Sometimes life just gets too complicated. Take the whole New Year's Eve situation for example. Salome & I had no real plans. After a very busy holiday season, staying at home for New Year's Eve sounded like a nice way to unwind. Unfortunately, life doesn't let you off so easy. We get invited to a dinner dance, which we manage to decline. We then get invited to a friend's house for an early evening BBQ. Well, we've got to eat. Then, a second invite to another friend's house for another pre-midnight gathering. Finally, our 18 year old son, John asks if he can have a few friends over to the house. Great, now I've got three places to be in one evening. So much for chilling.
As for a New Year's group workout, everyone had a plan. It just happened to be different from everyone else's plan. I try to do an Olympic Bike/Run brick every Thursday. So, my game plan was to go out New Year's Day at 7 AM for the brick. Training buddy Tony always gets out his group invite first however. Darn those Crack-berries and iPhones. Tony wants to do a bike ride on Friday. Iron-woman in training, Carrie responds that she is looking to do a 14 mile run on Friday. John e-mails back that he wants to do a mile swim event scheduled for Saturday. My schedule is inflexible with the need to do my last long run before Disney on Saturday so I can go to the Dolphins playoff game on Sunday. Moving my brick to Friday would make for two hard workouts on back to back days. We do a couple of e-mail exchanges, but nobody budges. Everyone seems locked in on their scheduled day and programed training event. So,we all do our planned group training solo.
The New Year's Eve gatherings were all a good time. We end up at home for the ball dropping to make sure a house full of 17 to 20 year-olds don't bring the house down or the cops in. At 1:00 AM, I tell my son that I'm going to bed. As I hear one of his buddies ask out loud if its OK to go from the roof-top terrace onto the actual 3rd story roof, I leave John with the instruction that nobody goes on the roof. I go to bed with the hopes that I don't get awoken by a report of a broken leg from a kid jumping or falling off the roof. Fortunately(?), fireworks were purchased for the party and must be fired up. So, its off the roof and out onto the street. With the kids going in and out of the house all night continually setting off the "ding" of the front door alarm sensor, I had a fitful night's sleep. It finally quiets down about 5 AM.
I awake as scheduled for my brick about 7 AM. Cleaning up after the kids, I don't get out the door until 8:30 AM. Luckily, its cool, partly cloudy, and somewhat breezy out, so the late start isn't a problem. As I hit A1a biking north, the wind out of the northeast is blowing pretty good and I'm doing 15 to 16 mph. I hook up with a corporate pilot in from LA who is out for a morning ride and we take it up to the 18 to 20 mph range. After he turns around, I keep heading north to my turn around point. The trip south is payback time for the slower ride north. I finish the 25 mile bike ride around 10 AM. After transitioning to run shoes, I run South along A1a with the wind at my back. Its funny how you don't notice the wind when its at your back. As I turn at the 3.1 mile mark, the wind reminds me: "Its a rather blustery day." Oh, bother.
As I head back North to finish my 10K run, I think how sad that we all ended up doing solo workouts to begin the new year. Then, I think how great that we all have training scheduled to start off the new year. Don't worry if the group scheduling doesn't work out, just get out there and train. Happy New Year.
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