Post IM Switzerland I had a few plans for some fun racing over the UK summer but 2 weeks of absolute rest followed by a tough 5 days around Mt Ventoux for the penultimate stage of the TdF saw me pretty shattered and with a bit of an Achilles problem. In the end it was September before I was up and running again and with the trip to NZ on the horizon I kept the training light and concentrated on sorting my life out to get everything in order (house rented out etc) to come out to NZ for 6 months.
Flying out Mid Nov I've been here 6 weeks now and Wellington is starting to feel like home. The weather is pretty incredible - howling winds, glorious sun, freezing southerly gales seem to occur in rapid succession most days - I keep being promised it'll settle in Jan. So I'll be out on my bike in the sun tomorrow...
Wellington is more than I could have hoped for in terms of a training location, I have a 33m pool on a beach (Freyberg) 5min jog from the flat so have a choice of open water or pool swims on tap. The running is great with tonnes of on and off road routes and millions of people to hook up with. I couldn't ask for more in terms of riding, in 4 weeks here I've already come across pretty much a group every morning and evening of the week! Sunday group rides from Capital bike shop see up to 60 guys doing a fast 3hrs, with a 30k race back to town on the way home (normally with a tail wind), packs of 20+ racing at 55kph+ seem to be the norm. Awesome.
So 5 weeks of 16-18hrs and I'm starting to feel like my old self. I've been putting off shaving my legs until I was feeling faster but stripped them down this morning, that's going to give me an extra kph this afternoon for nothing!!
Also took delivery of my new BMC TT02 on Christmas Eve. Waiting for the Zipp 808's to be swapped to Campy and then I have a race machine... see the little pick below. Thanks to the guys at Capital Cycles for doing such a great job on it.
I have a little tester in two weeks (Sat 16th Jan) down in Wanaka where I'm doing the Challenge Wanaka Half distance. So expect the updates to be coming in a bit more regularly now.Happy New Year
Laurence
