Stats: Whistler GranFondo
Date: 7:00 am -Saturday Sept 7, 2019
Start: Stanley Park, Vancouver
Finish: Whistler Village, Whistler
Total distance: 122 km
Elevation: 1900m / 6200 feet (Oh my!!!)
I don't know about you but I checked out after I saw the elevation gain. I mean I am tired just driving up to Whistler, so we are all pretty proud of Simon's personal best of finishing the race in 4:33.
That's quite an accomplishment considering that it took me almost 3 hours to drive up there on Friday evening. It was nice to get up there before race day, we rented an AirBnB condo with my friend whose husband was also doing the Whistler GranFondo too. Her kids and my kids were thrilled to have a room with bunk beds and there was a lot of laughing and giggling and not very much sleeping that night.
The next day we gathered our crew together and worked on our cheer posters.
My friend's husband finished with an impressive time of 3:43 qualifying him for the World Championship next year! I knew we would have to wait at least half an hour longer for Simon to finish and the kids were happy to ring their cowbells and keep cheering but after I ran out of cheesies we decided to take the kids to the playground area instead. They were happy playing tag and I was planning to head back to the finish line after I let them run their energy out for a bit.
It was close to lunch time and I went quickly to buy hot dogs for the kids and I got a text message from Simon that said "3". Obviously he's not spending a long time composing text messages while he's racing so I assumed that meant 3 more kms to go so waited as patiently as I could for the teenager making the hot dogs SO.VERY.VERY.VERY.VERY.SLOWLY. Oh my goodness, it was painful starring at him.... I swear it was like that sloth scene from Zootopia!!! (That's me in the picture below - I'm the bunny wanting to bang my head against the wall and scream HURRY UP!!!!!!!)
Anyways, after what took an unjustifiable amount of time to put two precooked wieners into a hot dog bun, I threw the food in my back pack and sprinted with the kids to the finish line but alas....we didn't make it!!! We had been there for a couple hours but we missed him coming into the finish line. Apparently the cryptic message "3" meant he was going to be at the finish line in 3 minutes and the sloth making those darn hot dogs took waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than 3 minutes. Such a disappointment for the kids. At least when we found Simon in the crowds of people, the kids proudly held up their signs and ran towards their SuperDad, the announcer noticed them and said, "Look at those kids running to meet their Dad! And look at those signs, yes your Dad is a SuperHero!" They were excited the announcer made them and their SuperDad feel famous for 2 seconds and that softened the disappointment of not seeing him cross the finish line.
I'm pretty proud of Simon not because of his personal best finishing time but because he said he was feeling great on his ride all the way until Alice Lake and then after that he hit 'the wall'. With 50 km of the steepest elevation left to do, he said his legs were feeling awful and he was contemplating quitting but willed himself to just keep pedaling...even if at times it was painfully only 10 km/ hour. What a great testament to our kids and living out my constant mantra of
The kids must get so sick of me chirping "We Can do Hard Things" alllllll the time. But I hope that the kids can see us live out that when things get tough and you want to quit, we try our best to find the strength to just keep going...even if it feels like you're not making any progress forward.
Simon lived that out and pressed on til the finish and even completed the race faster than the previous two times he has done it.
And I think that's what makes him a SuperHero to the kids and me.
