Big day yesterday started my mental conditioning. In endurance sports, you can train the physical side with hours and k’s in the saddle, but that can never prepare you for the many things you will mentally have to deal with. The hardest part to train and maintain is the “top 4 inches” the grey stuff at the top of the skull. So yesterday with basically no sleep I swung my leg over the topbar at 4 am and rode the 55km to Whanganui. Turned around and joined 2 others riding out of Whanganui and we rode down to Levin. It was raining, dark and hilly for the first 90km before settling into a slow steady 50km to have lunch with Lis at my Mums. This meant I had to ride past home at the 90km point, which is a tough thing to do when you’re wet, tired and hungry.

This week I put better tyres on the bike rather than the super heavy hard treacle like ones! The weather’s turned nasty this week, wind and rain, but on the bright side only 3 more days at work until I can start my full on training program. From Monday onwards, I’ll start ramping up the hours on the bike, pushing it out by around 10-15% per week as the strength builds & recovery rates increase.

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