SWIM

race morning. 6 am. one hour to go until the swim start.

I'm not sure, but I think I may have had worse butterflies than Kylan did at this point!

once I left Kylan, I headed up to the Mill Ave. bridge to watch the swim start from above. I was by myself and was able to weasel my way to the front of the bridge so I had an amazing view of the lake below. what you can't tell from the pictures is that it was unseasonably cold for AZ in nov, below 60 degrees outside and only 61 degrees in the water. yikes.

there is nothing like watching 2400 athletes begin swimming at the same time. it was absolutely breathtaking to see the water churn as they all charged forward. at this point I had no idea where Kylan was so I just cheered my head off for everyone! it turned out that Kylan was at the very front of the line behind a blue kayak, and he's one of very few wearing a sleeveless wet-suit, can you spot him?

swim start. kylan started on the front row and stayed out front. look for the one in the swim cap.

and they're off!

2.4 miles to swim, 112 miles to bike, and 26.2 miles to run

can you imagine what it would feel like to try to swim with that many people?

maybe a little something like this?

after about 30 minutes of watching the pack stretch down towards the turn around point, I headed down to the transition area in order to get some pictures of Ky as he came out of the water. I found a great spot to watch and get some pictures, but my neighbors were not at all happy when I squished my way into their observation area!

2.4 miles!!!

one leg down and two more to go

one hour down, thirteen to go

I was actually really lucky to get this shot of Kylan because he came out of the water about 15 minutes earlier than we anticipated him, he absolutely killed the swim. way to go Ky!