Day 2 - The Phuketening

Here is what I learned today.

Never say this:

"Those hills weren't that bad"

Until you know for absolute sure that there are no more hills left on your ride.

Guess what I did today?

This morning was spent riding over about half of the bike course. The half we looked at included a couple of the nastier hills on this course. Yep, the hype was right, they were nasty. Other than the hills though the bike course looks like a bunch of fun. The ride takes in sections through busy streets, rubber plantations, bits of coast, a bit of everything really. It also takes in some sections of lovely smooth bitumen and other sections with potholes so big that I am sure they will be the next big thing in spelunking. Even the hills weren't so bad, since every up hill has a down, and these have some killer downs.

Looking very stylish in my socks, practising the mid ride course run over a pedestrian overpass. No I am not making that up.

The only bad bit of the ride this morning came when we thought we had conquered the main hill of the session and muttered the above fateful words only to discover that a bigger badder hill lurked just around the corner.

After a bit of a nap today I headed down to transition to go through the registration process before jumping in a taxi with some of the Darwin folk to see the rest of the bike course. A few wrong turns later and the course was all familiarised. I am glad I went to the effort of seeing the course since the half that we didn't ride this morning includes a couple of particularly nasty hills. They aren't that long, but when they are super steep, they don't really need to be. I know I will be fine getting up them, but doing so may be a bit of a painful process.

Tonight it was time for the pasta party. I am not usually a big fan of the whole pasta party thing. Typically they are the night before the race and the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in a confined space with a bunch of other nervous people, pretending that we aren't nervous, eating rather plain pasta, thinking about nothing but the race. Usually the night before the race I prefer to be relaxing elsewhere thinking of something that isn't the race. I have to say though, tonight's effort was rather special. For one it isn't the night before the race, so it was a bit more relaxed. Secondly, and probably most importantly, the food was amazing. It was catered by one of the restaurants at the resort we are in and it was seriously nice food. Not just nice for a pasta party, but just plain nice. Top effort really. Needless to say I ate to bursting.

Tomorrow is race eve and things get a little bit more serious. At the moment I am feeling absolutely flat out tired. I am not sure if it is a result of this cold that I think I might have perhaps had earlier in the week, or just a result of doing exercise in conditions that humans aren't really supposed to do exercise in, or just some form of mysterious cosmic rays. But at the moment I am exhausted. So my main aim for tomorrow is to not be that. On top of that we are going to spend a bit of time on the swim course, rack bikes, get nervous a bit and generally just sit around and rest.

So in the interest of the not feeling exhausted thing. To the bedmobile.