Leave it up to Michael and his friends to sign up for something this crazy -- the Tri 4 Freedom 27 Hour Triathlon. 27 hours. It's a team event, capped out at 16 teams. Perhaps the guys missed the note that said there was no limit to the number of team members on a team, which makes it all even crazier that Michael's Team "Swim, Bike, Run. Beer" managed with just 4 people. Four. Other teams spread out the distance and hours over 10, 12 people... nope, not these guys.
The race had no set distance, just go as far as you can in the allotted amount of time, and theoretically the team who covers the most distance in the time wins. That is, wins if anyone was actually keeping track of such things. No race numbers, no timing mat, no GPS to hand off from athlete to athlete. The only rule we could figure they enforced was that bike helmets must be worn during the ride.
So, this endeavor kicked off on a beautiful morning outside of Lexington. The swim (in a 25m pool) lasted from 6am to 8:30am, wherein one teammate must be on the course at all times but they can switch racers as frequently as they desire. Following the swim was the bike on a 10 mile public trail... for 12 and a half hours, ending at 9pm. From there, in the dark, the runners headed out with head lamps on a one mile loop. If you're keeping tally, this would last for the next 12 hours, ending at 9am the next day.
If you haven't guessed already, it was a pretty low key atmosphere. The transition area was filled with team canopies with their food and supplies, tents and hammocks spread around the grass, some courtesy food for the athletes and a DJ.
I went to the race site after work with Sam and Adam to check in on the guys as they were wrapping up the bike portion. I popped in again around 11pm to find Michael catching some zzzz's in a hammock. (They broke up the run into four 3-hour runs so that the could all get some rest overnight. Michael's run was from 3am-6am...)
Saturday morning I came back over with Sam for the big finish! (It was pretty uneventful.) The race director asked all the teams to do the last loop together in solidarity.
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| Sam running it in. |
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| Finished! Bet you didn't know the timing clock could go so high. |
Get used to this, kids, this is what we do. (or did... need to get back to doing.)
Sam has been a part of a few 5ks but this was his first big race.
There's talk that they will do this again next year, and who knows? Maybe I'll just be crazy enough to join them. I've already committed to the 12-member team, 200 mile Bourbon Chase in October with Michael, my sisters, brothers-in-law and friends. I'm told it is "so much fun."
Have to admit, this Tri kinda looked fun, too...
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Footnote. What I love about his race is what it benefits -- human trafficking. A few years ago I had the privilege of hearing Christine Caine, an Australian pastor and activist speak about The A21 Campaign and her work to fight human trafficking. Some of her stories still stick with me today. Then last year, after seeing part of a documentary called Half the Sky, I read the book (with the same name). The book and documentary raise awareness of how widespread these atrocities are and are mostly related to female inequality, whether through slavery, forced prostitution, educational rights, denied access to medical treatment, or socially accepted abandonment. It's appalling on what "modern" society still turns a blind eye to. I highly recommend the book. The HTS organization itself works to provide China with model programs and caregiver training to the child welfare system in that country. We have friends who are currently in China adopting a little girl who is partially blind and was abandoned as an infant. She has benefited from the improvements brought about by HTS.
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