1).  My friend Susan is the most super-dee-duper sherpa in the whole wide world and no – you can’t have her for your race.  She took perfect care of 3 of us all weekend and managed to get DPR to the airport with minutes to spare to catch her flight home.  Her bike stayed with me because we didn’t have  time to get back to my house to pack it up.

2).  DPR and I were born to race together.  We are perfect roomies and always have a good time. This Vineman was the  3rd time we’ve gone to a race together and she’s come and stayed at my house twice.  We always have fun.

3).  Going to Vineman with 2 friends from FMRC and 1 bloggy peep was really fun – perfect.

4). I met and exchanged words with Sister Madonna Buder – twice.  The first time was as we were getting post-race food.  I told her she was such an inspiration and then I said, “I guess you’ve probably heard that a few times before” to which she responded “Well yes, I have but I never understand why”.  I told it was because she just keeps going and going and going and she said “well so does everyone here”.  Her humility was remarkable.

I saw her again as I was taking my bike out of T2 to go home.  I had an iPhone in my hand.  Another friend walked up and we were all talking.  I did not have my friend take a picture.  How stupid is that but I also felt that it would be a little awkward to ask for the picture so I didn’t.  I did try to broach the topic of her has an inspiration again and said, “you have God on your side” to which she predictably replied, “We all have God on our side.   You just have to be open to him”.  So I made no points being articulate or intelligent but it was really special to have had that encounter.

I just did a search on ‘Sister Madonna Buder Vineman’ and I found this

That's me - so what does this mean??

What I wanted to get was something like this:

That's her - 76 years old and still kicking ass

I asked her if she was going to Kona this year and she said that remained to be seen because she had to qualify.  She will be racing IM Canada to do that.  Let’s all send our prayers her way so she can try to finish that race yet again.    I’m sure she can do it – she wasn’t that far behind me at Vineman (33 mins) and actually had a better run split than me.

5).  I kind of fell in love with Sebastapol. What a cute town and it’s right there, sandwiched in between the ocean and the Napa Valley and right there in the Sonoma Valley which has a zillion wineries.    It’s kind of a hippie town with a lot of rich people in it so it has that sort of diversity.   I may spend some more time up there exploring.

6). Meeting Sister Madonna Buder must have been a path to making my dreams come true because I seem to have a sweet Tri bike all of a sudden.  Can’t wait to do my first race on it!  Folsom Olympic Distance Triathlon here I come!