On the ride this morning I lost all feeling in my toes for the better part of two hours. Not that my toes are anything particularly special, slightly on the ugly side if you ask me. But they are mine and I have become attached to them. It was a cold, wet, numb toes sort of morning.
The P5 was set to go, I spent some time last night mounting bottle cages etc and so this morning it was ready. I was just about to walk out the door when I thought, can I hear dripping? Also why do the cars outside sound like they are driving on a wet road. I think I might take a peek outside. The radar wasn't showing any rain over us (I had already checked) but it was definitely a wet morning. Not a morning for The P5 debut. This was a morning for the training bike. So out it came.
It wasn't raining that much, but it was like the air was full of really fine water droplets. It was like the sky was saying, hey I am not going to rain, but it isn't my fault if you choose to ride a bike through all these water droplets. Stop raining on yourself, stop raining on yourself. I popped the vest on before heading out the door and didn't regret it for a minute. So much for cleaning the bike last weekend though. Rinse and repeat this week. Between the water droplets in the air and the water spray from the road, the bike ended up filthy. Oh well, I guess that is all part of training in Winter.
Interesting factoid, bikes seem to get dirtier riding in wet conditions in Perth compared to Darwin. I could ride in the torrential rain of Darwin and everything would be soaked, but not that dirty. After a wet ride down here, everything is just covered in crud. A lot more sand I have found, which isn't surprising given that Perth is more or less built on a series of sand dunes.
Still at least I was riding. This was the first morning in a few days that I have felt like exercise was even an option. I was still a bit shaky for the first hour or so, but felt more and more at home on the bike the further I went. It was so great just to be exercising again.
I finished the ride and was waiting to see if I collapsed in a heap, but I didn't. So I headed off to Claremont Pool to do the Swim Smooth Saturday afternoon session. A bit quiet in the lanes, which isn't surprising given it is the weekend after Busso. But it was a really interesting session, doing some work with stroke rates. Using the wetronomes to swim at our usual rhythm, then play with much higher stroke rates, much lower stroke rates etc. It was a lot of fun. We still did a bit of fast, bury yourself into the ground type work. But I am learning that usually features somewhere in the Saturday session.
Apparently the forecast for tomorrow is for similar weather as this morning, which if that happens it will be no go for the P5 again. Fingers crossed for some clear skies.
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