Too much excitement for one day

On our long rides, we always have three cars accompany the riders. The drivers are either team members (the adult team) or parents of team members. The team manager puts out a schedule a few times a year so that we all know when we'll be driving. Today was supposed to be my turn, so I did my semi-long ride yesterday in town. 46 slow km with hills -- my legs were aching at the end of the day.

I was kind of bummed out about not being able to do today's ride, because we were riding to the beach -- my favorite route. Then, last night, I got a call from a teammate. His brother was bringing his sons to ride with us and had offered to accompany the team with his car, so he would fill in for me so I could ride. I wasn't sure my legs would be up to it, but I decided to go for it.

The ride was supposed to be at an "easy" pace. Today, it wasn't just our team. We're hosting a team from up north so that the kids can train instead of sitting in bomb shelters, so they rode with us. I guess the faster riders on our team wanted to show off, so the "easy" pace was really fast. I was way at the back, but I was flying (relative to my usual pace). The ride was very pleasant until we got to the area of Sderot, which is where kasam rockets have been falling for quite some time. A few kilometers after Sderot, we heard a loud boom, followed by two quieter booms. Apparently, a rocket had fallen not far from us. This must have inspired us to ride even faster, because I found myself flying downhill at 55 kph.

I got to Ashkelon faster than I ever have before, averaging 30 kph, despite several hills on the way. My top speed was around 61 kph. I think that's the fastest I've ever ridden.

Once there, we ran a bit and then went swimming. Or tried to. The waves made it very difficult to swim and we couldn't get anywhere near where we'd swum to just three weeks ago. The lifeguards weren't really letting people swim out too far, anyway. And the jellyfish... They were fairly small and blue -- not the same jellyfish we'd seen three weeks ago at this beach. In fact, these were rather cool looking -- much more solid, kind of like a baby's toy. At first, there were only a few, but after eating watermelon and hanging out for a bit, we went back in the water and saw a lot more, both in the water and on the beach. At one point, I was just about to tell my friend that there was a jellyfish next to her when she kind of fell into me. Then we looked down and saw jellyfish everywhere. I have never run out of the water so fast in my life. Too bad my coach missed it. LOL.

On the way home, we passed an accident and realized that it was the father of one of the kids on the team. He had his son and three kids from up north in the car. We stopped to see if they were ok. The car was a mess (totaled, I believe) and the father was complaining of neck pain, so they took him to the hospital. His son was very scraped up from the seat belt, so he was taken to the hospital, as well. That left the three kids from up north with no way to get home. All the cars were full, so there was no place to put them. I called my husband, who drove half an hour to come pick them up (I waited with two of them and the third took my spot). So the three of us waited there on the corner in the heat in the middle of the day for half an hour. And where was this corner? Pretty much in the area where the kasam rockets are falling. Fortunately, we didn't experience or even hear any rockets while we were waiting.

So that was my day. Kasam rockets, jellyfish, a car accident and waiting half an hour for a ride in the middle of the day in an area with no shade. Never a dull moment. I think these kids may be ready to go back to their bomb shelters!