Day 21: The Death Ride-Australian Style

Dear family & friends, just want to say goodbye now just in case I don't survive the next two weeks of cycling in Sydney. Basically, in order to do a long ride, you need to ride on the freeway to get out and back into the city. All the rides start at 6 AM so you're barely awake and have to negotiate all of these cars. It's not much better on the way home because there is even more traffic as it's later in the day. The video should give you an idea. The Aussies were floored when I pulled out my camera to capture all of this while on the freeway. Speaking of Aussies, these guys are tough and competitive, even the 55 year-old woman that did the 54-mile group ride with me on Saturday (by the way, if you're confused by the timing, I'm one day ahead of you all in the states). On Sunday, I met the group (which ended up being only two others) for what I thought was a 100K ride (62 miles, I'm constantly converting kilometers to miles here). Oops. The ride was actually 170K (106 miles) so I learned that morning. Being that I had to ride but had no idea where I was and no idea where to go, I had to give chase. I was totally beholden not only to the distance of the group, but also the pace; because if I got dropped, I would not know how to get home. And damn did they start fast, we did the first 40K in 1:06. When it was all said and done, I rode 106 miles with 3000 feet of climbing, averaging 18.0 mph, and a slight disdain for two Aussies. So much for recovery week. Off the bike, I had to run a 10K. Thank goodness Scottie and John were able to accompany me. Did I mention it was 96°? Needless to say, I had a major bonk on the way back, with both legs cramping during an uphill section. But I recovered and even managed to get back to 7:10 pace. If there's one thing I've learned putting in all these miles is crisis management. When this trip is done, I plan on writing a book on the topic of resurrection. The afternoon brought some relaxation at Fair Day for the Sydney Mardis Gras Celebration. Then we made a group dinner of my favorite meal: barbecued salmon over a bed of salad. And about 9:00 PM, I excused myself from the dinner party to go to bed. Ah, life as a pro triathlete. And to revisit my last post, yes, the transition to Australia has been quite tough. Just watch this video to see how tough it has been. Until next time America.