Day 122: Last Week's Training

The original title of this post was "This Week in Training", I never got around to posting it in the proper week. It seems like everyone and their grandma is in Kona this week. I have over 15 friends from the mainland U.S. and Australia over here, combined with new friends and the Kona crew, the social calendar is quite full. I arrived in Kona last Sunday and in the span of five days, I moved and slept in three different places. On the third (and final move), I remember laying in bed and thinking how normal it all felt to be living out of suitcases and moving from place to place. I wanted to live life as a pro, and after 4 months, I finally am used to the lifestyle.I got straight to business once I got to Kona, putting in close to 32 hours of training last week. Each day, I feared the workout thinking, is this the day my lack of fitness will catch up to me? Somehow I made it through. Actually, I know how I made it through, good company and lots of laughter. On my fifth straight day of riding, Bree and I had a 6-hour ride post swim. The first hour was so tough mentally and physically. But then I whipped out the camera and we made these stupid videos and we started busting up laughing. Who knew the laughing would be better than a gel or salt tablet, and it totally got us into our groove. The next four hours were copacetic. At the five hour mark, Bree and I died our second death. We tried pace-lining, but we ended up separating, each of us with only our thoughts on the Queen K. The last hour was definitely ironman-pace effort, which coincidentally we were supposed to try and do if we felt good. How ironic. After a run off the bike, we had 20 minutes to get back to my hotel to move me into my new place. I first saw Bree at 6:00 AM that day, and we finally departed ways at 4:30 PM...only to meet up again 2 hours later for a movie. What a day. The above video chronicles some of the week's activities.
Sunday will go down as one the most memorable days of my life. After we nailed our 90-minute run, we had a splash in Kailua Bay. We swam to the 1.2 mile buoy and that's where the magic happened. A pod of 50+ dolphins came out to play with us. I've never seen a dolphin in the wild, let alone swim with one. I wish everyone could experience this at least once in their lifetime. And if not, I captured it all on video for you. Mahalo Kona!