Once I went to an Ironman

And it was REALLY REALLY cold!!! We started out the weekend Thursday night with my sister reading her mission call. I knew she would get it Thursday but thought she'd just read it in the morning and I'd listen over the phone. Nope. She had a big ole party with tons of people so she had to wait until 9 p.m. My mom convinced me that I should drive home and surprise my sister. Only my mom knew that I was coming, so my sister, dad, and brothers were all quite surprised. It was awesome! She is going to the Philippines, Laoag mission. Friday morning we got up and packed the cars and headed to Boise for Ironman 70.3. Julie and I took my car and dropped it off in Burley at my grandpa's house and then continued on with mom and dad in their car. What a long, dull drive. Luckily we like to sing and had a pretty good time. Once we got there we went and got dad all checked in and then headed to Lucky Peak Dam to drop off his bike. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. Saturday morning we woke up to wind and overcast skies. No bueno. We headed into town to drop of his running bag and then headed to the Dam for his final preparations. On the way there is started to rain. He went up and checked his bike and then came back to get my sister and I. It was 43 degrees and the water temperature was 59. Sounds like LOADS of fun to me. :/ Mom stayed in the car since it was quite a hike to get up to the dam from the parking lot and hiking isn't really her thing. I took her sweater that had a hood and put in on over my jacket. Julie had a hoodie on and then when dad shed his hoodie to get ready (and get 'cooled off' so the water might seem a bit warmer) Julie put that on. We stood out in the rain FOREVER before the race actually started. It was SO cold and we had shoes and coats on! The poor athletes were standing down by the water in their bare feet and just a wet suit. We were cheering and being quite silly and were relieved when the race finally started. We were trying to let mom know that the race had been shortened due to the wind. They took the bike from 56 miles down to 15. Lame weather.

It was really cold

After an hour of standing in the rain, that was sometimes sleet, dad emerged from the water. Hallelujah!!

Hurray the Swim is over!!!!

We cheered like crazy and then ran up to the top to cheer some more. By this time both Julie and I were soaked to the bone. If we hadn't been wearing belts we would have lost our pants because they were so wet and heavy. Dad was shaking pretty hard trying to get everything changed for the bike. He said it took him half way through the bike for his teeth to stop chattering.

Dad trying to get his gear on with his poor shaking hands.

We went to the hotel during the bike since we knew we wouldn't make it for the transition to run. We tracked his progress online and then headed back into town to watch the finish. It had finally warmed up and stopped raining so the run was good for dad and he finished strong.
It was disappointing that it wasn't a full half Ironman, but we had fun, he learned a lot and we are his #1 fans!!