I got yer photos right here...

These two photos were taken when Rob was flying around in one of the planes he got checked out in - AWESOME shots! The first one is of the hotel and the second one I added in some lines to show you where the course was. The swim was a rectangle (not fully contained in the photo), the run is nearly all on there (except for about 20 yards of the turnaround area), and the first part of the out-and-back bike is on there. Check it out!





These were taken the night before as I was getting my gear ready. The first photo is me not wanting to mount the double-water-bottle-holder under my seat. (Rob did it for me. Thanks Rob!) The second is all the gear laid out on the bed...

When we were leaving the room the next morning I opened the door of our hotel room to find it vandalised by our coaches! Totally sweet!

Once at the transition area, Rob stood outside and took photos of me setting up. Here I am stressing about what else I could do to my gear. I was ready a full hour before the event began...

After setting up and getting body marked (the 344 stamped on my arms), I had an hour to kill. I hung out with my friend Dianne and we and Rob walked down to the water where the start would be. There were official team photos, but before ours we took a bunch of unofficial photos. I'm smack dab in the middle:

Then the official team photo - because the Silicon Valley team had 108 people (nearly five times any of the other teams!), we could barely cram ourselves into the finish area. The photog had to move his ladder WAY back to accommodate us all, and Rob took some photos from the sidelines to give you an idea of the size of our team:

Then, it was time to get ready for the swim! Here I am all capped up (sexy), talking toa  guy about the last part of the swim. That's my friend Whitney next to me.

Here's a shot of my wave (the pink caps) about to get in the water:

And this guy was flying around above the race all morning! Crazy!

Then, the race began! Total chaos at the start:

Here's a video of me getting out of the water after the swim leg...




Rob followed me into the transition, so here I am jogging and then getting ready for the bike!

For the bike leg Rob and I missed each other, but he found me again on the run! Here I am, unhappily running uphill, and then again a bit later - the blacktop part of the run (the first half) was the hardest part of the race, hands down.

(In the previous photo, that's me in the white hat staring at the ground. My neck was super sore after the race and I wonder if it's not because I run like that when I'm miserable.)

Rob then tried to catch me again at another part of the run right before we transitioned onto the lava rock/coral part, but I was just way too fast (yeah, 11-minute-miles, so speedy!), but here you can see where we dropped down onto the "trail" and the line of runners in the background:

Then, the finish! I might buy the official finish photo because it's a great souvenir, but here's me after the finish showing off my finisher's medal (hard to see, but oh well!):

So that's the photo story! Not told as eloquently as the long post about the race but you can at least get an idea for how the course looked!