Here is Elias at the baseball field. Obviously, Elias has a great time wherever he goes (I just LOVE that picture of him -- it is really Elias). Note that in the second picture, the photographer (one of the dads) snapped the picture just as Elias missed the ball -- you can just see it under the bat. That is how things are going with Elias at bat these days, but he has gotten a foul tip or two, so he is improving.

This past weekend, I volunteered at Ironman Arizona. I had always wanted to do this, but hadn't had the opportunity until this year. It was totally overwhelming and I was amazed at the focus of these people. I also came away with a total conviction that I will never do this race. Another TriGirl and I drove up together on Saturday afternoon, after we both participated in a trail run. This was my first mistake: not going into Ironman fully rested and ready for anything. My feet were bothering me from the race, and spending the day on them wasn't the best choice.

We got up on Sunday morning at 4am, got dressed, had breakfast, and left the hotel by 5am. We walked to the venue and my friend got me in to the swim area. I got to be right next to the steps coming out of the water. It was really amazing -- these people were coming out of the water and were all wobbly because they had worked so hard in the swim, and they then had to go and change into bike clothes and head out on the bike course. They were really tired and still had 2/3 of the race to go. Two people didn't make it out of the swim -- they were towed in by a kayak (you have 2 hours and 20 minutes to finish the swim). We didn't stick around for this. I really didn't want to see it. Those people had spent months training for this and didn't even make the swim cutoff. Brutal.

Once the swim was over, we went and had something to eat and then headed over to the bike course to watch the people go by. This is when people started looking kind of tough -- and really hot. There were many sunburns too. By this point in the day, it was about 90 degrees and the bike course was being subjected to 25mph winds. It was a very tough bike ride -- 3 loops of the course (making for 112 miles in all), and the whole uphill section is where you had the most wind. I am so glad I wasn't doing this. While we were watching people do the bike, the first runners came through. These were the pros, each escorted by a bike with their place listed on the front. I couldn't believe that they were already on the run course when most people were just starting their second or third loop of the bike course.

We were due in at the run aid station by 3pm, but we got there at 2:30pm and started working -- and didn't stop until 9pm. These poor bastards coming through our run station were looking worse and worse. In Arizona, the hottest part of the day is between 3pm and 6pm, and of course, this is when most people were running the 26.2 miles they had to run to finish the race. We did have a small medical station at one end of the aid station and we saw more than a couple of people taken away with heat exhaustion. Our aid station was under an overpass, so we had a lot of shade and it seemed like once people got under our roof, they didn't want to leave. We were handing out sponges soaked in ice water, gatorade, ice, pretzels, coke, and all kinds of portable fruit. All in all, about 18% of the people doing the race didn't finish because of the heat.

Once our shift was over, we headed over to the finish line to watch our friends cross over. We saw that and then headed back to the hotel before they closed the finish line at midnight. We left at 11:45pm. As we walked back, we saw a woman jogging in with a guy next to her telling her to pick up the pace. She had that thousand yard stare and was looking as if she had already checked out. We cheered her on, but I don't think she made it across the line in time. If you hit midnight, and you are still out on the course, they take away your timing chip and you aren't allowed to cross the finish line. Again, totally brutal. We got back to our hotel at around 12:30am. It was a very long day... but not as long as for those people who didn't finish the race. I feel badly for them.