Hat-trick

I took a bit of a gamble today, but I think it worked out.

You may recall that on Christmas Day I was supposed to go for a short ride but I didn't quite get there. If you regularly read this blog then you might also remember that last weekend I was supposed to do a time trial to start working out what power levels I should be working to with my Garmin Vectors. The time trial unfortunately got a little postponed when I broke one of my pedals last Saturday.

Anyway, the point of all this recollection is that when I saw the short ride on Christmas day, part of me thought it would be a great opportunity to also take care of the time trial.

On paper the ideal time to do the ride (other than Christmas Day) would have been yesterday afternoon. I only had one session yesterday (a run in the morning) and so I could easily have fitted the ride into the afternoon. However, to do this time trail properly I was keen to have as little wind as possible blowing. Getting no wind in Perth is almost impossible, but there are some things that you can do to try and reduce the strength of the wind. One thing is to go early, it is no guarantee, but the wind does tend to be a bit weaker in the early morning.

This is where my bit of a gamble came in. Rather than do the ride yesterday afternoon, where it would have fitted nicely. I instead opted to leave it until this morning, chucking it on top of my double swim day.

Not a great set up I must say, lumping a session on a session on a session. But I figured that if the conditions were right this morning, then it would make the gamble worth it.

Luckily for me the conditions were pretty close to perfect and the time trial went really well. I now have a meaningful benchmark for using my power meter.

Today's proper sessions also went well. My swims this morning were the same as Monday. A long continuous open water swim in the morning and a shorter sharper swim in the afternoon. The open water swim was quite nice, probably aided quite significantly by the fact that I was wearing a wetsuit. No worries about Bull Sharks either since a water polo comp at Bicton Baths meant I was rarely in the river alone, as various teams jumped in to warm up and cool down.

The swim this afternoon was a bit more of a challenge. I would quite liked to have simply curled up on the couch rather than head down to the pool, but in the end I got myself out the door. The swim this morning took a bit of the sting out of my arms so I would be lying if I said my afternoon swim was super quick. But I am very glad I got myself down there and got the miles under my belt all the same.

Back on the bike for a longish ride in the morning. I am looking forward to getting out there and doing some work with the power meter, now that I know what I should be aiming for.