Beach Weekend Report

Yes, I did go to the beach. No, I didn’t actually GO to the beach. I will explain.

Early Saturday morning Beth and made the trip to Sarah’s family’s beach house in Rehoboth. Nice easy trip, with one pit stop for gas during which I noticed that Erin’s bike (which I was transporting so she could ride with me Sunday) was trying to escape. Darn bike rack. I had tightly bound it in, bungeed it, locked it with my chain lock, and still it came loose. Some nice hillbillies, I mean gentlemen, helped me secure it again.

We arrived at the house around 11 am just as the rain started. Boo! We hung out with the girls and Sarah’s awesome parents for a little while and then decided to get out in the rain for our 8-miler. It was actually pretty great. The rain kept us cool and we got to explore the town. Rehoboth is such a different place than it was when I was last there about 10 years ago.

As we approached the house during the last 10 minutes of the run the sun appeared. Boy was it hot and muggy! I am actually glad we had the weather we did. Of course, the sunshine didn't last long. Maybe 30 minutes at the most.

Fast forward to the evening. We had a wonderful dinner at the Cultured Pearl – a contemporary Japanese restaurant where we enjoyed tons of yummy sushi. I highly recommend it. The girls headed out on the town afterwards and I went back to the house to go to bed. An Ironwoman-in-training needs her sleep! I felt like a party pooper, but everyone understood. Such is my life.

Sunday morning Erin accompanied me on my 40-mile ride. Another crappy weather day, though I think this time around I would have preferred the heat. We rode south from Rehoboth to Fenwick Island.

For the first half we were cruising along at around 20-22 mph. I was pretty impressed with myself, since this is much faster than my typical average. Actually, first I was convinced that my bike computer was off. I thought maybe the settings got reprogrammed. Then as we turned onto a side street to make the turnaround to head back I posited that perhaps my increased speed was due to the bike fit. I knew that being properly fitted can impact your speed. Before my fit I was saying I didn’t care so much about speed – I just wanted to stop hurting on the bike. I had a little moment of celebration with myself and started calculating how quickly I could get 112 miles (the IM bike leg distance) accomplished at that rate. And then……

Wooosh! Holy cr*p! As we turned back onto Route 1 to head north it felt like a hurricane. I am only slightly exaggerating. Not only was it windy, but the precipitation might have actually been hail. It was hitting us hard and stinging. Geez. We pushed through…at an average pace of speedy 11 mph. Good training but not fun. Not fun at all. Erin was such a trooper!

We arrived home, got cleaned up, and then hit the road to come home. And that was the beach weekend. I did get to see the sand, as part of my trip up Route 1 had a view of the beach. Sigh.

In the end, though, it was a great weekend. Lots of fun time with the girls, training accomplished, and a nice weekend away. I can’t explain how much it meant to me that Beth and Erin joined me for my workouts. It went from being a source of anxiety to something really fun.

One of the many lessons here is that we (those of us in training) should give those around us a chance to become involved. My friends are very supportive of my endeavor, and this weekend they showed that in a new way.

Another lesson is that it is fun to work out with people who are not your usual training partners. So what that my ride was all in zone 1? It was a nice change of pace for me and I think that my girlfriends may have a little more appreciation for what this whole training thing is all about now. For one thing, Erin pointed out at the end of our ride that it was only one-third of the distance I will do for IM. Good point.

Finally, I am glad that I didn’t let training and team activities prevent me from having a life outside of the sport. I can’t say I’ll be able to do this much over the next 4+ months, but I am so glad I did it now.