The Three Coconuts

Two of my favorite places in the world are St. Augustine Beach and my newest favorite place, Big Island of Hawaii. It has been since, hmmm, July 4th weekend, I think, since we were last at the condo in SA. As my Dad would say it is one of those places you go to cleanse your soul. No worries, no schedule.........unless you're OCD like yours truly. In that case there is a schedule and it sounds something like this.......Friday, stop at UNF on the way to the beach for a sufferfest swim......more on this later. After swim, it's our favorite Carrabbas and then on to the condo, let supper settle then hit the beach for an 8 miler at a comfortable pace. Saturday, up at 5 to eat and get out the door for 3 hour bike with some harder efforts and a 30 minute run off the bike. Sunday, out the door before sunrise for a 1:45 run picking up the tempo the last 20 minutes...........try and be done early each day so we can spend the rest of the day surfing or just relaxing on the beach.

The "Diesel" and the "Genius" had gone over to the condo earlier in the week. You can do this when school is out and you do not have a real job. So Friday afternoon they drove up to Jacksonville and met me at UNF to swim. They were feeling pretty frisky so we decided to scrap coaches workout and do a 500 warmup with some kicking and drills mixed in and then the main set would be 40X 100s on 1:45.........there is a catch.......I do the 100s, Julie and Tyler team up and do a relay, Julie swims the 1st 50, Tyler swims the anchor leg, all with the intentions of making me suffer. This is competitive group and none of us like to lose, even if it means leaving earrrrrrrrrrrly. When it was finally over, we had a ball pushing each other to our limits. I was able to hold 1:08s to 1:12s and they killed every 50, not a slack one in the bunch. Once again the "Genius" amazed her Mom and Dad. Not really in the best of shape right now she can still get in the pool or on the bike or out on a run a give it right back to you. Oxygen may be required but she WILL HANG and give you 100%. She drives me CRAZY.................please just structure a little training into your life.......you could be VERY SCAAARRRRY! Please pay no attention to the low thudding noice in the background................that is me beating my head against the wall.

After our swim and food, we finally got to the condo. It had flooded rain all afternoon and I did not think my run was going to happen, but it stopped about 7:30 and the girls mounted on their mountain bikes and we hit the beach. For 7 miles they rode along next to me chatting up a storm. With about a mile or so to go it got dark........very dark, then it was like drunken bike riding. I was just trying to keep from stepping in an abandoned sand castle or holes left from the outgoing tide. They were trying not to ride straight into the ocean.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, some hard training, naps on the beach, naps in the bed, and no surfing. It was flat so Tyler did try her hand a paddle boarding.

Aloha for now.

The Three Coconuts