Harry's First Triathlon

Yesterday, Harry and my best friend Joanne competed in their first ever triathlon. This was a major accomplishment for Harry for many reasons. First of all, Harry had never really learned how to swim; he could stay afloat and not drown, but he didn't know how to really swim. This summer he worked really hard and took a class from our local YMCA and learned how to swim. Second, as a diabetic, he had some obstacles to overcome while racing (he had to check his blood sugar at each transition and that slowed him down some and had to continue racing despite low blood sugars), and finally he was able to get the triathlon in all before Baby Thompson made her appearance (we were a little worried about this).

This is Harry's wave of swimmers. The triathletes had to begin the event by swimming 750 meters.

This is a zoomed in picture of the same image... I know this is Harry's wave because of the yellow swim caps.

This is Joanne's wave (note the royal blue swim caps).

After the swim, the triathletes participated in a 17 mile bike ride. I didn't get any pictures of this because I didn't make it over to the YMCA (I'm 9 months pregnant - I did what I could). It would have looked something like this...

This is Harry practicing transitions outside our house last week. He did have one little problem during the bike ride; he got a flat tire. It took him about 5 minutes to change his tire but Harry told me that that was a record time for him so things could have been worse.

Finally, after the bike ride, the triathletes ran 3.2 miles right past our house (which was very convenient for me). A lot of our friends and Harry's mom and dad came over for a little viewing party so he and Joanne had a lot of people cheering them on when they ran by.

Here they come! Joanne is in the white tank top in front and Harry is in the blue race jersey next to the truck. They ended up being able to run together because of Harry's flat tire.

There they go!! I wasn't able to get any closer pictures of Harry running because he stopped to give me a kiss. In hindsight, I should have given my camera to someone else. I'm very proud of both Harry and Joanne and I can't wait to participate in my first triathlon after the baby is born.