Ben rolled out of Fargo the first thing Saturday morning for a church mission trip deal taking him to Louisville, KY.  He will be there a week and will not have his phone as all electronics are banned.  Ben has a heart as big as a whale and will do well.  I am interested in hearing about his week when he returns.
Matt and I missed the Ben send off and headed west to the Bismarck Triathlon.  I was not participating and was going mainly as the coach/driver/nutritionist/general support and to hang out with Matt all day.  In reality, this was Matt's first tri on the road and he was attending mainly as a learning mission for a big event he has this coming weekend.  Matt is set and ready for the Pipestem Xterra event scheduled for this Saturday, June 25th.

Perfect weather two weekends in a row!  Due to the bad ass floods taking place on the Missouri river in Bismarck, Dennis Kemmesat race promoter moved the event out to McDowell Dam just east of town.  In my opinion it was a great location.

The bikes staged and ready to go.  Matt does not have a tri bike and decided to stick with what he knows and rode his Salsa cross bike.

Angie Tanngen and Dave Breznay from Fargo joined us.  Like me, Dave was there to support and cheer for Angie.  Angie has a hand in getting Matt interested in triathlons by sending him schedules and keeping us informed on what to do.  This shot is of the beach prior to the start of the swim.

Matt had a 500 yard swim in which he was first out of the water and in the transition zone.  This is where he learned a lot.  There is tons of specialized triathlete gear out there that he does not have.  We  are mountain bikers and have buckles on our shoes and have never used aero bars.  If Matt wants to keep the triathlon deal going it might have to be decided to update the gear.  Just what we need is another specific bike.
Matt did well on both the bike and run sections and thoroughly enjoyed himself.  The results are not posted as of yet which surprises me as there was chip timing.  Now that he has an official event under his belt hopefully this weekend he will be able to hone his learned skills and go even faster.
I knew that it was going to be tough sitting around but I actually enjoyed watching Matt have a blast.
Matt and I spent a couple of hours in Bismarck with Angie and Dave and made our way down to the Missouri River.  Crazy scene for sure!  The water is just roaring through the city.

I took the above photos out the window of Kriston's Honda.  I have ridden this area of Bismarck on River Drive a number of times and could not believe how much water is flowing.  After living through this in Fargo the last three years I know what the people in Bismarck are going through.  We wish them well.

Father's day yesterday.  All is well with my Dad up at the lake and we had an awesome day here in Fargo doing what we wanted to throughout the day.  I went for a run, made it to church, ran errands with Matt, went on a long bike ride with Craig Lemieux  and Kriston made me an excellent dinner to end the day.  Life is good.