Legs Like Bricks

While I was pregnant and absent from riding last year, my training partners expanded our little group. Specifically, Mike went out and found 3 more Ironman athletes who are as fast or faster than he is. Two of them showed up on the ride today so I met them for the first time. Sweet. Nothing like a good challenging ride in January.

It was finally a perfect and beautiful Saturday morning here so we got to ride with our sunglasses on... without any rooster-tails of water spraying us in the face... dry roads are not over-rated. And the wind was down today, making it especially pleasurable to pedal a bike. It was so exciting for these two fast riders I was trying to follow, in fact, that I wondered if a) there was prize money at the Turtle Bay Resort bathrooms that were to serve as our turn around point and b) if indeed it would be enough money for me to buy a new pair of legs to pedal me home.

I didn't find any prize money in the bathroom, but I wouldn't have won it anyway.

Our return trip was even faster than the outbound trip. I managed to hang on for most of the way back, but the load eventually just got too heavy on my legs... I swear I heard a little explosion just as I fell off on one of the hills. Then it was all I could do to turn the pedals over to get me home.

I didn't feel so bad about falling off. Total ride time today for the 56 miles was 2:45, which resembles my 1/2 Ironman bike split... or my old one anyway. Keep this up and I'm going to have a pretty good race season. Or else I'll get hurt. One or the other.

One other highlight of the day was that Scott took Moana out for the morning... so I finished my brick run (redefining that brick feeling in my quads) and came home to a quiet house... where I could relax in silence with my recovery shake out on my patio... and shower without rushing to hurry up and feed the baby... I had a full 20 minutes of quiet bliss before I was 'on' as mommy.

Moana and I played for a little while this afternoon but eventually ended up like this...