IT BURNS!!!

Back from my mini training camp up at Guilderton. Had a great run last night, the intention of the run was to push up the hills. Luckily there are plenty of hills in Guilderton so there was plenty of pushing. Had a swim in the Moore River this morning which was certainly very... refreshing.

The water was head freezily, face burningly cold. I was in my wetsuit, but everything that wasn't covered burned as I jumped it. Pretty sure my scalp was numb by the time I finished. Not sure why it was so cold, but it certainly was.

The Moore River has a series of big yellow buoys in it to mark speed limits, shallow water etc, but they also make a great swim course all the way up the river. Just what you need for practising sighting.

The one downside of the swim was that I tore the sleeve of my wetsuit getting it on. The wetsuit is getting a bit old and I was just adjusting the cuff of the left sleeve, when part of the cuff tore away. Very frustrating, it still works fine, but annoying anyway. Hopefully there should be a new wetsuit in the mail which I won in a random draw a while ago. But I have been chasing it for a while, and have been assured it is on the way before. So I will believe it when I see it. If the new wetsuit doesn't turn up in time, my old one will do for Cairns.

Once we got home from Guilderton I headed out for an afternoon training ride. The weather today has been glorious and so it was a perfect chance to head out on the P5. It was all great and the bike was performing very nicely. I was doing some hill repeats and was just coming to the bottom of a fairly big descent which ends in a T-junction.  As I approached the T-junction, there was a car coming, so I grabbed the brakes, locked up the back wheel, went into a slide, and shredded the tyre and the tube below. It is funny, you never think you are going to fast until you realise that you are going to fast. The tyres I had been using had been the ones that came with the bike, and truth be told probably weren't really up to the rigours of training. But I figured I might as well get some use out of them. Very frustrating, since isn't the sort of damage you can ride away from, so I had to call in the air support (ie get my wife to pick me up). Once I got home there wasn't really enough time to head out again, so that was my Saturday ride trashed, as well as a tube. Not what you want two weeks out from a race.

Shredded