I am now four days removed from the official week of spring break that was spent with the Naval Academy Triathlon Team.  It has taken me a couple days to recover.  It has nothing to do with what might put the ordinary spring breaker down, as I had none of that.  However, the volume of training coupled with a collegiate sleep schedule was rough. I definitely put in some miles and pushed pretty hard with the benefits of sea level, but the 5-6 hours of sleep were fatiguing compared to my normal solid eight hours.

Some may note from my twitter that I claimed I should be applying to the “Amazing Race.”  This was due to my adventure to Miami.  A simple trip would have involved flying through Atlanta to meet up with the mids in Jacksonville, FL and then drive the rest of the way with them to Miami.  FYI, flying in and out of south Florida this time of year is SPENDY. However, storms in Atlanta caused flight delays and I ended up missing my flight to Jacksonville by about 10 minutes.  To make matters worse, I was in a race to catch the mids in Jacksonville, so I would not have to drive all the way to Miami solo.  Therefore at three AM, after competing for several hours with other travelers to get a rental car to head south to Florida, I finally was on the road.  Thankfully, I arrived in Jacksonville in time for some Naval Academy parents to stuff me full of food and jump in another car to go to Miami.  I was very happy to not be racing the M.I.T.

The midshipman, on the other hand, did race M.I.T. and despite spending 26 hours in the car out of the previous  40 performed pretty dam well.  I don’t think I have seen them much more exhausted than the scene post-postrace.  We did some solid training for the rest of the week out of Pompano Beach which is in the heart of the very flat coastal south Florida.  Swimming was awesome as we swam LCM outdoors each day and capped the week with a fun ocean swim.  Running was not as scenic, but we got some real work done on the track to include the spring break capstone of 5x mile.  I sat that one out and just watched the mids roll through some very impressive times considering all the training and that it was the day after St. Patrick’s Day.  Cycling consisted of one road, the A1A, up the coast, so don’t go there for exciting riding.  However, on that one narrow road, I don’t think I even got harassed once which was dam impressive.

With seventeen midshipman making the journey to do tri-work on spring break, I was blown away by the devotion to the sport.  The location although not ideal for training did allow for some shenanigans and beach going for the mids.  However, it was also good to see the quick transformations from hard fun to hard work each morning.  I think it is going to look closer to hard work and serious focus from this point on, because as a group they have some pretty lofty goals.

This week has gone to the birds, well, at least I am staying with some birds at a unique “homestay” in Clermont.  I am training pretty hard and awaiting the return of the USNA Triathlon Team when they come back, more rested to throw down at the Great Clermont Triathlon.  That will be their final tune-up for Nationals. I am enjoying some SCY for the first part of the week, dirt trails, soft track, and finally some hills on the bike.  This is very convenient as it seems Boulder is covered in snow and my training partner is laid up sick.  Sea level, rollers, additional sleep, and sun on my back as I swim, no complaints.