Weekend Training

As much as I like to tell my non-TriGIRL friends how I "win" the attendance prize for training sessions, even I have to skip one here and there. I picked up a hostess shift for one of the teenagers at work Friday night, and ended up going out with some of my coworkers afterwards. When my alarm went off at 6:15 Saturday morning, I decided that three hours of sleep was NOT enough to ride forty miles on.
I got up, got a 32 oz Gatorade and the morning paper, and got back in bed. When I finally rose from the dead around noon, I was ecstatic to find it was only about 83 degrees outside. I hopped on my bike and rode out to my parents' house and back, stopping briefly there to hydrate and sample a little homemade peach cobbler. Total mileage about 23.

One of the other trigirls, Sandy, and her boyfriend had a big party last night. I went out with Sandee and her husband for a while. We did lots of carb-loading, solid and liquid, but I still made it home before nine. My compliments on the spinach lasagne! We did play a couple of games of ping-pong, so I figure that should at least equal the 17 miles I didn't bike.

This morning I woke up to another beautiful day. Of course we are all commenting on the "lovely fall weather," but we really aren't fooled. We haven't seen the last of the mid-ninties here in Richmond. I met Liz, Sandee, Susie, Grandison, and Amy at the vita course. We ran eight miles out-and-back across the five-nickel bridge and down Riverside Drive. Very hilly, but barely noticeable when the temperature is hovering around eighty, the course is shady, and I've gotten a decent night's sleep.
Good to see Amy, who is not a trigirl, but actually went to high school with me. She just finished her first Ironman. It made me start thinking about how in the world she got into triathlon, which in turn made me start wondering what other people think when they find out that I've gotten into triathlon. Hmmm. That, of course, is the best part about our team--everyone is a motivating factor or inspiration of one type or another.