What I love most about triathlon

I am way behind blogging and have 4+ blogs started but am going with this after an amazing weekend with the girls.  I love my husband but I also love an occasional girls weekend.  Many girls take weekends to go to the spa, Vegas or the like...my favorite girls weekends are usually about racing or training. This past weekend was the Palm Springs Brick- 104 mile ride on Saturday and PS 1/2 Marathon on Sunday.  Last year the Nytro girls all stayed in an big house and did it up....I broke my leg the day before and was home having a pitty party with a bottle of wine and my bitchy attitude.

This year...the team is bigger, the former accommodations did not work out but I decided to rent a house for those who wanted to commit and still have Nytro girls weekend.  1st house was rented out from under me - bummer. 24 hours was too slow to send a deposit.  Round 2 was a house with a smaller group and that was/is a complete disaster- pretty sure it was a scam.  So come Thursday we have no accommodations - my little voice said bag the weekend but my snarky voice said GO, GO,GO....so it was every girl for herself .... Liz, Amy and I managed to find a Holiday Inn Express (7 miles away) and off we went!

The room was just large enough for 3 girls and our cycling + running + food + 3 bikes...Amy is a saint for sleeping on the fold out sofa.  Friday night we had dinner with 2 other Nytro girls (Noko and Lisa) and our 2 boys that crashed the party  (KP and Ian)... fun night out in crazy PS and still in bed by 9.

Up at 4:45 and it was 39 degrees....Oh boy... very compatible room mates- early to bed, early to rise and no one is grumpy at that dark, early AM.  Me being the ONLY coffee drinker (can you imagine) had to hussle to AMPM ( if you call that coffee) at 5 for my kick of the day.  We were on our bikes and rolling at 6:20- twilight and cold, cold..... it was not as bad as Ocotillo and was definitely warming up.  The wind farm was windy - can you imagine???  But after that the ride was awesome.  I lost Amy and KP and joined a pace line that rocked.  30+ miles of shared work taking pulls and humming along at 23-24mph.  The closer to the front the harder it gets and that 3-4 minutes pulling was a VO2 max effort.  It flew by and was fun.  So not Ironman type riding...it was fast and slow.   And funny that Xavier (whose wheel I sucked) is from San Diego...and reads this crazy blog- cool meeting you and thank you for the solid efforts and draft :)

We pulled into an aid station and I was scared to get food as I did not want to get left behind... of course as soon as I pulled out my bottle 2 left.  Argh.... the same group never got together but I found a triathletes wheel and he would pull for most of the time with me hanging on and I took a turn or 2. We soon found some more people and played the game the rest of the ride.  It is somewhat stressful as I wanted to be safe but get the drag, take my turn in the front but not die.  All in all the ride rocked and went by fast.... Nothing like logging 104 miles by 12:15.
Lunch with the girls and chillaxing afternoon.... laying around chatting (me actually who was chatty Cathy this weekend)  Dinner at Native Foods (location in Encintas as well) an awesome Vegan place with Lori, Julia and Sara. Amazing food.....I so wanted the Sesame Kale Macro Bowl ...but after my last Kale +1/2 marathon running experience I said NO and went for the Greek Gyro which was awesome as well.  Good food, great company and in bed by 8:00- even better!

Gotta sleep in until 5am today and off to the run..... 30 min warm up and off with the group at 7am.  Goal was training day (similar to Carlsbad)  but I started of running slower and ended up running 5 minutes faster.  Solid negative split and and another run in the bank.  And it was awesome running the last few miles with a few of my team mates!!! Great to see everyone at the start :)

Okay what I love most about triathlon...all the amazing people I have met and continue to meet.  We share a common interest in sport and are committed to being the best we can be!!  Sleepovers in a hotel with biking, running, oatmeal cookies, brownies and girl talk. Thank you all :)