The Shines: My Darling, My Super Hero, My Husband

Jon in his "supersuit"

This past weekend was the culmination of 8 months of hard training. Although he has been training on his bike for the past 3 years, Jon wanted something specific on which to focus his fitness goals, as well as give him variety in his workout. He decided to do the Grand Columbian Triathlon.
We loaded up the van on Friday and headed for the Grand Coolie Dam, right there in Coolie, Washington. Jon’s friend Evan was also racing that weekend, in the half Iron Man competition and we met him there to finish the registration process. We had a great time in camp that evening and settled down to an early night in order for everyone to be fresh for the morning’s races. But, that wasn’t in the cards for any of us. Ja`el woke up with a terrible cold and kept Jon and me up pretty much the entire night. Although, she had absolutely no symptoms of fighting anything the day before, there was no doubt that she was sick. No luck for poor Evan either. Some idiot campers decided to take the camping spot next to us…at 3 am. They had their headlights pointed directly into Evan’s tent, and then went hammering away to put their tent up, using a loud air pump to inflate their air mattress, and speaking as loud as they could in the process. Needless to say we were all a bit beat when we woke up in the morning.
But, all that didn’t stop my man for absolutely killing it out in the race. It was so exciting watching him go. Ja`el especially enjoyed watching the swimming. She would yell out “Go Daddy, GO!!” and “Yay, Daddy!” as we watched him run by. Since he knew his times pretty well going into the race, we were able to be there during all his transitions and cheer him on. He ended up doing very well. He took 6th in his age division and 55th over all, within the top 40%. I am soo proud of my husband!!
Here are some pics from the exciting event.