Newcastle

Hey,

Back in Aberdeen for one day only. Arrived home from Newcastle late last night to find the taxi queue at the train station backed up out the door...after spending 5 hours in a carriage with two hen parties and a stag night this was not what I wanted. Temper flairing I strapped on my bike shoes, donned my Aero helmet and started off down the road (Speedo suitcase on my back) for the 13mile journey home. After 40minutes and 15 car horn toots later (followed by jeers - mostly rude and mostly concerning the Aero helmet) I arrived home.

Newcastle was a last minute trip to get a few days in with my new team (www.total-racing-int.com) before flying out to Vancouver in 12 days. I arrived Friday night and was whisked off to my team manager (Phil Gray)'s house for some pasta and a general chat. He's an awesome guy and we managed to talk over the next few years no problem at all and afterwards I felt much more comfortable about my future.

Saturday was a BEAST. My first use of a computrainer ... there's a silver man on the computer screen who does the same course your riding but at a constant wattage (200 in my case) so he will get away from you if you go below this. Now I was under strict instructions to ignore the silver man and concentrate on my pedal efficiency.
-At this point all those who know me well or have trained with me in the past will know what I did...
... I chased the hell out of the Silver Man!
Ended up beating him by a mile and did my 24.10 miles in 59minutes 15seconds. I followed up the bike with a 10km tempo run including 4km at race pace.

The afternoon consisted of time in the endless pool filming for the team and then a steady swim session at a local tri club later on. Got to use my brand new Kiwami Amphibian 008 (which came highly recommended from Mark Yoeman), easily the fastest tri suit I've ever worn and in a league with the Fastskins and Diana swim race suits out there ... it was just more comfortable. It's currently off at the printers getting logo'd up before I head off to Canada.

A good weekend though and now am heading back to the homeland of Stirling for a final few days of adjustments and training before I make the move.

No one ever said training was easy!

Mike