A light in the dark, or not

Good solid day of training done. Nice ride this morning, nothing complicated, no hills, no intervals, just riding. It is nice to just go riding for a few hours now and then. I love the way that you can just let your mind go a bit blank and focus on what you are doing. I am not a fan of using an MP3 player when I train for just this reason, which is strange because I listen to music almost constantly otherwise. It is almost like meditation I guess.

 I took the chance to head down the freeway, which is a very popular ride with triathletes in Perth. There is a cycleway that runs parallel to the freeway and almost uninterrupted for 80km or so, one way. Great Ironman training. Can be as boring as drying paint as well, but it serves a purpose. I hadn't been down that way since we moved back to Perth, so I thought this morning was a good opportunity. I wouldn't do it every week, but now and then it is a good ride.

Annoyingly though when I first jumped on the bike this morning my rear flashing light refused to work. Particularly annoying as I was standing on the drive with my bike at the time. The light has been playing up ever since my ride in the rain on Thursday night. At first it wouldn't turn off, then wouldn't turn on etc. I tried the bag of rice trick to try and dry it out (has anyone ever had that work??) and last night it seemed as if it was working okay. But no go this morning.

If it has died, which seems likely, it will be the second red light claimed by the rain in as many months. Which is very frustrating. I am always wary about riding without lights, but as most of this ride was going to be on cycleway I decided to go anyway. Plus I still had my front light, so I wasn't completely invisible. In the end I passed somebody very early on the ride who then stuck with me for much of the road sections. So I more or less got to use him as a surrogate red light. So that is something.

While out on the bike I bumped into a friend, Steve Goat, who is from Darwin and also trains with Daryl. Well not literally 'bumped into' that would have been painful, but you know what I mean. Steve is spending some time down in Perth for work and I have been keeping half an eye out for him thinking we might cross paths. He was in the middle of some epically long ride as he prepares for the Cairns Ironman. It was very nice to see a familiar face.

Back to Swim Smooth this afternoon for their Saturday afternoon swim session. Was another tough session, but possibly not as much of a smashfest as last week. We were doing 100s at pace and I got a sharp lesson in pacing after taking the first couple to hard and fading hard in the later part of the set. Oh well, what doesn't kill you and all that I guess.

Bit of a win yesterday though. I nipped past Jim Kidds (which is a sports shop) in the city to see if I could track down a new pair of racing shoes.  They didn't have what I was after. But they were doing a clearance on last season Asics and I managed to pick up a pair of the shoes I train in for half price. Win indeed!

Half price shoes - the best kind of shoe

I am very tempted to head back and grab another pair. It is such a breath of fresh air from the situation in Darwin. Typically buying shoes in Darwin involves going into a store and them not stocking what you are after. However, they are usually willing to generously order the shoes in for you, which only takes two weeks and cost you $20. And they wonder why everyone is on Wiggle. Being able to go into a shop and walk out with a pair of shoes is a bit of a novelty that I could get used to.

Time for dinner. I wonder if it is to late for a coffee...