IRONMAN Chattanooga

FYI - I'm friends with a superhero. His name is Patrick, and he officially became an Ironman last Sunday.

 

For those of you that don't know what an Ironman is, it's basically an athletic event in which a legit-crazy person swims across the ocean, cycles from LA to NYC, then runs the Appalachian trail...all in one day. Okay, maybe it's not that intense...but that's what it would feel like for me if I attempted it.

 

We got up early midmorning on Sunday to head to Chickamauga, GA (we love you, Patrick, but not enough to watch you swim 2.4 miles at the buttcrack of dawn).  Chickamauga is this quaint, little historical landmark with an adorable downtown and good restaurants that we did not explore at all.  Look, we were there for Patrick, not for culture.  Unfortunately, we barely missed seeing him on his first loop of his 120ish mile cycle-adventure, but that gave me nearly 2 hours to work on my signs!

 

**Disclaimer: I haven't taken an art class since the third grade.

 

No, Josh, I don't "have marbles in my mouth" - I just have chubby cheeks (and chubby legs...and chubby ankles...and a chubby belly that I'm strategically hiding).

 

Josh reluctantly holds a sign.

 

and for the 10th time, NO, that's not a marijuana leaf - that's the best representation of grape leaf that I could draw...

 

Okay, okay, enough about me and Josh - check out Patrick as he cycles his 100th mile...pretty impressive! We love the socks, bro!

 

 

There he goes!

 

After the 15 seconds of watching Patrick cycle, we got in the car and rushed over to Chattanooga to try to catch him on the third leg...the marathon. I think Patrick thought he could cycle faster than we could drive as he seemed very surprised to see us near the start line.  No offense, Patrick, you may be in good shape and all...but your little nerd-bike is going to lose to my car every time.

 

His neon socks made him easy to spot. Hey Patrick, look to your right!

 

His excitement after noticing our grape-bomb sign!

 

We took a quick break from our cheering and headed over to Big River Grille & Brewing in downtown Chattanooga.  It did not disappoint...at all. Dinner was fantastic.  We had good intentions of rooting for Patrick one last time at the 8 mile mark, but it started to drizzle. We later felt very guilty about letting a little rain get in the way of cheering on our friend whose heart was probably about to explode. Sorry, Patrick, hindsight is 20/20.

 

We headed back to Knoxvegas but kept monitoring him on the tracker app. There was a little scare there at mile 24.5. His GPS quit working right in the middle of the bridge.  It was stuck there for like 15 minutes, and we were afraid he jumped; however, all was good - and Patrick finished the race in a mere 13 hours and 40 minutes.

 

Patrick has spent months and months and maybe even years training for this event.  The craziest part...he's even had the discipline to leave his bomb-awesome friends at reasonable hours of the night so he could train the next morning. In all seriousness, we are so ridiculously proud of you, Patrick.  What a freaking accomplishment.  You are an Ironman :)