Iron Man!

Quay became interested in triathlons about three weeks before Ava was born. He went in to a triathlon store to be fitted for a new pair of running shoes. He and I joined a gym after we were married, and he was starting to run a little more and hadn't bought shoes in a while. Anyway, he came home from the store and said, "You know, I look as in shape as some of those guys. If they can do a triathlon, I bet I can, too." That's all it took for him to get started. Now, this is when I was at my biggest, so while I was still gaining weight and waddling like a penguin, Quay started losing lots of weight....this wasn't a real nice time for him to start gettin all fit!

The first year he concentrated on just getting fit enough and building his endurance enough to do sprints. Those are triathlons that take a little over an hour to complete. The swim and bike can vary a little, but the run was almost always a 5k. Around the end of the triathlon season--late fall--he decided he wanted to do some longer distances. He got a wild hair and signed up for the Florida Ironman. I remember we had to leave early one Sunday morning for him to get home and get on the computer. He had to be on the computer when the registration opened in order to get a spot.

The next year, he spent hours upon hours training for the Ironman, and longer distance triathlons. He did a few international distance triathlons, a marathon, and a half ironman. The international distance is somewhere between the sprint triathlon and a half ironman. Many Saturdays I woke up to an empty bed because Quay would leave around 5 am for 5 and 6 hour bike rides. I do admit, there were certain times I'd get fed up with the amount of time he spent exercising. But most of the time I was okay with it, because I know this is something he really enjoys and has become very good at.

Man, I didn't expect this post to be this long! Anyway, to make a long story short, (haha it's alreadyong!) Quay competed and completed the Florida Ironman last weekend! His goal was to finish under 11 hours. First off, I can't imagine doing any type of exercise for 11 hours, unless shopping becomes a sport. Here are some pictures of the race!

Quay checking all of his gear before the race.

The mass start. Quay said it was like in the movie Titanic when it showed all of the people trying to tread water when the ship went down. He said he was beat up for the first half of the swim with everyone kicking and swimming.

Woo hoo! He finished!