Hello

An interesting week, one of mixed fortunes for myself and others (go Sam!). I suppose it is the Ides of March so I should expect it.

The injury for starters. The physio noticed a small improvement in my torn calf, although the tendon is still inflamed which means it gets painful on the bike. I've been riding easy for an hour and a half most days and I tend to find it's OK for about 30 minutes before it starts getting sore. Then during the course of the day it settles down and is often almost pain free by the time I get home. That's definitely better than it was but because I ride first thing in the morning, it doesn't have time to settle.

I'm due to get an MRI next week in order to fully assess the damage. That ain't going to be cheap but it's better to know, especially as it is the start of what could be another good season. I suspect I'll just have to keep riding easy/rest for the next three to four weeks until it heals, although I do have one race on the menu next Sunday.

The good thing from my point of view is that I can afford to take it steady as I doubt I'll lose much fitness. Winning last Sunday was very good for my confidence (pics here). 54'10 for 39km! I couldn't believe I averaged 43km/h and broke the bloody course record on such a windy day. For comparison, last year our winning 3-up team did 53'24 on an almost identical course on a calm but foggy day. Second placed VC St Raphael did 54'12...

There's no need to rush things, as I don't really want to be going well until the second half of April with a view to lifting that for the National 10 and 25 in late May/early June. I doubt I'll place highly in the National 10 but a top 20 in the National 25 would be cool.

Humpty Doo nearly total recall

Back to team time trials. I've been perusing a few triathlon mags that have been idly left around the office (our almost launched new mag, Triathlon Plus, is going to be tres good). On the cover of one I noticed a chap by the name of Craig Alexander, who has won the Hawaii Ironman triathlon twice. It's considered the top race in the sport so this guy is hot property in the triathlon world. His name rang a bell so I delved into my memory banks, with the help of google, and found out that he's roughly my age, lives in Sydney, and used to go to uni.

Ding! (another bell sound effect)

I then remembered that at the 1995 university games in Darwin, we had a couple of triathletes in our team time trial team, along with Brent McParland and me. One of them was Mr Alexander! He was pretty handy on the bike back then and fitted in well to our team on the basis of our sole training session together.

The TTT was a dead flat, out-and-back 50km jobbie at a place called Humpty Doo, somewhere south of Darwin. We were all pretty evenly matched and everyone pulled their weight, including the triathletes. I even skipped a turn or two on the way back. We ended up winning fairly convincingly in 1:04:something. Uni of WA had to settle for second, unless my memory is as bad as it very likely is.

So that's my Craig Alexander story. It's almost as good as passing Robbie McEwen's team in the TTT in Brisbane a few years previously.


Interestingly, he's still riding the same depth rims as he did in 1995. Gotta get a disk mate!

Weather

Drizzly last week but improving to dry and 10-15 degrees this week. That's excellent for the Ides of March so you'll hear no complaints from moi. If it continues through until next weekend, it will be a Good Thing. Not just 'cos it's the Bath Hilly either. Things are looking promising after the coffee wars episode, possibly.

More news, anon.