Thursday, 10 January 2013


6am NRR:
With an appointment to get fresh dressings made for 9:30am, I was confident to get on the bike, move the legs and get sweaty. If my dressings did degrade then they'd be soon replaced with fresh, white gauze and wrappings.

I didn't want to push things too far though, so planned kept myself tucked in the pack. I found it tough back in the guts  and even worse at the tail of the bunch, as the quality of rider decreased the further back I got. When I found myself reaching a limit of comfort in those around me, which happened maybe 5 or 6 times, I pulled out to the side of the bunch and rode clear to the front. It felt good, and wasn't too tough either, so I'm surprised to see the data showing fast times, maybe even faster than normal.

The whole experience left me happy all day, it was like a door has been re-opened and the light of normality can be seen shining just ahead. It (my mood) was helped by The dressing change, which was only half an hour, and left me with a few less things covered and great signs of progress all round. eg. This is what my arse now looks like (fairly sfw... maybe).

Enough about me, I saw something in the bunch that made me smile. It was a Bianchi with a St Kilda Saints sticker on the seat stay/wishbone. I've seen this bike before, and know the sticker well from the time I spent staring at it while hurting some years ago. The bike is Andy Naylor's, but the rider wasn't my masseur... he was at the front of the bunch on some new Italian carbon job. No, it was an older bloke astride the celeste colour rig. After a minute or so I worked it all out. It was Andy's dad. Lying on Andy's table I've heard about him a fair bit, and while I know he still rides a heap, it's another thing to see two generations of grown men on one ride.

Strava link.

D: 46.1km
A: 187m

PMPW: 93kg

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