Ironman

(From my original Blogspot)

Last Saturday, at 10:30pm, my husband crossed the finish line for the Iron Man held in St. George. For those who don't know what an Iron Man is comprised of, it begins with a 2.4 mile swim. Next is a 112 mile bike, followed by a 26.2 mile run. Any one of those events is enough to wipe out a great athlete. But at the Iron Man competition, the athletes do all three events back to back.

My husband has been training for the Iron Man for six months. He kept going around saying, "train for six months, brag for the rest of your life!" He had a training group that he joined day after day for 5am workouts, may of them long and grueling, and Saturday workouts that spanned most of the day. This would be a lot for any man who had a family, but for my husband, I think he had more factors stacked against him than some.

What is so special about my husband's training is that he did it while providing for our family, being a great dad (helping run the kids around, helping them with the computer or various concerns) and husband (which means helping me with random stuff, listening to me, fixing my car, etc.). He also built St. George's first ice rink during this time, which meant long grueling hours of physical labor and long nights of worry, only to be followed by his regular full time job. Additionally, his full time job is that of tax accountant, so his final months of training fell during a time when he typically gets very little sleep or exercise. He had to somehow squeeze training in-between doing huge piles of paperwork on a serious deadline, and his own need for a few hours of sleep.

I think my husband belongs to the most elite class of Iron Man. Even the world-class athletes could not have worked harder and sacrificed more than he did. His finishing time may not have been as fast as the winner, but for the efforts he had to put forth to be there, and for everything else that he managed to hold together when other guys had it easier, I say he won first place.