A Grand Event

Yesterday we witnessed insanity.

Hannah and Abby and I (Kevin- I know- post #2!) got up early and rode bikes down to the park at the lake, just about 1 mile away. We got there around 7:40 and saw a lakeful of swimmers. It was the first leg of the Grand Columbian Triathlon. The Grand Coulee Dam area hosts this event each year, and it draws much of the community to volunteer and participants from all over the country.

In the full-iron competition, which we were watching, athletes complete a 2.4 mile swim (many of them that we saw, in about an hour), then they ran up a hill to the road, where they changed clothes and hopped on their bikes for a brief 112 mile ride. There is a 400 foot climb in elevation near the beginning just to throw in a little challenge. Several hours later, they crossed by on their bikes right in front of our house, heading toward the finish (for the second leg) at the dam. So, what do you do after riding a bike 112 miles? You just run a little 26.2 mile jog to cool down.

By late afternoon I was over at the church picking up some furniture, and the finish line was about a block away, so I went over to check it out. Now, there are two shorter competitions as well that start later in the day, so the finishers were all mixed in from different competitions. But I heard some people finishing in about 10 hours, I think. And I know that some of the slower full-iron athletes didn't finish until almost midnight, so that's about 17 hours!

Hat's off to the 97 athletes who competed in this insane race, and about 200 more who covered the shorter distances (they must have done the long one in the past and wanted to try something new!). Hannah got to "watch the races" again, which she has wanted to do since the Olympics ended, and I feel like a better person having seen this Grand Event.