Diary of a Dingo

Last weekend I had my first outdoor ride since September last year. With Oceanside 70.3 coming up in a few weeks I had to get out there and make sure 1 - I still knew how to use my brakes and 2 - that all those winter trainer rides I've been doing will be good enough to get me up and over those Oceanside hills.

This is how I have been spending winter....

...OK, well hopefully a little more intense than the sitting up, hands on the hips, chatting thing, but you get the picture.

There was a good group assembled at the beginning of the ride...about 30 people.....everyone obviously training for different races but most people just out to ride a short 20 miles, so there were only a few of us riding long.

We chose a good hilly route to test out the legs and nutrition.  It was the old IMCDA ironman course.  I had a bunny to chase, my friend Phil ( who is wearing the Timex gear in the picture above) ,which made it extra fun. He is a guy who can talk and ride at threshold pace so never a dull moment.   He tells me that although I'm good at hill climbing my brakes nearly spontaneously combusted on the descents because I was riding them too much.  I made a mental note to try and be more fearless on the downhills even though I am scared to death. I tried to tell him that I was taking it slow on the descents to minimize the wind chill as I'm sure that bits of my body were dropping off in the chilly 40F (5C) weather. He took this picture of me at a rest stop apparently checking that all my bits were still intact. 

Hopefully the weather will hold out for a few more outdoor rides before race day and then it's off to southern California....hellloooo sunshine and 70F.