Monday:
An insane day, but managed to get together with friends at the pool to do some circle swim laps…just great to get together with Jim P and Tina P to decompress and re-hash the events of the Saturday bike session of chaos.

Tuesday:
Swim with Intermediates…small group tonight so we all swam together and got in a great work out and did some mass swim starts! My favorite! I have been working hard on concentrating on keeping form even in the chaos of mass start and tonight I really felt good staying in form and even when my goggles got ripped off my face I kept form, which I was pretty proud off! I just love the rush of the mass swim!

Wednesday:
Another small group tonight for coaching. We did mass swim and I have to say it’s hard to resist not jumping in and joining in on the chaos! Everyone is looking so smooth hard to believe it’s the same group from 6 weeks ago!

Thursday:
Run coaching night up on OCC campus…the group ran the entire course for the Runapoloza tonight in a series of intervals. The first lap was not awesome. The knee was killing and I couldn’t get my breathing under control I actually had several panicky thoughts on how the heck am I going to run the 70.3 half marathon in two weeks!? The night was hot and humid and the course was hilly. One spot was particularly brutal and I jokingly called this section “Death Valley”. Just intense heat and sun right overhead, yuck! The course is a loop that you run twice and for whatever reason…exhaustion, confusion, being delusional etc. I got through the first loop and could have sworn I had run the course twice! After a moment of stopping and thinking “How the heck did I run that 5k that fast !?” I realized…ah you didn’t and headed back out for the second loop…good news is that on the second lap I got my breathing under control and the knee finally stopped hurting! When we finished the course because we needed to take a group pic and we had come further tonight Brendan told me to let the group decided whether or not they wanted to do the core…I have to say that I was highly impressed with the group! They all were in favor and indeed wanted a full core workout, and when the session got to the plank they wanted to two minute vs the one minute plank!! So fierce! Love this group!

Friday:
AWESOME!!!!! Today I took a personal day from work and was able to meet up with a group of insane riders including Coach Helene, Andy, Brendan and Amy and headed out for an intense ride of 30 miles from North Syracuse to Oneida shores. Such an informative ride, with Brendan and Helene giving awesome tips on how to take my cycling to the next level…I finally had my cadence set up on my Garmin and was able to focus on keeping in that golden 90 range…what a difference! I have to say though that this ride kicked my butt and energized me all the time! I have needed an intense workout like this for a while. I got frustrated and re-motivated and all at the same time! I could feel where I need to push and grow and I could feel where I had already grown so much over last season! Was insanely jacked up on the energy from this! For the first 20 miles I managed to keep with the group but then after a stop at a corner I had an issue getting clipped in and let me just tell you in this group you get “dropped” fast and at that point I knew it would take an insane effort to catch-up and I cranked it up and began trying to catch-up that is until I met up with “the little old lady from Pasadena”. I came up to a T in the road and a woman was stopped at the stop sign. I had the right of way…but in biking you know that right of way means nothing if you are dead. I start slowing down and I make eye contact with the woman…she sees me, sees I’m coming…okay I should be good…except that just as I got up to the turn she must have decided that she should go then!!!! I slammed on my brakes and cut to the right fast. I swerve and manage to turn just in time to miss hitting her car t-bone fashion. Talk about a heart attack and a half! Thank goodness that Helene had railed (very smartly) at me for my old helmet and I had just this week bought a new helmet (one that wasn’t ten years old and under $20!). I had never thought of it this way but as Helene says “Why would you spend all kinds of money on a fancy bike then spend as little as possible on the object that’s sole purpose is to save your brain!!!!???” (especially, she added when you are me…I actively realize that I am prone to accidents and perhaps more than most need bubble wrapping and good helmets!). In this case I didn’t need to test the awesomeness of my new helmet…but I was glad it was there! This also of course meant that I had little to no chance of catching up with the rest of the gang…so I just set myself to a 90 cadence and tried to crank it out to get back to the shop. Once back to the shop I set off with Andy, Helene and Brendan to grab chocolate milk...now I know chocolate milk is the “perfect” recovery drink for muscles…but honestly the thought of drinking milk post work-out has been off putting…but I am a new convert!! After words it was off to a nice breakfast and tri chat with Amy and Brendan, so nice to have time to just sit and chat! After breakfast Amy and I were on the fence about doing an open water swim or getting a pedicure….pedicure won! Side-note is that I have been in the process of losing a toe nail from the Mountain Goat race (and I realize this is gross…however I have to say I think of it as a rite of passage and I have been kinda, weirdly thinking of it as a badge of honor!) and what with the sweaty, stinky ride in the morning and the toenail…well let’s just say I felt bad for the guy doing my pedi…he was tipped well! Today was an epic day and when I think of where I was just 3 years ago...well I know now that the journey IS the goal and the journey is the REWARD!!

Saturday:
We are at Oneida shores again. This time however it is without pouring rain and without Brendan or Denise or Helene! We have split up the group and I was asked by Brendan (obviously because I am so eloquent, not just because I’m the loudest!) to start everyone off with instructions for the ride. After last weeks epic rainy bike ride from you know where, this is a big responsibility. I need to make sure everyone does a helmet check, rides the tracks and bridge correctly and stops at all stop lights and obey traffic rules! I break the groups up and send them out based on times. Today the coaches are trying a new zone coverage where we ride out with a group then leave them when we get to our coverage zone to pick up the next group riding through. Everyone heads out and we have a great ride! Beautiful day and for many of the athletes it’s a chance to tackle the a few demons from last week! For myself I spanked that bridge and showed it who was boss…with a healthy dose of respect that it could always come back and spank me…but not today! Between riding back and forth in the zones I manage to get in another 20 miles on the bike…50 miles in two days! I feel great!