The unfortunate ones

Like most people I often ponder which item of my gear I would least like to be.

Most people wonder that right??

The answer that jumps usually jumps out first is my training bike. The poor dear,puts up with so much. She just wants to be loved.

But thinking about it again today I realised that no, my training bike is not the item of equipment I would least like to be. That honour has to most definitely go to my cycling gloves.

Think about it, cycling gloves:

• absorb sweat
• absorb snot
• take the damage if you happen to stack it
• occasionally get chewed by the dog

Especially today, man, soooo much snot.

 
Other than the copious amounts of snot, the ride today was good. Very windy, but good. The ride was one that included a whole bunch of hill repeats. I have some pretty hilly races coming up in the next 6 months, so I try and use these sessions as a sort of simulation of those races. Trying to get in plenty of short hills, spread across the entire ride. Today's ride certainly achieved that, in fact today I set a new personal record for the amount of elevation gained in one ride.

At the start of the ride I was trying to figure out where to go to get my hills. Last Saturday I went to King's Park, which has great hills, but they aren't quite steep enough for what I was after. Then I realised that I live amongst a great range of rolling hills with a wide variety of grades and lengths, perfect for what I was after. As a result I spent 80% of my ride within 10km of home, just going over and over various hills in the area. It was a solid ride, but a satisfying one, a bit of a leg smashing. It was slow, in fact it was the slowest 100km I have done for a long time, but with good power levels, which for this kind or ride is sort of the point.

This afternoon I headed down to Claremont pool for the Saturday Swim Smooth session. A nice tough session as usual. It is always a bit tough to get yourself down to the pool on a Saturday afternoon, but it is always satisfying once you have. The only issue with today's swim was that my quads kept cramping when I pushed off the walls courtesy of this morning's hilly ride.

On the other side of the country the count down is well and truly on for the Cairns Ironman and Cairns 70.3. If the forecast is correct then it looks like it could be a tough day, with a fair bit of wind and rain. At least it shouldn't be too hot, besides if people where looking for an easy day out, they wouldn't have signed up to Ironman. I seem to know a bunch of people doing these two races, so good luck to everyone. I will be keenly watching.