Still Wandering Around Florida

This is where I did my swim yesterday.  Not bad, right?  I spent the weekend in Clearwater.  Well, more specifically, Indian Rocks Beach.  It brought back all sorts of not-so-fond memories of my two races there.  The bike course that gave you gorgeous views of Waffle Houses and KFC's, the run on random back roads and up and over that causeway, making it officially the hilliest run course possible given the area, and my own generally poor performances due to being stupid enough to race there after Kona, usually after no training.  In fact, in 2006, I shipped my bike directly from Hawaii to Florida.  That should tell you how much bike training I did in that span.

Anyway, it just worked out that Tara, QT2 teammate and coach, was coming back down after last weekend's Clermont camp with some friends and they had some extra room in a house they were renting, coming down to train.  Given that I am essentially living out of my car at the moment, I obviously accepted the invitation.  We were in a nice house right on the ocean in a little gated community.  That photo up there was taken about fifty yards from the front door. 

We got some running in and then later went out to ride, although it didn't go well for all of us.  Tara and I hung back to keep the ride as easy recovery while the rest took off on their own.  Upon our return we learned that two of our fellow riders had an unfortunate run-in with a car that pulled across two lanes of traffic to get into a parking space and just pulled right in front of them, and they had nowhere to go except into it.  It was scary to hear about, but when we went to pick them up nothing was broken, and given the fact that they were still with it enough to ask the EMT's to pretend to be doing CPR while strapped to the board so they could get a picture, it seems they were all right.  Probably no training for a bit, but no lasting injuries, so that's a very good thing.

Obviously I was also able to get in a nice swim in that lovely ocean pictured above.  It was probably only in the mid 60's, but lucky for me I'm traveling with every important piece of tri equipment I own, including my wetsuit, so it was quite comfortable.  Even if at one point for no reason at all the word "shark" started going through my head over and over again.  I'm not usually a worrier about that kind of stuff, not sure why suddenly I started to feel like Jaws was going to come get me.  Probably because I was the only one in the water and therefore the most obvious target.  Fortunately, I was left alone.  We did see some dolphins in the water on one of our rides, though. 

So, now what?  Well, back to Kissimmee.  I am a bit unsure of what the next few days will bring, but I had to go somewhere, and this place definitely has the cheapest hotels.  I'm spending way too much money to start this trip off.  Looking forward to getting to Alabama and not paying on a per night basis and as far as I know also not getting hit with a "resort fee" that nobody tells you about in the per night price.  How do they get away with that?  If everyone has to pay it, why is that not included in the per night price?  That makes no sense. 

Anyway, that's about it.  Nothing really exciting.  Just roaming around randomly.  Who does this?  I must be crazy.