Just Like Old Times

My friend Ellen just spent 7 months in the desert in Kuwait. She's a nurse practitioner in the navy and (phew!) arrived back to Hawaii yesterday afternoon.

I met Ellen at one of the summer series swim races back in 2005. We clicked right away and have been ocean swimming buddies for years (except for the two times she was deployed to Kuwait)...

So to celebrate her return to the islands, we gathered a few folks to do the ocean swim that used to be our Sunday routine...

Next time Ellen has a celebratory return to the island, I hope it is summertime. Because the ocean in the winter is cold. Much of the day I felt like I was in a washing machine set on BRRRR. Half way through I was really wishing that I could just be put in the dryer on the high heat setting for cottons. But alas, we were still probably a mile from shore.

The good news is that we finish at a hotel that has a hot tub. We pretend to be guests. Every week.

The other good news is that Duke's has good beer. And they let us hang out in the restaurant and serve us lunch in our bathing suits.

So that was a good way to end the weekend. It was a tough one that started out Friday night with a long run with my new friend and running partner, Sarah. I slowed her down some I'm sure, but we enjoyed the conversation and she didn't seem to mind my pace.

That run was still in my legs as I started off on the typical Saturday morning ride 12 hours later... I heard those sweet words, "We're not going to go that hard today..." early on. But that's all a bunch of BS. It's always hard. I just wish they would say, "Hey, we're all gonna push it til we feel like we're gonna puke..." Because that's how it's going to go down. Let's just be honest, ya know??