Well it’s been two weeks since I left Queensland and headed for Perth.
A few stats before I begin.
The Last 30 days I spent in Queensland I had only two days of Sun.
The rest wasn’t only cloudy , it was pelting rain, rivers were flooding like we were in a movie and the world was about to end. “ whats that movie called ?“ the day after tomorrow?”
Needless to say when you are training full time, riding in the rain gets old quick. So after 30days of having a wet bum , i thought I need a change .. so I moved to a desert…
I’m not joking.. Perth is pretty much a Desert . it’s the single most isolated city in the world… the city sits on the edge of one dry big sandy desert….It’s in the ass hole end of no-where…… but we love it and it’s a crazy beautiful city……
Ok so now down to business.
I came to Perth with the same thing in mind as a couple of other professional “Luke Mckenzie and Amanda Balding”… avoid the rain and train with our good friend, fellow pro and Perth Local Kate Bevilaqua .
Kate was only to happy ( I think ) to put me up.
So being a bit late to arrive and suffering from a bit of jet lag, i thought an easy day in the saddle would settle me in fine… Luke had other ideas.. 150k later in 100degree heat the hurt box had opened , I had climbed in , it closed over me and I had turned on my flashlight…. Just in case you are wondering , I am still in that hurt box, but the batteries in my flashlight have gone dead and it’s dark in here… very very dark….. but I’ll get to that later..
After a few days in said hurt Box, Kate and I did have the pleasure of joining Luke and masterchef Amanda for dinner. Amanda doesn’t to things by half EVER and the size of this steak matches her personality perfectly… seriously..
Anyway I won’t get into the details of the evening , But Kate and I couldn’t drive home, we had to stay, A few red wines and a good old catch up was in order. Needless to say that bottle of red in the photo is no more.
Perth offers some great riding. It has some really great hills and quiet roads.
The photo below is of Kate sitting behind Luke on our long Sunday ride. 5 plus hours in the saddle and 4:45 with us sitting on Lukes wheel.. lol
Below that is a picture of Luke updating his twitter mid ride… that’s commitment to social media people….
After a week of pain it was time for Australia day celebrations. You can’t train all the time and after a heavy week with Luke Amanda and Kate it was time to unwind for a night.
Kate assured us Perth does Australia best…. ( fireworks and all )
So off we went with our picnic basket packed with the essentials, Wine, Cheese, crackers , Chicken , Rolls and salad…. All packed triathlon styles into our blueseventy transition bags…
The best spot for the fire works is the south side of the river . so that’s were we set up camp with about 100,000 other people. Some who had been there all day and were a little worse for where.
Now Kate was not wrong about these fire words… OHH good lord…I think they spent about 80 billion dollars on these fire works.. at one stage I wasn’t sure if they had just set fire to the entire city or not….
It was pretty special and the gun powder smelll still stings fresh in my nostrils even now… ( one week later )
Great night out …. But it was time to go home …. As we were plenty cooked from training over the last week.
After nearly two weeks training together the wheels begun to fall off even one..
Luke was putting in extra miles on the bike and one choc milk stop ( Choc milk is essential ) he was so deep in the hurt box he couldn’t climb out of it .. Even the local shop owner had to come see what was going down… She eventually got him out…
That was it .. After this we all realized we had roasted ourselves internally and it was time for a little R&R .. So Luke and Amanda jetted back off to Queensland . The land of cyclones and rain and I begged Kate for a place to stay … I promised I’d move out before I turned 40…some 10 years away yet…… My face looks old from to much sun…. “ take it easy”…..
So from me in Sunny Perth … that’s all for now…. Got to go to bed .. Kates making me ride 230K tomorrow to a small town south of here… I swear she will be the death of me…… As they say “ no easy way” or was it HTFU? Either way I think the point is clear….
Thanks for taking the time to read the babblings of a madman…
Thanks to Luke Amanda and Kate for two weeks in the Hurt locker, Pain Cave … insert multiple other descriptions of hitting the wall here…
Guy
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