We have been riding the Foxy’s Fall Century for several years. I just looked back through blog posts to see if I could figure out when we started. In Foxy’s Fall Century 2015 I referred to this being a revival of a ride we used to do so I don’t know when we rode it the first time. Same bike. Same truck. The only other reference I found to Foxy’s is to a blog post about the three-year anniversary of the accident that could have changed all our lives. That post ends with a photo similar to many of these in today’s post. See that post on my website blog if you want to go off track and find out details of that accident and recovery.
Here is the tandem we bought when we were first married. We get a lot of comments. “Cool bike” “Beautiful bike”, etc. I’m not sure if people comment in the same way as car enthusiasts would comment on a ’67 Camero (which I had in college). In other words, this is an old bike as cycling trends go.
We did some good rides on this in the old days.
This is the only kind of photo I can get while we’re riding. The sun is low when we start so that’s the view–big bike, small people.
This is about 40 minutes later riding south. Those hills should be familiar from west-facing photos from our farm. We weren’t that far from home.
At the rest stop at Lake Solano near Winters. I took this photo because Dan’s brother texted while we were stopped there.
About 15 miles from Davis. This is the view I have while we are riding. Actually this is distorted. The phone photo would have shown only the green backpack canteen but I expanded the view a bit.
I held the phone above my head for this view.
Ride over. Back at the truck.
I feel fine, but maybe next year I’ll try to get a few miles in before the day of the ride.
In the last post I described the swim portion of the Ironman and saw Chris leaving for the bike portion. That was about 8:25.
Katie, Kirby, and Kasen found us after walking from their hotel.
The bike route went from downtown about 18 miles east. (At least hat’s what I calculate from the total of 112 miles.) The cyclists turned around at that point and came back here and did that loop three times. Notice the hill in the background and the unicorn along the fence to the right.
I don’t know if people wear costumes to provide amusement to the competitors, so they can be spotted by their athlete, or because it’s warmer inside a big balloon.
Just down from that hill in the earlier photo and still in sight of the bike course there was a clearing. Kasen had chosen to pack a football for his entertainment. Katie, Meryl, and Kirby were talked into playing catch.
About two hours into the bike portion Chris showed up here for the end of the first loop. The streets had been blocked so there is a lane for bikes and a lane for car traffic going west.
It was just bikes going east. They made a tight turn-around. When we were watching for Chris we looked for a white helmet, white jersey with the blue patches on the chest, red socks, and the red tape on one knee.
We had six hours to wait from the beginning to end of the bike portion. We wandered some. This was written on the back of one of the signs at the Ironman Village. One of our family slogans is “Move faster.” Chris has give us his own words of advice: “Don’t get off the bike.” “Forward is a pace.”
It was time to climb the hill…because it was there. There was a sign that labels it Hayden Butte Preserve and the Leonard Monti Trail. It is also known as “A” Mountain for the 60-foot gold A painted on part of it that we did not see from our view.
There is quite a view from the top. The street to the left in this photo is where there is one lane of traffic and one lane for the cyclists.
Walking down the mountain back to the course. The white bridge over the river (dammed to be more of a lake here) will be part of the marathon course.
After the third out and back loop the cyclists rode into the transition area where volunteers took the bikes as they dismounted.
A change of shoes to start the marathon. Now we needed to watch for a red cap.
Only 26 miles to go.
There were felt pens and paper at a table in the Ironman village. During the six hours we waited for Chris to finish the bike course the kids made signs.
The purpose of our trip south (described in yesterday’s blog post) was to support Chris at the Ironman and to be there with Meryl, Katie, and the grandkids.
I don’t have photos to share from the trip from Joshua Tree NP to Tempe on Friday or on Saturday. When we got on the road Friday afternoon we were stopped on I-10 by an accident to the east. It took about two hours to move five miles and even after it cleared traffic was slow. That put us in Phoenix during the commute traffic and we didn’t meet up with Chris and Meryl until late in the evening.
Saturday was the day to check in the bike and set up all the gear. Dan went with Chris and Meryl to do that while I drove 2-1/2 hours east to pick up Katie and the grandkids (Kiirby and Kasen) at a small store at Bylas, Arizona. Katie had left her home in Texas Friday evening but Saturday morning she had car trouble and was stranded. Those two days remind me of our road trip this summer and all the delays due to traffic problems and car trouble. The country was striking, but I refrained from taking photos while driving.
By Saturday evening all of us were together. Kirby and Kasen were excited to have use of the hotel gym and pool after a long trip. The rest of us were ready to call it a day because we’d be getting up early Sunday.
We got to the venue about 6 a.m. These events always seem complicated to navigate. There are 1700+ athletes and all the people who are there to watch and support. The transition area has racks with all 1700+ bikes in place and all the other infrastructure needed. There is an Ironman Village with vendors. Streets have been blocked off for the bike course and sometimes the marathon. This was right in the middle of the city.
The map on the left shows the swim course (2.4 miles). That was in the Salt River, running through downtown Tempe. The start, finish and transitions were all at the far left on the swim and bike course maps and the middle of the run map. The bike portion (112 miles) was three times out and back on that course. The run was three times around that full course to get in 26 miles. As spectators it is our job to figure out where to position ourselves to find our athlete throughout the day.
