. That’s it. A field of 14. Doing an event over such a long period of time with so few participants was very different than doing an Ironman when you are competing against somewhere between one and two thousand people. The vibe at the event was very much a laid back one. The most obvious example was shortly after this picture was taken at the start of the swim. With such a small field and such a long race, there was no fighting, punching, kicking, or biting, for the first 300 metres of the swim to jostle for position. In fact, drafting on the swim was not even allowed. The start of the swim instead was just a gentle roll out with my kayaker and myself taking a deep breath and heading out for some distant mark on the smoky horizon. 
The second picture that you see here, ties in with the title of this blog post with the key word gratitude. All through the first day of the event, I was filled with gratitude: gratitude that I had overcome the meningitis to make it to the start line, gratitude that I had a wife and a family and friends that volunteered their long weekend to help me do this crazy event, gratitude that the currents in Skaha Lake pushed us, gratitude that I had a steady and rewarding job that afforded me the time to train and the money for the entry fee. The list could go on and on but one I want to focus on is gratitude for having an enthusiastic swim coach for the past five years. The not-so-bad-looking swim form that you see in the picture is partly thanks to the efforts of Ryan Clifton. Through his persistence, patience, and expertise in imparting good swimming technique, I was able to make it through the 11 kilometres (ask me about why it wasn’t 10) of the swim. Of course I was of course also grateful to get the heck out of the water as well.
After finishing the swim, there was still 150 K of biking to do before US got to the real finish line for the day. More on that part later.