The start seemed more crowded than in previous years and seemed to stay crowded longer, too. They tried to separate walkers and runners as we approached the base of the bridge, but the walkers were everywhere - left, right, middle - often multiple people wide in a group. A bit frustrating at times, but what can ya do?

EFP and LT stayed with me for a while. LT is coming back from a hip injury and EFP didn't want to overcook his start. I think they left me somewhere between miles 2-3 which was perfectly fine with me. I'm perfectly content running solo, people watching, sight-seeing, minding my own pace/performance.

Persons of interest: tall guy in a big, bushy beard wearing a hat with a plush fish on top. 2 different teen boys who would speed ahead, then walk. Speed ahead, walk. The one I totally missed his walk stage and wondered how he was blowing past me again, funny! A lady doing the whole thing with a cane, another lady doing the event with a wheeled walker.

I love, love, love running over the water!! For me it's totally the best part. I get bummed out when we come off the bridge on the other side and have to do the last mile or so on boring old terra firma. It doesn't help that the last section isn't particularly interesting and the road is a bit choppy at places, not to mention the runners get funneled down into a narrower coned-off area.

I lost some of my momentum near the end, hard to say if I was just out of oomph or if being off the bridge was demotivating enough to slow me down. At any rate, I was glad to finally see the turn to the finish. My name was announced and I gave a little acknowledgement by raising my arm. I spotted Rob and Dave along the side and collected some high fives. This set off a spur of high fives from strangers as I went down the line; I'll take them! :) I saw LT either right before or right after the finish we joined up then found EFP.

Lose weight. Run faster. The usual.

Collected my medal (the 3rd of what is to be 5 pieces of a puzzle, see pics) and a bottle of water. We headed straight to the merch tent for finishers shirts which were flying off the racks. We got our bag from bag check, put on some sweatshirts then enjoyed post-race fun: a few Michelob Ultras, grilled oysters (SO good!) and chatting with friends.

Eventually it was time for Cuda to come across the line, so we cheered her in to the finish. Later I bought some kettlecorn to go (such a weakness!) which was extra good because it was as fresh as possible. I watched them dump the popped corn out of the kettle, salt it, then bag it. It was still warm and heavenly!

The Ironman organization just purchased this race, so who knows what changes we'll see for 2017. Hopefully the keep a lot of what makes this race special and good and improves on the few things that need a little fine tuning.


Carrying some extra pounds.


The best part of this race is being able to run over the bridge!