Chris had been working through a knee issue so he taped it before putting on the wetsuit. No photo, but there is a story to remember about unknowingly flipping his timing chip into the river behind him when he pulled things out of his bag. Someone near by pointed out that something fell in the water and it turned out to be the chip. (All athletes wear the chip because that is how times are recorded and how us spectators can track them on our phones.) Fortunately it was floating near enough to just be able to retrieve it.
Pre-race photos.
Athletes lined up on the path to the swim start, men with green caps, women with pink. That’s Chris in the green cap between the pink and blue ones at the far side. They try to line up in order of anticipated finish time. Chris thought that he’d swim the course in about 1:10 but was behind the 1:30 to 1:40 time sign. It doesn’t really matter because the official time is from when swimmers enter the water to when they finish. That’s why that timing chip is important.
Swimmers got in the water at a platform under the bridge.
They swam east in the river to a turn around point, then back to that red buoy just visible under the bridge on the left, and to the finish.
Meryl and Dan and I wandered around the area hoping to find some sun so we could warm up. Katie and the kids didn’t try to make the start of the race. They walked a couple miles from the hotel to meet us just after Chris’ swim/bike transition.
This are the bins full of gear that the athletes left as they got ready for the swim.
Chris finished the swim in 1:09 and made the bike transition.
I’ve been distracted, but now I’m ready to finish this story. At the end of Day 2 I said that we got to the Ironman start at 5 a.m.
The race was supposed to start at 6 a.m. At the last minute the organizers changed the start time to 6:20 because they also shortened the swim course. The normal 70.3 Ironman has a swim of 1.2 miles. This was shortened to 500 yards because of the high winds. The water was very choppy and maybe they were worried about not having enough people to monitor the whole course under those conditions.
After leaving the transition bag with the bike we had to wait until athletes started to line up for the swim start.
To space them out the swimmers were allowed in the water two at a time every five seconds. It took over an hour to get all the athletes in the water. Each athlete wears an ankle band with a chip so times are recorded individually at the start and finish and at checkpoints along the course. We were able to pick Chris out of the crowd since he placed himself, based on expected time, near the front. There were a lot of black wetsuits and green caps, but his goggle straps were under the outer green cap and that was an identifying feature, at least at this point.
He is the on the left entering the water.
The original course would have taken swimmers out to that last yellow buoy, then left to the buoy at the far left and then back to shore. The shortened course had swimmers turning at the red buoy in the center of the photo, to another buoy out of the photo and back. There were at probably a couple dozen people in kayaks, rafts, boats, and even scuba divers to watch for problems.
Swim/bike transition. The wetsuit and goggles are left behind near the bike rack.
This is the only place we saw Chris on the 56 mile bike course.
Bike/run transition. Leave the helmet and switch shoes. The run is half a marathon–13.1 miles.
Chris’ support crew. We don’t provide actual support (food, etc) but can cheer him on.
This is the first loop through town.
This is right at the end.
The finish line.
These times are all different because they are measuring total time based on when the athlete entered the water. The stats on the Ironman app where we followed him throughout the course. show 34th out of 135 in his age group. That’s in the top 25% and that was also true over all.
It was a quick trip for all of us, but we’re glad that we were able to be there to support Chris and to hang out with Meryl while Chris was on the course. We didn’t linger after the race because they both had to be at work on Monday and we needed to get back here. Chris was finished before noon we all left by about 1:30. We made it home at 3:15 a.m. Monday.
Day 1 was the travel day. Day 2, Saturday was when the bike was to be checked in and we would drive the bike and run courses. We weren’t due to meet up with Chris and Meryl until mid-morning.
I decided to go on a walk since I’ve been doing it regularly at home and I sure needed to get some exercise after that 13-hour drive the day before. I took this photo for Dan because I thought he’d get a kick out of those cars.
The staging for the Ironman gets complicated. After the athletes get out of the water on race day they move to where the bikes are staged. The clock is already ticking so they want transition time to be as quick as possible. The bike needs to be ready to go and some people leave their gear bags there the day before or may plan to bring them back on race-day morning. Transition from swim-to-run requires a towel, whatever clothes you are going to put on over swimwear (after of course removing the wetsuit at the end of the swim–there are usually volunteers to help pull it off), and cycling shoes and helmet. The bike-to-run transition is usually just switching shoes and leaving the helmet behind with the bike.
After Chris checked in he was given all the numbered stickers for his helmet and the bike. He takes great care to make sure that sticker is on perfectly straight and even.
This is NOT the gear he will wear on race day, but after putting wheels back on the bike he needed to take it for a short test ride.
There are racks set up for all the bikes. Gear bags are left with the bikes or brought the next morning. We drove the course, checking out the long uphills on the bike course. After we had seen the course and spent some time exploring the lake shore roads we went back to the hotel for awhile. Dan was out of reading material and saw that there was a book store on the same street as the hotel. This place was called EntertainmentMart and it calls itself an entertainment superstore. It was a pretty amazing store but we didn’t explore it all–just the books, used and new. Here’s an abrupt change of photos.
There was a table set up just inside and an author was there with her first book, a fantasy adventure. I talked to her and her husband for awhile and they said asked if I wanted to put on the gloves and helmet that were for their display. I chose the gloves. And I bought the book.
The store also had music and a section of vinyl records. This was an interesting use for some of the none-collectable LPs.
Back to the main event.
On Sunday we set the alarm for 4-something so we could meet up with Chris and Meryl by 4:30 and drive to the event. You never know what traffic will be like when almost 2000 people try to get to the same spot at the same time.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 