Team Adorkable

Matt and I have a tradition wherein we try to do something fun and active the day(s) after every big destination race. It helps work out the soreness, and lets us get one last adventure in before we head back home. Day after Ironman Canada 2010! (Matt raced, I sherpaed.) Since initially it looked like Trista was going to have to head home immediately after the race, we started our planning without her. Bergen in Norway? Abisko in the Arctic Circle? Both ruled out because we only had 3-4 days and nights, and the travel to get to those places was at least half a day each way. We had Åre suggested to us, which looked lovely, and Finland was close enough that we could pop over on a boat and get a quick little look around. Places under consideration! You can see why we thought Abisko might be untenable. Many thanks to Matt for making this map a reality! Before we'd made any progress on a decision, though, Trista found out that she could stay through the end of the week like we were. Sh

Click here to read  Part 1: The Backstory Click here to read  Part 2: Race Week Photo by  Aaron Palaian  At 6am, the gun went off (loudly) and we took the first few steps of what promised to be a very long and difficult day. Photo by  Aaron Palaian On the menu: 24 swims (~10k of swimming total), 23 runs (~38 miles of running total), a whole lot of transitions between swimming and running, a lot of slippery rocks and technical trails, and one really long soul-sucking run that we were dreading near the end. First section of the course! Sandhamn to Time 10 The start of the race, though, was on the road, and fairly calm back at the back of the pack. It was a controlled start, which meant nobody could tether on this run, and up at the front of the pack, they couldn't run any faster than the pace vehicle. The roads were fairly narrow with several sharp turns, which meant even with only 160 teams out there, we had to walk a few times in the first run as things got backed up. But mostly w