Packing Day

Bleeerrrchhh. Packing Day. I don't like really like packing day, in fact is is one of my least favourite parts of travelling to race. I have to admit that it is never as bad as I think it will be, but that doesn't exactly make it fun either.

True I don't fly until Thursday, but doing a bit of packing each night is the routine I have settled into, rather than frantically trying to do it all at once. Today is really the day when most of the packing is going to happen. Tomorrow night will just be finishing things off. Today is the heavy lifting though, packing the bike, a process that is never as easy as it could be. I would be hard put to say exactly what I don't like about packing day. Perhaps it is just constant little voice in the back of your head telling you that you've forgotten something, or the knowledge that no matter how prepared you are it always seems to come down to a last minute rush to cram things in. The fact that you have more things to do than time. Perhaps it is all those things.

Not my favourite day.

As well as packing I also had a bit of training today. As I had mentioned yesterday, my toss up for the session this morning had been between the trainer and the road. My preference had been for the road, but as I was listening to the belting rain last night I ended up just leaving the bike on the trainer. I knew the forecast was for it to fine up this morning, but as I listened to the rain last night I couldn't bring myself to graduate from knowledge into belief. In the end it was certainly dry enough to hit the road this morning, just not on a shiny, clean race bike with race wheels. I would have happily done it on one of the other bikes, but I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of changing over pedals etc. So trainer it was.

In the end it was a nice spin on the trainer. Just rolling along keeping a lid on things. Not really much to say about that one. The Kickr is the Kickr. Good training, but not all that scenic. Uncomfortable with a chance of sweating.

Down to the pool in the morning for Wednesday morning Red Mist Swim Smooth set. Being race week, the focus will be on doing some work but not destroying myself. Easier said than done. As good as the swim session typically is, what I am more interested in is that tomorrow morning after the session I have a 1-2-1 video coaching session with Paul. I have been keen to do one of these sessions for months, possibly closer to years. However, you have to book months in advance and I have never quite got around to it. However, early this week, out of the blue I got a text from Paul saying there had been a late cancellation and asking if I wanted to jump in. Usually when these sorts of texts come in you have about 2 seconds to reply before they are snapped up by somebody else, so without hesitation I replied in the affirmative. I have to admit the timing isn't ideal, given that I am about to head off to race, but sometimes that can't be helped. You have to grab these chances when they turn up. I am firmly telling myself over and over though that I will not attempt to make any changes until after the race. Good chance that would be a path to disaster. But after the race, well that is a different story. Very, very keen to see what changes can be made then.

Tune in tomrrow to find out how it goes.