Vineman

Last weekend Bob and his fellow Rivermark friends ran the Ironman 70.3 Vineman in Sonoma.  We made a weekend of it and went up on Saturday - Ethan was excited since we got to stay at a big fancy hotel (actually the Hilton Garden Inn, which not so fancy, but anything is exciting to a four year old).

The weekend started off unpromising.  We were supposed to meet with everyone for dinner after picking up the race packet but when Bob did a test bike run he accidentally locked our car keys in the trunk.  So while we waited an hour and a half for someone to unlock our car, everyone else (who stayed near the start line) had fun playing on the beach and eating yummy Italian food.  Bob was sad so let's just pretend we made it:

Race day!  We woke up at 4:30 to drive Bob to the start.  Then Ethan and I goofed off having breakfast and  running around parks and eating ice cream and browsing farmer markets.  Cue mishap number 2.  Bob said he would probably finish around 1 PM so Ethan and I made a beeline to the finish line at 12:30.  Despite diligently checking the live tracker we apparently were ten minutes too late and missed seeing Bob cross the finish line yet another time.  Boo!  Good news:  Bob made super time and finished in 5:34.  Woot!

Sigh.  Lastly when E and I went to take the shuttle to the parking lot to pick up our car so we could collect Bob and all the gear, we accidentally boarded the wrong bus (despite asking the driver THREE times)  and ended up driving all the way to the start and then back again to the finish line.  So it took us over an hour just to get to our car to drive back home.  Oh well, lesson learned.  Next time we will stay with all the rest of our friends, NOT lose our car keys and learn to gather at the cheering section extra extra early (and buy a cow bell to ring!).  It was still a fun weekend!  Next year we will do it again!