Rumpass in Bumpass

Seriously.  That is the name of the triathlon Christopher did a few weeks ago.  I was troubled because they insisted on spelling "rumpus" wrong, but really, this should have been the least of my worries.  The reason the race organizers were able to schedule a triathlon so early in the year here in Virginia is because the lake where the swim was held is warmer than normal because its waters are the cooling mechanism for the nearby nuclear power plant.  WHAT???  Seems crazy to me, but I've got a lot on my plate so I couldn't rally the effort to look into the safety of this.  And then when race morning dawned, we were looking at 52 degrees and POURING rain.  We packed up our oatmeal, loaded into the car and trudged on.  Luckily, it only really poured for the swim portion of the race (the kids and I stayed in the car for as long as possible).  My favorite quote of the day was from one of the volunteers way out at an aid station along the bike route: "Man.  I hope someone tells us if there's a tornado today."  Sure enough, tornadoes hit all over Virginia this day, but luckily the race was over and everyone was safely off the course.

My favorite part of the day, however, was reconnecting with Sybil and Greg, our neighbors from Capitol Hill.  Greg is a big time cyclist and Sybil's a big time photographer and good sport, so it seemed like a good place for us to meet up for the day.  In the end we had a great time together, dodging raindrops, jumping smack into the middle of puddles, and high-fiving Daddy at every sighting during his transitions.  After the race we took a quick walk around the UVA grounds (aka the campus) before they headed back up to DC.  Sadly, I left the photography to Sybil, so I don't have any pictures of them.  And I am a bit sad about this because every time I turned around Si was hugging Sybil and Mils was grabbing Greg's hand.  Sweet how quickly the kids remembered and fell back in love with these great friends.