One of the really great things about living in Melbourne is the fact that we sneak in an extra public holiday on Melbourne Cup Day. One assumes that historically so many people took a "sickie" that the government decided they might as well make it official. Whatever the reason, we Melbournians are the grateful recipients.
Not that it encourages me to attend the cup...no way. Not my idea of a fun event. Instead I take advantage of the decreased traffic on the road and train during the day instead of before or after work. Although when I finally got to Beach road..about midday..there were still enough cyclists there to enjoy chasing and being chased.
My sister, on hols from London is staying with me and so I introduced her to the delights of having a walk along the bay while I trained, the many cycling shops and the coffee, followed by a visit to the Brighton Beach bathing huts and then home..pointing out the important things about Melbourne along the way...the Rod Laver arena, the MCG, Kooyong, Albert Pake Lake..site of the Australian Gran Prix etc etc!!!! (wry smile).
For those that don't know sports mad Melbourne..World War 3 could have broken out overnight, but it will get relegated to somewhere deep in the middle pages of our daily newspaper.. the front page will be exclusively pictures of and stories about horses.
My training is going really well now..all doubts cast aside and physically I'm on top form. I'm really enjoying the final lead up and am benefiting from the top end speed training I put in just before the worlds. I've spent time with my track side helper sorting out signals and words 3 only.."left" if pedalling in squares as my left leg often just goes along for the ride, "body" if moving around on the bike and "concentrate"..self evident. They've been chosen as they have different numbers of syllables..lets face it...nothing quite so stupid as a racing cyclist.....
No comments:
Post a Comment