
Just like last year, it was a family racing event at this year’s Timberman Triathlon Festival!
Leading up to the event, we all seemed to go through the “why did I sign up for this?” phase – particularly as the forecast for Saturday degraded. But we sucked it up, packed up the car, and headed North on Friday evening. After a quick stop for dinner and a little shopping at the supermarket, we found our room at Misty Harbor, just a few miles from the race location, and settled in for a quiet evening watching the Olympics.
Up at some ridiculously early hour and off to Ellacoya State Park – the race site. John would spend the morning riding the back of a jet ski as a lifeguard for the swim portion of the race so he reported in there and left the boys to help mom prepare…

Shawn would be racing the “Sprint”, as she did last year. She got her gear settled and got into her wetsuit ready to go…

While John watched for her in the white cap swimmers, she went off with the yellow wave and had a great swim – taking over three minutes off her time from last year! She was quickly out on the bike and, not being seasick this year, she again bettered her result – this time taking eight and a half minutes off last year’s time! Still battling a sore knee, she gave a little time back on the run but managed to improve her Timberman Sprint time by over eight minutes from last year! Way to go Shawn!

The boys both worked at the finish line of Shawn’s race – handing out water bottles and towels and hauling around boxes. They worked really hard and were very kind to donate their time!
Next it was off to Gunstock for the Timberkids race. Josh was among the earliest starters in position number 5 which would prove both unfortunate and fortunate. After a good swim, the unfortunate part came along as the first few bike racers were misdirected out on the course. The miscue cost him a bunch of time and left him a bit upset…

Though disappointed by the effect of the snafu, he still finished strong and had fun – enough so that he’s talking about taking on a longer race next year!
Jake too was among the early starters at position #22. The cold water zapped a bit of his swim but, unlike last year, he was able to quickly warm up and get off on the bike. He had a good ride and charged out on the run…

He had an awesome finish, shaving almost six minutes off of his time from last year!
Our guys were fortunate to be early starters as, maybe halfway through the race, the skies crackled and the thunder boomed and the race had to be called – very disappointing for those still awaiting their start! Our guys were safely done though and we were very proud of out Timberkid champs!

While the family rested back at the hotel, John headed back to Ellacoya to rack his bike and meet up with some of his “imaginary friends” from the online running forum he frequents. They had fun meeting for real and took a practice swim in the lake.
We were out for another early dinner and then another quiet night in the hotel again watching the Olympics. And again, John was up and out before dawn for his turn to race! He’d race in the 70.3 mile event on a gorgeous sunny day. The rest of the family slept in a bit and then rode their bikes to the race to cheer him on!
John too would have a great swim, taking almost five minutes off of his time from the previous year, and a great bike, cutting seven minutes from his time there…

But… He’d have a rather disappointing cramp-ridden run that left him with a finish time ten minutes slower than last year’s. The gory details are in his race report here. He was still very pleased with all the fun he had and the goals he smashed!!
We’d all limp home on Sunday tired out from all the fun! It’s great to be an active family that can have a whole lot of fun sharing such events!