Part 2 of this story is here. It’s been 2 weeks since the event, but I’ve been too busy and distracted to finish this.

We left the motel before 5 to catch the shuttle to the swim start. We didn’t get on this bus because it filled and we had to wait for the next one. That’s Katie in the black hood, Matt in the orange jacket, Dan in the blue coat, Chris in the gray sweatshirt, Meryl in the green sweatshirt, and I don’t see Kaleena. It was a cold wait.

Matt was to be the swimmer for the team, so is in the wetsuit. Did I say something about the cold? It was so cold (for southern California) that they changed the swim course at the last minute. The ocean was colder than expected and they held the whole swim portion in the harbor instead of swimming the loop that was shown on the map in the previous post.

This is the only view we had at the beginning—the Pros always go first, but everyone else is supposed to find a sign that shows the approximate time they expect to swim and line up in order. It seemed chaotic to channel everyone into the relatively narrow area they used for the start. You can barely see in this photo, but the 43-46 minute sign shows just over the white sign that is just right of center. By the way that white sign shows “Tsunami Evacuation Routes”. Matt was somewhere around that sign. The line moved slowly to the right in the photo and then turned towards the harbor. You can barely make out the green swim caps between the porta-potties and the masts of the boats in the harbor.

Matt is in the center here—his wetsuit has red shoulders.

Hundreds of bicycles propped on racks waiting for the cyclists.

Dan had found his bike where he’d left it the day before. Most of the athletes do all portions of the race, and a swimmer would get out of the water and find the bike and take off. The relay teams were all staged together, so there were cyclists waiting for their swimmers to finish.

While Dan waited with the bike the rest of us watched the swimmers hoping to find Matt’s red shouldered wetsuit. The course went out on the north side of the harbor, turned around a buoy and came back in. Notice the platform full of sea lions just beyond the swimmers.

This is a view of the line of swimmers going out, just below the horizon, and the swimmers coming back in the center of the photo.

Dan waiting for Matt. The swimmers ran along the far side of the transition area and would come down the aisle from the left.

Transition made. Matt had to give the tracking chip, worn on the ankle, to Dan.

The start of Dan’s 56 miles.

My family sitting on the street curb waiting to see runners and cyclists.

There wasn’t anywhere to watch the bicycle portion of this. Have I mentioned that the Ironman is a tough spectator sport? Some are easier to watch than others. Wandering through an area where there were coffee shops and restaurants, we got some breakfast and hot drinks. We watched from here as bikes came in and runners left the transition area.

Sandpipers at the beach with a rock breakwater in the background.

Matt and Kaleena and I wandered out to the beach.

I took a lot of photos trying to show the golden glimmer of the sand but could never capture that. These colorful shells were interesting. The colored stripes make me thing of planning a weaving project with those patterns.