Hello Everyone!First of all, I hope everyone is having a great Holiday Season. I can't believe another year has passed already. Why does time go faster when you get older? Or, are we just having too much fun and that is why time flies by? Anway, we are enjoying our blessed days here and hope you do the same.
I am obviously going to report a bit here about the Arizona Ironman, which Jose competed in this past November 21st. We left on Thursday before the race and drove to Tempe with Joey, Nico and also my brother, Gert, whom was visiting us for almost 3 weeks from Holland. Because of our special visitor, it was promised to be a wonderful and special time and we knew we'd be in for another fun filled adventure "Team Pena" style. Ha! The weather was really nice when we arrived, but soon we heard rumors that on race day it was going to be raining! Oh, geez, that is not so fun, but those weathermen have been wrong before, so we were hoping for the best. We all went through the motions of registering, gettting "branded" (ha,ha) and Jose did a practice swim on Saturday. The water was extremely cold and that definitely needs some getting used to. Brrr..
On race day Jose left early in the morning with his friend, Cesar, whom was also competing in this years race. We all stayed at the same hotel and it was fun because our kids love to play together! We all made our way to the swim start and arrived there at about 6:30am or so. The start was at 7am. Always love the swim start. It is my favorite, although the best view is really on the bridge but we had gotten a good spot at the swim exit so we could see our "papa's" come by when they came out of the water. Jose 's goal was to swim the 2.4 miles in 1 hr and 10 or 15 minutes. But, when 1 hr 30 min crept by, I was wondering what the heck happened to him? Last time in 2008, I missed him getting out of the water, but surely this could not have been the case, as we were right there, right in front!! In 2009 in Kona he had gotten really bad cramps, so I was a bit nervous at this point. Something must have gone wrong. But, I found out soon that we did miss him unfortunately and he had exited at 1 hr 18 min. This was much later than anticipated and so I was hoping for a really good and fast bike and run. Still keeping my fingers crossed. Here are his Swim results:
THE SWIM: 2.4 miles: Time: 1:18:07. His swim time put him in 1100 overall place and 192nd place in his age group.
THE BIKE: 112 miles. Time: 5:16:04. The bike portion was tough as it became very windy during this time of day and we were surprised by pouring rain and even hail!! Yes, hail. In Arizona! That was so strange. The kids and I hid in a parking garage for a while, but were still able to cheer on daddy as he came by the second time. At the end of the bike portion Jose had worked his way back up to 131st place overall and 18th place in his age group. This was amazing I thought. He was gaining time. Pretty awesome!! He was still giving it his all and was really trying to place high to obtain one of those spots to the World Championships in Hawaii in 2011. It was going to be up to the run at this point.
THE RUN: 26.2 miles. Time: 3:34:32. Running is Jose's strength and he did good in this portion of the race, again, climbing up to 117th place overall and 12th place in his age group. He had an enormous blister on the bottom of his foot, which he had to check along the way, but nothing you can do about that, so just keep running. Ouch!!
THE FINISH: 140.6 miles later. Time: 10:15:04. As we waited by the finish I counted all the 40-44 age groupers each time one went by. Happy for them, but bummed, because that meant another one in front of Jose for one of those Kona Spots. Come on, honey...RUN!! When he came across the finish line we were all there and were so proud. Jose's good friend, and fellow triathlete, Mark Ford, had driven from San Diego to watch Jose race, which meant so much to us. He was there for support and helped after Jose finished.
OVERALL RESULTS: Jose's overall results were 133rd place Overall and 13th place in his age group 40-44. There were a total of 2700 athletes overall and 392 athletes in his age group. This made for an impeccable performance and now we had to wait how many spots to Kona his age group would receive as they were the largest age group among the men. We found out later that evening that the first 9 were getting automatic spots to go to Kona and so the following day we had to go to the roll down just to make sure they were all taken. And, of course, they were. So, to put it in a nut shell: Jose missed qualifying to Kona by 3 spots and about 13 minutes. Ouch!! But also: WOW!! This was an amazing day for him and we were all very happy and very proud. Now, is the question: "What's next?"
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