Disneyland, California Adventure, matching hats and all.

Back to the "real world" on Wednesday after being at the happiest place on earth. How they ever came up with that phrase is a complete enigma, since almost everyone there (Disneyland) looked completely miserable. I'm not joking, I made it a contest to find anyone who even looked remotely happy or had the hint of a smile on their face. It made me smile just to do this, which made the trip a bit more tolerable. I kept thinking, at least I won't have to do this again for a couple of years, at least.

So, it was a relief to get back to training on Wednesday. I tricked my friend Fiona into going on an easy trail run with me. She has never run trails before and I was planning on going up grass mountain, since the weather was so fantastic and I knew the flowers would be out in full force. I love this run and don't really consider the difficulty level compared to someone who is used to running flattish roads all the time. She was happy she went and cursed me the next morning at swim, telling the coach that it was all my fault that she was slow. It is a very steep hill and pretty technical, probably not the best choice for a first time trail run. Sorry Fiona, well, not really. She did awesome!

Thursday was swimming of course and then out on the bike for a couple of hours to battle the winds. Friday a short run is all I could squeeze into my day. Saturday, out on the bike by 8AM and ran into my friend Mike, who kicks ass on the bike and made me push way harder than I'm used to. This was really good for me, since I had to be home in time to make it to SB for a swim clinic by 1 PM.

I'm glad I went to the clinic. I was on the fence about going, but the woman putting it on, Mo Chambers, is an excellent coach and I really got some useful information and I think my stroke will be better already. She also coached us a bit about how to sight in open water. The only negative was that the pool was outside and it was freezing and the water was way colder than the 84 degrees I'm used to. I think they said it was 70 degrees. BRRRRRRR!!!! I now know how spoiled I am and will never complain again when the water is say 83 or even 82, which it sometimes is. I'm no polar bear.

Sunday, out on the bike again for a 3 hour ride, than a quick 2 1/2 run. I hoped to fit more biking in this weekend, but wanted to get that run in too. I don't know how people fit all this training in. I have laundry piled up and an empty refrigerator half the time. My kids are always out of socks and we had to eat tortillas and applesauce for breakfast the other day, because mommy's too busy training (and working, mind you) to go to the store. Ugh. But, I did take them to Disneyland. That's right. Priorities.