FEZZARI!!!

Even though there really is no end to the triathlon "season", it does seem to finally be slowing down. Last weekend we went down south to Yuba Reservoir for Andy's last "big" race of the year. (Note I did not say LAST race, unfortunately for me.) It was also the second race on his new bike, which, as an inside joke that I have to continue despite my hatred of inside jokes, we will heretofore refer to as FEZZARI. I have to put in my two cents, going to his races are usually pretty hard to take the girls to, keeping them entertained and fed and at the same time be at all the right places at the right time to cheer Andy on. And in between seeing him, there usually isn't a whole lot to do or a whole lot of places to sit! With two kids, its tough!! So this trip we dropped them off with Grammy and Poppy's (my parents)and headed off just the two of us, unheard of!! We camped in the back of the new minivan (yes, we're minivan people now, shut up!) which was awesome not having to take down a tent and a lot warmer. Doing this we were able to wake up and go straight to the race.

Yuba was extremely low, and the morning was extremely cold, probably 50 degrees. This meant two things: One, Andy would be swimming in frigid water in the frosty morning, FUN. And two, the low water meant a very long, very steep boat ramp to run up in a wet suit in order to get to the bike area. But hey, he's an Iron Man, right? No sweat.

He came out of the water smiling, in about 25-30th place. Then he was in the new "Alien" helmet and jumped on FEZZARI and zoomed away before I could get a decent picture of the hair-do flowing under the helmet. Too bad you can't see it, it was beautiful to behold! So, he started the bike in 25-30th place, right. Well, it wasn't long before he and the FEZZARI were in 2nd! That's right folks. He's awesome. He was flying on that FEZZARI and it wasn't long before he and the FEZZARI were done and he took off running. He's amazing!

So, this is where I rant some more about these races. They have two races going on at the same time, the olympic distance, which is the real distance, and a sprint distance, which is half of that. Andy, of course, was doing the olympic race. I still admire the people that do the sprints, because I did one once, and I about died! What ticks me off is that the sprinters get done first, naturally, because it's shorter, but because they're done first, they think they WON. So there were all these people done with their little "trot" before Andy came in, bragging and complaining about how hard it was and talking about how awesome they are, when, hey, the real athletes who are racing whole lot more than them, and doing better than them, and are actually coming in FIRST place, deserve some attention when crossing the finish line. For this reason, sprinters suck.

Andy came skipping in (literally) with a great time of ... well, we'll never know since the time keepers totally failed at their one and only job, but he and the FEZZARI were first place in his division of clydsdale and 5th out of the entire race. And this is without any training from a month ago! He's holding up six fingers in the picture, meaning 6th place, but one guy cheated, the jerk. Andy was 5th! FEZZARI!!!!!!

Way too relaxed for just racing 2 hours and 26 minutes (maybe.)