaction with ALL the Gorillas, a Giraffe, and an Okapi.
Georgie, our Jr. Mommy wanted to push the stroller around the whole time.
If the glass hadn't been there we would have touched noses, hands, shoulders, feet and exchanged breath with these Gorillas. The biggest one marched right over and basically stared us down for about 2 minutes...it was as if he was trying to say something to us like, "See, I'm not afraid of you, but you're afraid of me" The other ones wanted to play with us. They were so friendly, wild and playful.
So close!!
