Monday, July 31, 2023

30 July 2023 Sunderland : The Last of the Races

 


Today's big race was a two man, two woman relay race. The men started it out and then they alternated between men and women.  France won even though they incurred a 10 second penalty.  The big news was Great Britain who came in second after being all but written off from this race.  I walked down to the water to see the initial first team start.  Then I made my way back up through the  bike ride and was back at the apartment for the run that I could watch on the TV.  the TV footage and commentators helped us follow along with the race.  It was a bit surreal hearing cheers come from outside our window and then hear them again a few seconds later on the TV. It was a slight delay in the TV broadcast.  When the race was completed there were dolphins who were swimming in the same spot as the swimmers had earlier.  The helicopter got footage of them and we watched on TV and out the window.  That was a really great way to wrap of the whole weekend


Bikes and gear have to make it out


One of the oldest contestants


Folks on the hill watching


835, 27 and 60 are my numbers


Woof a huge dog


Leslie is watching from here, third window from the right


Hurry up and wait


Stride with confidence


Waist deep they go


Non stop splashing


Get out of the way, here they come


Great Britain in the pack


Orange cones and a man pointing!


We have been walking past this corner for the entire last month


Spare wheels


We came down to ask questions and then headed back up for the next swim


Our apartment was in the best spot


Two laps of the bike and the run requires a lap counter


The pack got stretched out longer and longer with each successive team


This is the man's second swim, third swim of the race 


The window is left in the shot to show how good a view we had


Some shots from the tv


This is our corner as the BBC showed it





The competition was fierce


The soldiers I saw earlier


France, Great Britain and Norway


The clean up begins as we take a walk


Dogs at the beach


A walk in the park 


The end of a celebration




It has been 1 year and 55 days since we began our Migration


Sunday, July 30, 2023

29 July 2023 Sunderland: The Elite Women Finish Up the Day

 


Literally flying, these two women above are not even touching the ground.  We saw the Swedish racer a few days earlier while we were watching outside our window.  We had developed a game where we call out different joggers and bike riders as either professionals or not.  We remember this woman in particular as she she jogged by us I said professional and Leslie said she was a local teen since she looked so young.  The grace of her stride and the height that her feet reached on each stride amazed us.  It was as if she were a Lipizzaner horse gracefully prancing by on a jog.  We headed back up the the AirBnB to watch the swim section on the BBC.  On the telly we could watch, in detail, the transition from swim to bike.  It was interesting to watch them jogging up out of the water, unzipping their wet suits as they were jogging barefoot to the bikes.  Then we saw them  jumping on their bikes with their shoes pre-attached to the bikes.  The sole British woman contestant was leading through the entire swim and bike portions but was unable to keep the lead in the run section.  We watched the racers as the heat of the day took it toll.  France wone four of the top six medals in the Women and Men's Elite races





Time to swim



First Buoy


It is a very crowded patch of water


The kayaker is pushing on the buoy to keep it in position


Rounding the far buoy


Still a tight group of swimmers


Barefoot racing with wet suits half on and half off


The bike race has begun


Go go go


A tight pack


Packed in together like sardines


The eventual winner






Second place


Third place


Two way traffic those running to the right ate leading those running in the opposite direction have run to the turn around


It was heating up  and many runners took one sip and poured the rest on their heads


Splash!


The signage attached to the fencing caught the wind and large sections of fence were blown over.  This happened twice, once on each side of the street until they finally cut the signs off at the base and zip tied them to the top bar so it could no longer catch the wind


The course was taking its toll.  In the following video a racer stops and takes her race monitor off of her leg while the top three runners pass her by


It has been 1 year and 54 days since we began our Migration