Swimming In The Salt Water Washing Machine

Yay for 3 day weekends!

This morning I met some fast swimmers down at the beach and we ventured out into the salt water machine machine we call The Ocean. It's been pretty windy on the islands lately and there was a little swell that came in this weekend so that combination of factors made for an interesting (but fun!) swim. My challenge was that I was the slowest one in my little group and my fear of being left behind (by myself in the deep blue sea!) was quite real. The result was that I worked very hard to hang on to the feet in front of me and I learned that, guess what? I can swim with those fast guys when I *really* want to. :)

Scott brought Moana down to the beach to play today too. I haven't had her in the ocean all that much lately because it just hasn't been warm enough... but today was pretty sunny and warm so we had fun playing in the water. My little fishy daughter... I'm so proud.

On the drive home my challenging goal was to keep her awake. I learned last week that a 5 minute nap in the car does indeed replace the 2.5 hour nap in the crib so I wasn't going to make that mistake again today. But tickling her from the front seat while also trying to drive only works for so long. What she needed was a new and interesting toy to play with. I dug around in my car and found an old brake lever from my bike* and boy did that do the trick! She was enthralled with it the whole way home and is now sleeping peacefully in her crib.

So the taper weekend went remarkably well. I nailed my workouts, best case scenario style, and managed not to over do it by adding in anything extra. You know, as good as I feel right now, I'm one of those athletes who actually hates taper. Not shocking, given how much I enjoy training... But the taper is almost over and on Saturday I'll be able to let loose. Lol. I feel like a caged animal.

I dropped my bike off today at ITB where the nice folks from TriBike Transport will fly it over to Kona for me. It costs a bit extra to do it that way, but when you're traveling with a toddler and a car seat and a stroller, well, it's worth it. Actually, the very best part of using a service like this is that as soon as the race is over, when you're just exhausted and don't think you can take one more step, you just hand your sticky dirty bike over to the people at the TBT tent and go home to shower. That, even without The Toddler Factor, is a reason to use this service.

*The brake lever was removed from my bike last week (along with most of the other moving parts) by the mechanics at ITB. They are apparently not very impressed by my bike maintenance skills which made it necessary to replace just about everything that can possibly be replaced on a TT bike. I like to think that the 3000+ miles I've ridden this year have something to do with that, but they swore it was my lack of maintenance. Whatever. My bike feels brand spanking new right now and that's all that matters.