My first blog post dropped almost a month ago. It’s been sitting here, lonely and neglected. I knew I should have waited until I came back from vacation (where there is no wifi) to begin but I was excited. Unfortunately, I didn’t – which means that the people who have signed on to follow my (mis)adventures have been left salivating for more*.

There are certainly challenges to taking a vacation in the midst of training for a big event. Good food, good wine, good friends can all knock you off track, so what’s a determined woman to do? Runners probably have the easiest way of it – all they need is shoes, clothes and a space to run. Hand cycling requires equipment and that equipment doesn’t travel easily. You have to get creative.

So what did I do? I took advantage of what I had: a lake…a beautiful, sand bottom, crystal clear lake. I determined that as long as the weather was clear I would be in that lake every day. It wouldn’t be just a quick dip to cool off, it would be an hour plus of swimming around, doggie paddling and constant movement. People don’t realize that just breathing in a lake takes extra effort to expand your lungs against the pressure of the water. I may not have been perfect, but I did put in significant time almost every day.

One entertaining tale: My friend Zach was driving the boat to bring people out tubing. They helped me get on the tube and away I went. All that upper body strength really pays off. I think he gave me as difficult a ride as anyone else, but I clung like a limpet to a rock and didn’t get dumped**.

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*luckily, only one or two people saw it…and thus the rest of humanity was saved from disappointment.
**rumor has it that there is a VHS tape out in the world with me taking an epic flip/dive/dump far back in my youth. If it ever gets transferred to digital, I’ll share .

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