A Weekend Away Sans Bike

Today ends a week of awesome recovery for me.  I worked out about 6-7 hours and never got my HR above 145.  I did swim workouts so short it's questionable whether or not it was worth getting wet!  It was amazing and very much needed.

In addition to sleeping a lot, I took the first part of the week to get my life organized.  I had only been away for about 2 weeks but it seemed like 2 months.  Once that was accomplished, O and I took the second part of the week to get away for a short trip to Florida.  Kind of a last minute idea, the trip was to celebrate O's birthday and our upcoming 11th anniversary - a trip for O to enjoy the things HE likes, none of which had anything to do with triathlon (not that he doesn't like triathlon but...)!  I took neither my bike NOR my computer.  Seriously.  It was my most favorite packing experience ever.

So when presented with the option to go ANYWHERE and do ANYTHING he wanted for a long weekend, what did O choose?  He picked Florida and LOTS of baseball watching of course!  It was tons of fun and just what the doctor ordered.  We are rested and recharged and ready to take summer on in full force!  (which I believe means lots of training for me :)

The first night we went to a Tampa Bay Rays game, one of O's favorites.  They play in a dome that doesn't have a retractable roof.  Inside baseball is a little weird but I wasn't complaining that we weren't sitting in 90+ degree heat!

Can you spot the photo bomb?  :)  (I was trying to take a picture of our new TB hats)

The ballpark also has a tank full of live stingrays that you can TOUCH!  I pet a stingray!  It was wet and slippery.

It's not a game without ballpark food (ie: neon cheese!). That's O's hand with a beignet.  I told him beignets aren't ballpark food but he didn't seem to care.

The next morning we ran along the bay front and saw this awesome tree. 

Don't see these guys too often in Pittsburgh!

There was also mini-golf...

Turns out I better stick to triathlon.

...and the driving range...

...and the batting cages.  (I definitely just served as cheerleader for this)

We also visited Clearwater beach (you might recognize this view if you ever did the 70.3 in Clearwater).

And finished the weekend off with more baseball, a minor league game (O's favorite) in Dunedin.

Gotta love minor league baseball.  They have mascot races!  :)