The last w/end in Sep - Kangaroos and footy

Today is half way through WA's Labour Day long weekend. Or the Grand Final long weekend as I prefer to call it! Last public holiday until Xmas. Well I have ticked all boxes for training this weekend so far. Yesterday was my first sojourn to the new end of the Freeway. Yesterday was the first fine Saturday for ages, so I wanted to make the most of it. I rode with Scott, a mate who works in my office building (an IMOz finisher, along with many marathons). The extension adds 32km to the previous 44km bike path. So it was an early start, up at 440am and then drive to the Narrows to meet Scott and be riding by 530. We headed off in cool, actually, it was pretty cold, conditions with a light NE'ly wind blowing. I wanted to negative split the ride , so we took it reasonably easy for the southward leg. It was evident half way down that the return trip was going to be a real slog, as the NE'ly was getting stronger and gustier. Not far onto the new section of bike path, we came across two kangaroos. They were sort of trapped in between 2 fences that run either side of the path. In all my years of riding bikes (probably 50,000km), I have never cycled alongside a kangaroo jumping along at 33km/h a couple meters away. It was so cool! It seems these two had some how found there way into the area that the path was. The Freeway construction had made way for wildlife to go under the road at regular intervals through a series of underpasses, but these two were doing there own thing. It was pretty cool.

We didn't see too many other cyclists on the way down, got passed by one group of three only. IM bike execution demands patience and discipline - so we stuck to our plan and let them go by. After 2:28hrs we finally made it to the end. If you want to keep going south, you have to ride in the breakdown lane of the highway. We stopped briefly, had some food and then headed back. The trio that passed us early on were there having a quick rest stop. Well that wind had not eased at all and was about to make us hurt. We knuckled down and opened a can of 'toughen up' and into we we pushed. The new path has some really long straight sections that are completely unprotected by vegetation or topography. It meant we were copping the full brunt of this annoying wind as it swept across our RHS and front. We put in some real hard pieces of work trying to maintain our desired 32km/h avg speed. Sometimes we got buffeted down to 26 or 27 and had to take another gear. My HR avg on the return trip was certainly higher. There was a half hour period there where my HR sat on 78-80% of max, which is solid zone 3 stuff. Having Scotty there kept me pushing, as opposed to slacking off a bit. I suspect he was hurting a bit more than me, as he probably had a bit more fatigue in his legs from the 5th place he got at the Fremantle Half marathon last Sunday. Anyway, we finally got back to civilisation and finished quite strongly. It had been an epic ride and really tough. My 2nd half split said we had nailed it in 2:20hrs, 8 min quicker than going down! That was an achievement given the wind and all. A good one to have under your belt.

After getting home, eating and showering, it was off to John's place to watch the GF. A fairly entertaining game, with neither team really dominating. Shame the Sainters couldn't get up. Good to see the boys also. By the time I got home that arvo, I was starting to feel the effects of my early morning ride. Lisa had hired a DVD for us to watch after dinner, but I could only stay fully conscious for the first 15min before nodding off.

Then this morning (Sunday) I put another hard ride into the legs, with 2.5hrs @ 30.6avg. This included some hills, such as 2 x Reserve St and Stock Rd. I saw Marko on the way home doing a swim/run brick at City Beach. Then after a quick change of gear I did a Z1-2 6k brick run. The legs were completely stuffed by the end of that 3hrs. I had to have a little 'nana-nap' today to get by. After Ella woke up we went to the park to play footy and play on the swings etc. It was 26 degrees and just magnificent. (Tomorrow it will rain again apparently)

Weekly totals were 4.7/276/55 km and 14:51hrs. (Plan was 15:35hrs)