California Dreamin'

In just a few days, I'll be loading myself onto a plane to California!!!!  First stop, San Francisco to visit family and then I'll be flying to LAX to head to Oceanside for my first triathlon of the season.  Eek!!!  Afterwards, I'll be heading to Santa Monica for a week of cycling in the hills and hopefully try out some surfing!!!! 

Right now, I am panicking a bit about the race because it is a half ironman, Oceanside 70.3....this is business.  I knew back when I signed up for this race that a March half ironman was not going to be easy.  It is really early in the year for a Cannuck to be doing a race of this distance but it is a race I have always wanted to do.  And when the opportunity came up I decided to jump on it.  Luckily for me, this winter has been unseasonably warm and I went out for my first bike ride of the year!!! Yay!!!!  In mid- March!  I was going to go out on Saturday but some thick fog prevented me from going out as I wanted to make sure I was seen out there.  So I bailed and took Saturday off.  As I was going to start packing my bike today I could not resist going out with the 20C and sunny weather we were having.  So I went out for a 2hr ride to get a feel for Limey and I could have stayed out there longer.  I was having a blast.  I did not particularly enjoy the city riding I had to do but my timing was pretty good and traffic was not that bad and I got the car pool lane to myself on my return trip home.  It was sooo much fun to be out there again today on Limey.  I also realized that this race is going to hurt.  My muscles are not quite used to staying in aero for a long time and the saddle is not my best friend at the moment.  It normally takes a few long rides to get myself used to the tri bike and I won't have that luxury this time before the race.  I just need to survive 90km! ;)  Easier said than done.  I don't think I'll be able to hammer the bike and I may be suffering a bit out there on race day.  But who knows!  Either way, I did get this ride in and it was fantastic.  What was not so fantastic was the run I did afterwards.  Lol!!!!  Legs were not ready for a run off the bike and they were a bit confused and unhappy with me.  I was running well over a 6min/km for the first couple of km and then by 3km I got my running legs back and was able to run a bit faster.  Hmmm....race day, 90km bike + 21.1km run!  Uh...ya....that will really be interesting!  Let's say Coke and Redbull! ;)