Spur of the moment triathlon spectating & lots of weekend cycling

It's Monday !! Ok that doesn't sound as exciting as "It's Friday" & nothing I say or do will change the fact that today IS Monday & my weekend is over.

This weekend was a fun one & I was able to cycle on both days. Saturday morning I met with my parents and had brunch at the little French restaurant that my friend and I visitied a few weeks ago. After our brunch we went to a local bakery and I had a chocolate macadamia nut cookie. After I logged my calories, I only had 186 calories left for the day & that  is definitely not enough for dinner. When I got home, I loaded my bike in the car and went to the bike/running path by my house.  It was 83 degrees & felt a bit warmer due to the humiditiy but overall it was perfect  for a long ride. I ended up going a little over 16 miles & burned 746 calories. Next time I am going to aim for 20 miles! 

post ride selfie

I planned to take Sunday off to do some housework & tackle the mountain of laundry that I was avoiding throughout the week.

My friend J called me later that evening and asked if I wanted to go watch the Montclair Triathlon & take photos of some friends who were competing. I agreed & after I hung up I thought what was I thinking?? I hate getting up that early especially on my day off, unless I myself have a race to do. The triathlon is right around the corner from me so we decided that she just would come over to my house at 6am.

At 5:30am Sunday morning I began the battle with the snooze button. I thought I heard my alarm going off again at 5:45am and tried to turn it off only to realize it was an actual phone call from J. She was checking to see if I was awake. I lied replied "yes I'm up, just getting my camera gear ready. See you in a few." Talk about bat-out-of-hell moment! I jumped out of bed, threw on my cycling clothes, brushed my teeth & searched all over for a backpack for my camera & 2 lenses. I couldn't remember where I last put it, so I ended up using a side shoulder bag. It worked out in the end but man my shoulder wasn't happy with having to carry around all the extra weight. 

We got to there 30+  minutes to spare so we met up with friends who were waiting on the beach for the start. It was a perfect morning for a triathlon.

Lake Montclair 

The swim portion was a 750 meter open water swim which would give us some time to postition ourselves along the course for some decent pictures. We tried to figure out how we could photograph a little bit of everything. Our plan was to photo our friends at their starting waves and as they go to transition #1. Then get on our bikes and ride to a good spot on the bike course to capture them going by.

Coming out of the water and into Transition #1

After getting out of T1 they had to ride their bikes up a hill and do 2 loops totaling 13 miles.

Heading toward transition #2 to complete the last leg. 

It was a fun morning. I love spectating and cheering for friends. We ended up doing a short 4 mile bike ride afterwards.

J & I after our short 4 mile ride

I got home and finished the rest of my laundry. While waiting on the dryer I marinated some boneless chicken breast & fired up the BBQ grill for dinner.