The Venice Beach Effect

We’ve been in SoCal for the last 5 days, soaking up the sun and gorgeous weather. We left early on Saturday and spent the whole day driving there. It’s only a 6 hour drive, but we stopped at a couple outlet malls and hit a bit of traffic getting into LA so we didn’t get to Venice until evening and there was no energy left for a workout.

Sunday morning was awesome. We biked about 32 miles from Venice up into Malibu and back. The first and last 5 miles were laid back because we were navigating crowds of people walking, biking, rollerblading, etc. along the beach boardwalk. The middle 20 however we cruised 20-22 mph. There were lots of cyclists out and a couple crazy packs of super-cyclists that blew by our pace like we were crawling but it was a good workout. Kyle doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal, but I think that biking on the PCH with no shoulder means we are officially cyclists.

On Monday morning, we went surfing with Brad and Caitlin. Surfing is a great workout and it’s just good to get in the ocean from time to time since many triathlons out here include ocean swims. Surfing is really swimming, push ups, and bosu ball combined – so at least the swimming/paddling part is applicable to triathlon training. And the surf was rough, so we got pummeled quite a bit, adding to the workout.

And then the Venice Beach Effect kicked in. After a good morning of surfing, it was necessary to indulge in brunch, mimosas, and bloody marys. And on a gorgeous day, we had to follow that up with beer and white wine while relaxing poolside. On a roll, we headed to a wine bar around sunset and consumed an unknown number of bottles of wine (which is where the evening should have ended). Next it was off to a Mexican restaurant, where we enjoyed pitchers of margaritas and shots of Patron (where did those come from?). At that point, we capped off the night with a couple more beers at another bar. Feeling ill yet? Yeah, that’s why there was no workout on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, I intended to run and even put my running clothes on when I took the dogs outside, but when I got back to the room, there was just no time. An early conference call, followed by a presentation in the LA office and another presentation offsite, and then we had to hit the road to make it back home before 10pm.

So what do I have to show for the last 5 days? An awesome bike ride, a good surfing session, and a lot of work on my liver.