Who's a little competitive?

After a great weekend with family in town, today was back on the bike and back into the training routine.  Rather than the normal 5.30am start we kicked off at a leisurely 6am :).  The weather has been dreadful and I suspect this is why only four of us showed.  But was a great wee group, and today I really enjoyed the bursts of competiveness to the top of each hill and then along the back straights on the way home.  Always a giggle when you think you got someone beat then they peg you at the last minute dam it!!

Learned about 'stomping' today, it refers to when you stomp on the pedals to get that burst of speed when racing out of corners or latching onto a passing bunch.  Had to put it into practice a few times to keep up with those cheeky buggars trying to sneak ahead when everyone is slowing for the corner.

Interesting story (for me anyway), my brother who happens to do a bit of riding himself was having a laugh at some of my previous posts, one inparticular related to the wearing of fluro.  It seems he was fully aware of the unwritten rule, regular riders do not wear fluro, however it seems he forgot to mention this in any previous discussions we have had on riding.  His comment was, "it was appropriate that I wore fluro as it showed my novice status".  Cheeky sod, I thought family was mean't to give you the heads up, inside word, that type of thing .....

Over this past week I have been quietly debating (internally) whether or not I could pull off a double whammy with regards to events.  Since opting out of K2 and listening to people talk about the Taupo Cycle Challenge (160k), it is something that I would be quite keen to knock off the list.  Unfortunately the timing is not ideal, only 2 weeks before the Taupo Half Ironman, will 2 weeks be enough recovery time?????

Yesterday I had a word with coach and in her calming words, "I am happy for you to to do Taupo cycle just means we won't taper for taupo half and that's cool as we want you peaking at March and doing two big events back to back means you can then have a good couple of weeks EASY.....I always say you must do what you enjoy doing and if your loving the cycling then go for it :)"

So just sorting a couple of logistics, but looks like Im in ! ..... it will either do two things 

1) remind me how far 180k is and hence scare me into more training, as I struggle to do 160k, or 

2) remind me that somewhere deep inside I do have the mental toughness and Im on track for March 2nd.

Personally Im picking it is more likely to be point 1.

Here is the Taupo Cycle race ....