The hills are alive...

I am always a little apprehensive heading to the hills on a bike ride. I don't head out there very often, so despite the fact that I lived up in the Perth hills for a little while, I don't know my way around very well. Plus, you know, there are hills. Big ones.

But at the same time it is usually a great chance to catch up with the Break Your Limits guys, so if I don't have any thing on the program I often take the chance to head out there on my Saturday morning ride. It is usually pretty tough though, and today wasn't any exception.

A bunch of the folks from Break Your Limits are currently training for Challenge Roth in July, so their riding session had the description of long and hilly. Not particularly tickles and sunshine. Still it went okay. Despite the fact that I don't go to the hills that often, I am not bad at riding them, so I was able to get up them all without maiming myself. Still, when you start with a hill called the Kahuna, you know you might be in for some trouble. And no, the name isn't ironic, the hill is a big one.

After a couple of hours of the hills the group was lining up a couple more hours, however I knew my time was done. I had told my wife that I was going into the hills, not that I was going into the hills for five hours. I knew that I needed to get home so I turned off and took a 'short cut' out. Unfortunately I missed a turn on my 'short cut' (see above point about not knowing the hills that well) and so ended up still doing a reasonably hefty ride. Given the duration of the ride I was quite pleased to see that I still felt nice and strong towards the end. Ready to be off my bike certainly, but still moving along okay. Good to get a such a nice solid session done though.

Tomorrow I am not really sure what I will get up to. At the moment the plans are not a lot. It is my last day before getting back into training proper and it is also Mother's Day. So I think I will probably just plan to spend the day with the family. Oh and tracking Vietnam 70.3. Quite keen to see how that goes. I very nearly did Vietnam myself and from the photos I am seeing from friends up there, it looks like an awesome spot. Some big names are up there, so it should make for some hot racing, both in terms of competition and weather.