Happy. Healthy. Heathen.

So daughter Glenda is living in Paris for her sophomore year at UT.  The Paris.  In a flat.  With other exchange students.  Visiting the Louvre for fun on a Friday night to sketch Egyptian sculptures.  Working in an Irish pub called, I kid you not, the Green Balloon.  With her boyfriend across the Channel in England.  The WHOLE PACKAGE.  I’ve been just dying to see her (Skype is great, but not that great), so when hubby said he had a 24-hour layover in Frankfurt, and that we could arrange her a train ride to meet us, naturally I thought about it for 13 or 14 seconds before I said, in my quiet way, “Hells to the yeah!”

Once again, a quick flight to Atlanta, a very near-miss with a seat on the flight, and 9.5 hours later, there she was.  Running to me in a train station in Wiesbaden, arms wide open, pink hair flying, smiling, laughing, almost as loudly as me.

Does any of this have anything to do with training for a triathlon?  Well, in a word, yes.  The visit itself was wonderful – strolling through the town, eating, having coffee, window shopping, trying to make a little sense out of the 9-syllable German words.  It passed in a flash, and the next day we’re putting her on the train back to Paris, and we ourselves have another 12 hours or so before we head to the airport.  The crew hotel loans out bicycles, there were 2 available, and we are Jordans, so..

 We head out of town, in a random direction, and ended up on a delightful trail through a lovely wooded park that was a steady incline for an hour or so, but at its peak brought us to a beautiful view of the city.  (You can see the church in the distance where Jesse and Glenda posed earlier).

Honestly, we were on the bikes about 3 hours (one of which was spent imbibing in what Germany seems to do best), but the bikes were 3-speeds, so the climb was a tad bit of a workout (not keeping a very straight face as I write this).  I guess it WOULD have been a workout if I weren’t accustomed to 3 and 4 hour, 50, 60, 70 mile training rides.  It was uphill a lot of the way.  Did I mention they were 3-speeds?  (Give a sister a break – it was all I had to work with – it COUNTS).

Anyway, back to the US and the grueling reality of training, but the little diversion was nice.  Tomorrow:  strength training and something else – bike or run if weather cooperates, swimming if not.

Auf wiedersehn…

Thanks for reading.