Tuesday September 27: Back to Demopolis

Steve, Matt, Wendy, me, Becky!

Ever go someplace, spend some time there, return 'home' and feel like you never left?

That's how the trip to San Diego felt. We returned to the boat today having spent the night in Birmingham because our flight, after a couple of delays, didn't arrive until 11 pm - didn't think the 2 hour drive back to Demopolis would be much fun ...

We picked up Matt and Wendy at the airport on Thursday late afternoon - they were coming from Washington DC. Becky drove down from LA Saturday morning and the party was on :-)

We were gathered to cheer Matt on in the Ironman 70.3 Superfrog race.

First event: the 1.2 mile swim. Because it was a double lap he had to enter the water twice in a crazy surf and current.

Swimmers were quickly being swept north with the current but Matt did very well figuring out how to gauge the surf and the current.

Next was the 56 mile bike portion of the race. Again Matt did very well!

The best part of this race course was it was very easy for the support group (that was Wendy, Becky, Steve and me!) to follow and cheer Matt on as he passed our 'cheering stations' on the bike and run. Plus the transition area (area where the athletes changed from swimming to biking to running) was very close.

Last leg of the race was the 13.1 mile run - a good part of it was on sand to boot.

Overall start to finish: total time to travel the 70.3 miles? An amazing 4 hours 31 minutes and 59 seconds!! Good for 4th place in his age group and for qualification for the 2017 Ironman 70.3 World Championship!!!

He was also within one place of qualifying for the 2017 World Ironman Championship in Kona, Hawaii - maybe next year :-)

Nice job, Matt!!!




Also credit to Matt for finding our Airbnb housing for the five days we were there. It was literally a five minute walk to the Ironman activities and a two minute walk to the beach where we had the chance to see the green flash each night.

Becky and I were waiting but sadly no flash that night .... maybe tomorrow.






Meanwhile there were bike issues being taken care of - new carbon fiber wheel for Becky's bike and Matt was great in bringing his bike tools to install the tubes and tires on the new wheels.


Which of course needed to be tried out, right?

Super new wheels :-)

Start of Wendy's tattoo

Wendy's finished :-)

Entertainment Saturday night was the application of the Henna tattoos - a Christmas gift from December.

Of course once this was started Becky and I joined in!

Becky's

Both Becky's and mine were hand drawn by Wendy.

My 'knee' tattoo!

The rest of the weekend was spent just hanging out and enjoying being together.

And a lobster dinner is almost always on the agenda when we get together with Becky and this was no exception!

There is a great Asian market that we frequent whenever we are out this direction - super fun place to go!

This gathering was also a chance to celebrate birthdays for Becky (July), Wendy (August) and me (September). Good job goes to Becky for the idea and getting ice cream and for Steve making brownies :-)