Challenge Wanaka
A Racing Wedding for Mark and Alyssa
Rob Howard / 20.02.2015
Sunday’s Challenge Wanaka is going to be a day to remember for everyone taking part, and especially so for Mark Smoothy and Alyssa Coe, as it will be their wedding day – in fact they plan to get married on the course, at the half way point on the run!
Not only that they have a group of 85 friends and family with them from the USA and Australia, and 35 of them will be racing on the day!
The plan is for the various relay, long and half course racers who make up the wedding party to meet up for the ceremony at around 6pm at the 21.1km mark on the run. They will be dressed for the occasion too as they all have custom made tri-suits with imprinted dress shirts, jackets and bright red bow ties!
The couple were called up on stage at last night’s race pasta party where they explained their plans and added that Mark had proposed during the Challenge Melbourne Half, and that their honeymoon would be to travel to Germany for Challenge Roth in July!
Mark is one of the few racers to have completed all 8 Challenge Wanaka races to date and said, “I want to tell you why this race is so special to me. Having done all the races I’ve fallen in love with the place and the people, who are so generous. I love the community spirit here and the family feeling of the race and there is no better place for us to get married.”
There will surely be quite a crowd on the shore of Lake Wanaka on Sunday evening for the wedding, and when they race over the finish line sometime later as newly-weds they will get a very special wedding reception.
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