Bella, John, and I went to a restaurant for lunch where we took a couple pictures, and then walked up to the lake for the race. 
Gorillapods, they go anywhere!!
Isn't she a doll?
Daddy and Bella playing during lunch.
I love when these little puffs get stuck on her face, it's so cute!Okay down to business now. The race consisted of a quarter mile swim in the lake, a 13 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile/5k run. The weather was pretty nice but the participants are all smart enough to know that the lake is going to be very cold so they all have wetsuits. Apparently John was one of the only ones who didn't have a special triathlon grade wetsuit so a bunch of the other guys thought he was a novice. ☺ In fact he ended up being the only one who had a farmer john style, or sleeveless wetsuit. So, here he is making his way down to the shore and the starting line.
He had just stepped on a rock and was trying to dig it out of his foot. Later that night, in the hotel we discovered that it was actually a piece of glass I dug out w/ a needle. Keep in mind this photo was from before the race even started so it turns out that John ran the whole race with a piece of glass stuck in the ball of his foot.
Warming up (or attempting to in the cold water)
Making friends with the winners. Seriously, the kid with the blue stripes on his wet suit won the whole thing and the guy with the red stripes took second place.
And let the mayhem begin...John said it got pretty crazy in that water and he got kicked in the face a couple times. He said it was a bit scary just because the water was so choppy-it was a little windy that day.
I could spot John out in the water the whole way using my zoom lens but he was easy to see cause of his bare arm sticking out of the water.
These are just dang good photos so I had to post them for bragging rights.
Once the swim is over they have to strip out of their wet suit and get on their bikes as quickly as possible to cut back on lost time in the race. You can see John is starting to undo his wet suit on his way out of the water.
Just about ready for the bike ride.
And he's off!
He said that almost the whole bike ride was uphill and he had to avoid a lot of potholes on the roads so it was a challenging ride for him.
When they finish the bike ride they have to come back to the transition area and park their bikes before they can take off for the last leg of the race which is the run.
And he's off once again!
This is another one of my sweet action shots to show off John's mad athleticism.
Here he is crossing the finish line.
They had sweet big medals at the finish line.
Which Bella promptly chewed on. It's not gold...(And that white thing in the front is not due to bad photography, that's Bella's foot poking up into the frame. If you know her at all you know she's all about sticking her feet up in the air!)
And that's the end of it!! He did really well and we had a nice time watching him. We were able to drive to McCall, have a nice steak dinner, and stay at a nice hotel that night. We even got to go for a nice relaxing swim while we were there. It was only the second time we've been in a hotel with just the two of us (& Bella now) including our honeymoon so it was really nice. Well, until next time.
*Rachel*
