Win-Win Training!

What a fun training day today! Today was the first day in a long time that felt like triathlon training to me... I've been focusing on running for the last few months and have let my swim/bike go to some degree so it felt good to really get back at it and feel like a triGEEK again. :)

I am a creature of habit and my typical Wednesday workout is swim/bike brick... I have not done that since like September though. And Nalani has been gone for the holidays so my once/week swims have been alone and uninspired lately. In good news, a couple of my athletes are on a break from work this week so I invited them over to come swim and ride with me this morning. I tied my feet together for the whole swim workout which was fun. I don't swim that much slower with bands vs without bands which probably doesn't say much for my regular swimming! But whatever. I got a solid strength swim in and didn't have to actually see how much slower my 100's are now that my swim volume has been reduced to like 3K/week. Win-win!

So it was 8:30 by the time time we started riding and I was like "Ok boys you have 3 hours to drag me through 62 miles..." (Scott had a meeting to get to today so I did not have unlimited time to play on my bike). Patrick and Gene took my instructions seriously and got after it right from the start. We stopped for ~3' at the turn-around to pee and fill bottles and then we were right back at it... Turn and burn, baby! Of course on the way back we also had to stop briefly for my weekly flat (big piece of glass this week). It's like not even news anymore when I flat b/c it happens so often (my 4th one this month- ridiculous!). That nearly new Continental tire is going straight in the trash b/c clearly it sucks. Anyway, Patrick did his best to make up for lost time there in the last ~20 miles... and wouldn't you know it... ta-dah... ride time 2:54 and I was pulling into home and didn't even make Scott late. Win-win! Drafting on the bike is the bomb. I do that so rarely b/c I do so much of my training alone but what a relief to not have to deal with the wind as much today.

In exciting news, I found out today that I was named Hawaii Sport Magazine's Female Cyclist of the Year. Holy crap! So of course I am super excited to back that up in 2012. After the ride today it appears I'm starting from a decent point fitness-wise (light years ahead of last year anyway).