Awesome Sunday Training

For most of last week, I was dreading Sunday. It was all because I had peeked ahead at my training schedule and saw that I had a 4.5 hour bike ride! Oh boy...270 minutes in the saddle...hooray!
Fortunately, my thoughts on the training schedule changed dramatically when I found a willing training buddy for the whole morning...Jarrod Shoemaker just flew down to Orlando on Friday for a long week of training in the sunshine (and a 1/2 marathon race next weekend). We were chatting on the phone/email and he mentioned that his coach had instructed him to get a total of 400 miles on his bike while he was in Florida...roughly averaging 40 miles a day.
I suckered him in with the promise of 80 miles in one day (which would give him a pretty good start)! We headed out of my house at 7:30am and rode towards Winderemere. A little over an hour of nice conversation pace...and then we met up with the Windy Group ride for some quad-tearing hill climbs at 30+ mph!
One of two options...I am either still not back to full cycling ability (the kind where I was kick butts last winter) or there are some super-serious-guys on the rides this year that are totally kicking up the pace and dropping me like a bad habit!
Either way, I'm only making it to Grassy Lake with the group and then getting shelled off the back. But, I was fine with that yesterday because I still had over 2 hours to ride. Jarrod and I continued on at a conversation pace again (joined now by another local triathlete, Nic) and cruised around to the rest-stop at the gas station in Mont Verde.
the remainder of the group pulled in a few minutes after us, filled up on fluids and calories, and continued on back to Windermere. We hopped on and had another few minutes of fast riding until we peeled off back to Clermont. Conversation pace again (my favorite) over to Lake Louisa, a quick stop at Nic's house, back along Lakeshore drive to East Ave. and then into the Carroll Street house at exactly 4 hours and 15 minutes of ride time...78 miles total.
At this point, I have no energy or desire to make my own brunch food so we made ourselves semi-presentable and went over to Sommerlake Cafe for the $4.50 pancake & eggs special ($5.00 if you are like me and add blueberries to your cakes).
With bellies full of syrup and eggs, the three of use decided to continue our great day of training and take advantage of the NTC pool being Long Course Meters. We arrived at the pool with a goal of completing a 3K workout. I told Jarrod and Nic that each of us was responsible for thinking up a 1000 meter set. Everyone was pretty creative (thanks for the 200 IMs Jarrod!!) and we got a bit of a Florida tan in the mean-time!
I was in the shower trying to remove the ever-present chlorine smell from my skin when I suddenly realized that I had signed up for a massage earlier in the week! I came barreling out of the shower with soap suds flying everywhere to find a clock and see what time it was. No joke...it was 2:50pm and I had a 45 minute session with Maria at 3:00pm! PERFECT timing, with out even trying!!
It was a great day of training, I'm very proud of myself and my training partners. There's not much you can't accomplish when you've got people doing the same thing right next to you...easy motivation! And, speaking of training partners, I'm late for swim practice with the kids!