WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

I am pretty sure I uttered those words to Kerry at least once on Saturday's bike ride.  I am going to let her give you the nitty gritty details of the ride but let me just preview it a bit.  It included wind varying from "What a nice breeze" to "Oh sweet Jesus hold on to your hats".  Rain came in the form of cooling mists to torrential freaking downpours invoking thoughts such as "Umm...where is the road?" to "I really hope there isn't a pothole under that puddle" to "Lord, please let me live through this bike ride!!!!!"  We experienced so many things out there and I am pretty sure I saw this woman go by at one point

By the time we abandoned the ride in the interest of life and well-being I had 57 miles in.  Too bad I needed 80.  So what to do?  I honestly wanted to just jump in a warm shower and go back to bed at that point.  But I didn't.  I went in the house and changed into warm clothes.  I then went back out and cleaned and dried my bike off as much as possible and brought it in.  I then sat on the edge of the bathtub with my feet under warm water to thaw them out and get feeling back into them.  I then put my freakin bike back on the trainer and got dressed for a ride.  After pouring the water (no joke) out of my bike shoes I had to put them back on.  They were drenched. What to do?  I was already miserable enough and just got feeling back in my feet.  I did not want wet feet.  Thanks to a recent Walmart shopping trip I was in luck.

Socks on feet inside walmart bags inside soaked bike shoes

Now if I wore this outfit into Walmart I would fit right in!!!!  On the trainer I go for 23 more miles.  I really didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this point.  I put Spongebob on TV, my MP3 in my ears and pedalled away.  1.5 hrs later I was done.....with the bike that is.  I had to run 2 miles then.  Did I mention it was torrentially downpouring???  Off I go.  Three seconds after I walked out I was soaked.  I attempted for the first 2 minutes to avoid puddles but that wasn't happening so I just ran through them.  A little over 19 minutes later I was finally done with what has become the single most miserable workout of my entire life.  Later in the day I emailed my coach about the day and he called me hard-core and said he was extremely impressed that I finished out the workout.  Apparently a lot of people would have called it quits.  I can honestly say that despite wanting to lay on the floor and cry and scream and kick my feet I NEVER considered not finishing.  There's no giving up in Ironman.
Other than grocery shopping, laundry and eating and napping I did pretty much nothing else the rest of the day.  I was trying to recover a bit for today's 2hr run and open water swim.  5:15 AM this morning and I am out the door staring a two hour run in the face.  UGH.  At least it wasn't raining.  Kerry and I met in the middle of the distance between our houses and off we went.  Neither of us felt stellar but I felt better than Kerry so opposite of last week I dragged her through the run.  You could tell we were both wiped because we talked very little.  Sometimes on a tough run it takes everything you have to keep moving forward so there is just nothing left in you for conversation.  That was today.  Somehow we muddled through and did it.  We then had a whole 30 mins to change and gather our stuff before Cindy picked us up for swimming.  I am surprised neither of us fell asleep in the car on the way there.  Seeing Cindy helped because we haven't seen her for so long and we had a lot to talk about.  We got to the pond, wedged ourselves in our wetsuits and set out for a swim.  Oh yeah...it was raining. Whatever.  I was pretty slow even for me on the way out to the other side and Cindy and Kerry were great about sticking with me.  It also helped to have their bright orange and green swim cap heads to sight off of.  We stopped at the other end of the pond to regroup and headed back.  I felt much better on the way back and aside from my hands going numb towards the end was pretty happy we did it.  We probably swam a little over 1.2 miles in around 50 mins.  I can't believe I have to do that twice on race day!!!!!!!!! Makes me want to throw up.  What a week of training is all I can say.  Next week looks like around 17 hrs scheduled.  No wonder I nap every weekend!!!
A final note.......we have a new member in the village.  Liam Vincent Bahorik became a member of YINZ on Friday.  Welcome to the zoo Liam.  You have no idea what you are in for.  Congratulations Justin and Sara.

He is absolutely thinking...."Are you kidding me???? Am I really related to them??!!!!!"