Thursday, September 7, 4 p.m. (58 hours to go)

I went for a swim, in my wet suit. This late in the day the air temp in Nice was 72 F, but the Mediterranean was 75 F and neoprene traps heat. I was very warm, very quickly. I wasn’t sure how I was going to swim for 90 minutes like that on Sunday, but it was time for dinner. The next day was going to be busy and the wetsuit was just another problem I was going to have to solve on this trip.

I had one objective for the next day, the wetsuit problem. The universe would add three more to the list before I ran out of time for Shabbos.

Friday, September 8 (48 hours to go)

I slept until 7 a.m.

(That is rare for you.)

As rare as my steak.

Waking up in Nice, France was like waking up on the first day of summer vacation … except every day seemed to feel like the first day of summer vacation.

The sun was shining and the sea air filled my nostrils with the aroma of paradise.

Once dressed, I packed up my tefillin and shofar into my backpack and I set out by bike for the perfect spot to photograph my Jewishness. I have always worn my kippah in public. I was born in 1968 and I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. Our fathers grew up like characters from Chaim Potok’s, “The Chosen,” fighting off neighborhood bullies who challenged our Jewishness with their fists. Our dads hid their Jewishness under their baseball caps, but not us. We were more than 30 years removed from the Holocaust. We had the Six Day War and the Israeli rescue at Entebbe as our pride. We walked to shul on Shabbos with knitted kippot on for all to see. We went to suburban day schools, while our neighbors went to the local public school. In winter, we were the only house on the block without Christmas lights. We marched proudly for Soviet Jewry and collected our pennies for JNF boxes, to plant a tree in Israel. We dared to be bold, to tell the world we were not afraid. We met other Jews the night before at dinner who were both visiting and residing in Nice. I may have been the only Orthodox Jew competing at Ironman World Championships Nice, but I was not the only kippah in Nice. That being said … I set out in search of the perfect “telfie” spot.

Beth Held told me about tefillin selfies years ago and my favorite one to date had been in Paris.

Here in Nice, there would be no Eiffel Tower; no Coliseum or Great Wall for my telfie. No matter, I was at the Ironman World Championships and I was certain to find the ultimate symbol of the race.

My first stop was the finish line.

One race day this would be Mardi Gras and New Year’s rolled into one, but two days before race start, this area looked like a rock concert stage being built at the edge of the beach. There were spotlights, a giant display screen and stadium seats, all roped off to prevent the pedestrians from disrupting the workers. Like a building construction site, we could peer through the chain-link fence and imagine what this would become when completed. I leaned my bike against the fence and started davening. Every time that I have prayed in public, I have felt self-conscious, curious what passersby thought.

Did they see a fanatic? I didn’t feel like one. I was just saying my morning prayers.

Did they see a Jew? I never thought about my Jewishness as something others would see as different, until I was praying publicly.

Did they not see me at all? Just another body standing between them and their job this morning. So many times, in this post-Covid world I had forgotten what it meant during the lockdown where every morning there was time to pause, to reflect on my prayers. This morning I was not rushing to work. I was davening on the beach.

(How did you take a selfie while blowing a shofar?)

I asked a confused gentile to take the shot.

(Confused because…)

He wasn’t quite sure what I was doing.

(Can you really call that a selfie if he took the picture?)

I’m claiming it, but I didn’t like the picture, so I set out for a better backdrop.

I would find what I was looking for and have one of the most rewarding experiences of Ironman World Championships Nice.

David Roher is a USAT certified triathlon and marathon coach. He is a multi-Ironman finisher and veteran special education teacher. He is on Instagram @David Roher140.6. He can be reached at [email protected].