Ooohhh, a rainbow :o)

We weren't sure if the weather would hold out for us on Saturday. It had pretty much poured all night and early morning. We got to Shadow Cliffs in Pleasanton around 7:30 and even though it was chilly and dark a few minutes later the clouds parted and a rainbow came out for us :o)

We got our very cool TNT wetsuits and after Coach Tom did a demonstration on how to put it on and how to care for it. It was then our turn to get our suits on without poking any holes in it. Let me tell ya, it was very funny and all I could think of was good grief how am I gonna get out of it once I'm in it. It was pretty interesting. I also decided I better cut back on eating like a piggy cause this thing shows everything.

So wetsuits on and into the water we went. We were suppose to get in and swim for 20-30 minutes. So that didn’t quite happen for me. First of all it was FREEZING in the lake. I could not catch my breathe. My feet and hands were frozen and somehow I was suppose to put my face in the water and swim.....hmmm, yeah, I don’t think so. I decided I would try for the 20 minutes. It was very hard for me though because not only was it super cold but I felt very constricted in the wetsuit. I couldn’t get a good stroke going. I did the best I could and after 20 minutes I got out and got changed for my run. I will definitely need to practice getting my suit on and off and of course swimming in it. The one good thing is that at least when I do Wildflower the water will be much warmer. After the swim, we went on a 5.5 mile run. I ran part of it on the trail, which was very muddy and part of it on Stanley Road which is just pavement. I went home and had some yummy food and took a much needed nap. I needed to get my energy back because we were going to a fundraiser at The Cellar in SF. Rocky, Phil, Karen, Olivia and I met up for dinner. We had sushi and then headed over to SF. There were mostly mentors from our team there and a couple of participants. Deb, the person holding the fundraiser, had a raffle and I won a bottle of wine. I think everyone headed home around 10 because we had to ride either 30 miles or 60 miles on Sunday. But OOOH NO, not us, we stayed there til midnight and danced away. We had a great time so it was worthy the few extra hours out.


Sunday, I met a couple of people from the team in San Ramon and we went on a 25 mile bike ride. It was the same ride from last weekend. It was still a bit challenging especially after being out all night and not getting the appropriate rest, food and hydration but I got through it. It was a really nice day and the course was very pretty. After the ride I had to hurry home because we were taking Patch to puppy training, the whole family is officially in training. That went well although of course Patch was the loudest there, we hope that in 8 weeks he will be nice and quiet and mellow. Our Sunday festivities did not end there, Rocky and I headed out to El Cerrito to pick up Vanessa & Salina Wittmer (Vanessa is one of my honoree’s) and we took them to Coldstone for ice cream. We had a good time with them. I hadn’t spent much time with them so it was a nice treat.

Well that was my weekend and today begins week 9 of training. In two weekends we leave for Lake San Antonio to practice on the actual event course. I can’t wait and it looks like the weather is clearing up. I have been doing the sunshine dance.

Have a great week!