Budapest - THE RACE

Being part of Team USA was a really neat experience. It was great to walk around Budapest and see a person wearing a Team USA jacket and know that you automatically had something in common with them! We were a really large team, but I think Great Britain had a larger team. If you aren't into the "Where's Waldo" games - Brad is next to the person holding the blue corner of the last flag on the right. Who took this awesome photo, you ask? Well, there I was holding Brad's camera when the Team USA organizer came up to me. "That looks like a pretty fancy camera - does it have a wide angle lens on it?" she asked. "Why yes it does" I replied. Suddenly, I was voted in as the team photographer because their photographer was stuck in traffic and we were on a tight schedule. When it was determined that I needed to be about 5 feet taller to be able to see the back row, an older gentleman offered to put me on his shoulders. Seeing him, and thinking of my own grandpa having to lift me up - I declined saying that I was probably too heavy. He replied, "Yeah, but you are cute." Good call on my part to turn him down. Another younger man offered to hoist me up - and he looked like he could actually handle me on his shoulders so up I went. I wish someone had got the shot of me taking this picture - I'm sure it was quite the site. From that point on, I was the most recognized member of Team USA.

Brad, after the photo shoot.

Silly me, didn't get any pictures of the parade. The camera was not with me during that portion (I know, boo, hiss!!!) Below are some of the pictures from the Openning Ceremony Party. As you can see there are TONS of people from hundreds of countries. It reminded me of some of the street parties downtown Salt Lake City during the Olympics!

RACE MORNING!

After an entire week of rain and overcast weather, we were expecting more of the same. I asked Brad if he needed his sunglasses for the run (He typically uses them) and he just looked up at the sky and laughed. He has quite the race day routine from what time he gets up, to what he eats for breakfast, to his warm ups...

Now it is time for the long wait to be called. Notice the game face!

His wave is finally called down to the holding area. If you miss your heat, you don't get to race. These are just the men between 35-39. Brad is the one in the yellow cap. :)

The mass start looks like spawning fish. Taking pictures of the swim beyond this is a waste of film. All you see is legs, arms and colored caps. Someone told me that he once saw a racer in a neon wetsuit - I'll have to look into that!

I do know when Brad comes out though - he is definately among the very first!

The nice thing about this course is that there were several laps so that spectators could see their athletes several times without having to move. The bad thing about this course was that there were several laps so the athletes were constantly having to break to make the turns! Oh well!

After I saw Brad a couple of times on the Bike, I took the shuttle boat down the river so I could catch him in a great photo spot on the run. The shuttle boat was like a short river cruise without having to pay the "cruise" price!

Sites on the river...
Mixing the old with the new - this building was under construction - how very unique!

I'm not sure what this was or why I didn't see it during my street wanderings!

The green statue with the columns behind it is what is actually on top of that waterfall I talked about in the previous post.

Here is a better idea of what the tiles on the church in castle hill looked like. Amazing what sunshine can do. Speaking of sunshine, yes, I think by the time Brad got to his run, he was wishing he had his sunglasses. Prayers do get answered!

More cool "I wonder why I didn't see that on my wanderings" sites.

This is the Bridge the athletes were running over. It had never been closed down for an event before.
A view of the finish area.

After I got off the boat, I ran over to the photo spot I scoped out the day before...

What other race has you running up to the steps of a grand cathedral - I'm suprised Brad could run as fast as he did, I would have been too enthralled with all of the sites (ok, stop chuckling, I know that I would not have even attempted to run even in a barren field, but the sites here WERE amazing!)
Another view of the bridge they got to run over.
I was sitting in the stands and took this picture of the jumbo tron showing runners coming across the bridge. I wasn't sure where Brad was on his run and as I was trying to keep track of the racers coming and going I heard the announcer call out Brad's name. I tried to snap some pictures of the actual finish area but it was hard to get to unless you were some big VIP.
Somehow, amidst all the people, I was able to find Brad after the race - looking good, eh? He finished 5th!!!! Only 1minute and 46 seconds off of 1st place gold! Having "seen" first it really makes him want to do this again!
He wanted to get a picture in front of the bridge and I had to snap this picture of his back end. Having the last name on the rear end really helped as the athletes whizzed by on their bikes or their run. You could cheer for people by name - really cool.