A new rubbery addition to my arsenal

I went, I saw, I conquered!  I bought a wetsuit. It is rubbery. It is tight. It took me, the nice lady in the shop, and all my available energy to get the thing on - with moral support from Dale and the other shop guy.  I think wetsuit application (and you do "apply" it like lotion, rather than "don" it, like sweatshirt) should be the fourth discipline in triathlon.

I haven't had a chance to use it in anger yet (Dale wouldn't let me go swimming at 7.30pm with 2 foot waves on the lake, total darkness and air temperature of about 8 degrees), but I can assure you that it definitely reduced friction and improved my buoyancy as I staggered around the triathlon shop.  Hopefully I'll break it out and break it in soon - and give this mysterious open water swimming thing a knock.  How hard can it be?  Right?

My slick rubbery tightness looks like this:


well, as far as I can remember, it has been hanging in the cupboard for a while.

Ok, well until next time, here's hoping the Taupo Taniwha hasn't developed a craving for rubber or ironmaidens.

love,
Ironmaiden

Pure unadulterated evil

It has started.  Magpie season.  Conveniently coinciding with longer rides in response to daylight savings and the looming Taupo Cycle challenge.  Why do magpies hate cyclists so much? Is it some ancient karmic payback from when magpies were potatoes and cyclists were Irish?  I have tried a number of approaches - excessive cussing, making eye contact, logic and reason ("Look bird, I am clearly not interested nor capable of threatening your nest.  Do I look like I could climb a pine tree?"), ludicrous helmet appendiges...and yet still they come after me.

Last weekend I sustained a full body blow to the head.  To be honest, it was a bit like being clocked with a feather pillow and preferable to beaks and claws, but it still gave me a hell of a fright.  Earlier this week I got swooped by a vicious individual on Lake Terrace - literally in the middle of Taupo!  Come on birds!  Be reasonable! 

Anyway, enough of my Hitchcockian nightmare.

Until next week, if you see a cyclist, you can be sure there will be an evil bird watching from the nearest pine trees.

love
Ironmaiden

A very good week!

Well now things are going better!  The weather is warmer, the days are longer, I am healthy, I have energy, and I didn't drown in yesterday's thunderstorm!  Best of all, I am enjoying myself.  Which is lucky, because Cycle Challenge is now "next month", and Half Iron is just after that, so there really is no time to lose.

I have decided it is time to have a serious think about new toys - definitely need a wetsuit so I've got a trip to the big smoke scheduled.  I am also (still) trying to decide if I should get a new bike.  I am sorely temptly.  Mostly because I just like the idea of a new shiny toy...why do we never grow out of that impulse?

Bring on many more weeks like this week eh!

Don't forget to clean your chain.

love
Ironmaiden