The Legacy Trail

The little town that we live in is not very bike friendly. There's nary a bike lane or wide shoulder to be found. We have often gone out to a park where there is a 5 mile out and back paved loop that works well for high intensity efforts, but after making that loop a few times to get actual 'mileage' in... ugh!

After riding with Coach Heather's camp crew a few times now, heading back out to our little 5 mile out/back loop, was not very appealing... which is why I was STOKED when Sondra called on Thursday and said that she and Jeff were planning on making a trip up to Venice to do an easy ride on The Legacy Trail on Sunday. Sweeeeet!

So we packed up the bikes yesterday morning and headed North. The bikes themselves were an interesting choice. Sondra has been nursing a sciatica issue for some time now, so she chose to ride her hybrid in order to stay more upright (Chica, you need a road bike- hint, hint), I wanted a change as well so I opted to take my 'too large of frame' road bike without clipless pedals. Meanwhile, Scott was on his speedy P3C and Jeff was on his Tarmac. Mismatched bikes, right?? I learned, however, that mismatched bikes = great fun! We did way more talking than training on this ride (which was the whole point of the ride anyway) and really had an all around terrific time!

Thirty-five miles later we were a bit sunburned (okay, a few of us were a lot sunburned... Scott, Sondra!) and a few of us were a bit crotch sore from ill-fitting bike (Sherry!), so we packed up our goods and made our way to a cute little Irish Pub in downtown Venice for some burgers, fries... and onion rings! What is it with wanting meat after a ride??

The only problem with traveling outside the area for a ride, is the ride home. It was long, we got stuck in traffic... we were tired. Ahh... but what awaited us at home was worth the long day and the long drive!

Our new spa!!!

When Scott and I filled in our train wreck of a pool last year, we knew that we wanted to replace the big 'ole hole with a deck-top, therapeutic spa... and so we did! The spa arrived late last week and after a few days of electrical work and rescreening the pool cage, it was finally ready to go! So, we topped off our Legacy Trail ride with an inaugural dip in the new spa and a few bottles of hard cider (I'll have beer next time guys).

Training Recap
I used to do this after the completion of each month, but I like how Molly does it after each week, so I'm going to attempt to remember to do a brief summary at the end of each training week:

This past week was fairly run & swim light, but bike heavy. I can't believe that I used to run 30 miles per week in addition to everything else... what happened??

Swim: 3,000 yards
Run: 14.2 miles
Bike: 112 miles
Strength: 1 time

This next week marks my first week training under Coach Heather Gollnick's guidelines. I'm excited! I received my workouts for the week last night and my goodness, it is so NICE not having to think up these things myself anymore. What a relief! Having a coach is helping in the motivation department as well. I like having to be accountable to someone... I need this push.

This Sunday is the Komen Race for the Cure 5K... the same 5K that motivated me last year to get off of my coach potato behind! I'm excited! I want to go sub-23 in the 5k at some point this year; the sooner the better. However, since 1/2 marathon training I've been feeling kind of slow and the weather doesn't look favorable... but I'm going to give it my all. Hopefully I won't pull anything in the process. :o)