I just love, love, love being a triathlete and living in Brighton. This morning I was woken up bright and early by the sun shining through the gap in my curtains. I had a short coffee, then quickly shoved my wetsuit, hat, goggles, and a towel in my bag, put my swimming costume and some clothes on, grabbed my helmet, and jumped on my bike to ride down the hill into town. The seafront promenade was already buzzing with life before 9am.
I met Bob and Andy at Bob’s car and off we went for a nice half hour swim in the sea. Man, it was cold to start with, but we soon warmed up, or maybe we just went numb but we didn’t mind, it was so refreshing. We did a few laps around the buoys and then we quickly got changed and spent the next hour or so letting the sun warm us up at one of the many seafront cafes with a nice cup of tea. If only the hot weather would stay like this until October!
I was back home by 11.30am, had a quick lunch, fed Emma, the tortoise, and got the TT bike and myself ready to ride. The quickest way out of Brighton from my house is going out over Ditchling beacon. Anyone who has done the London to Brighton bike ride will have loving memories of this hill – It is also the quickest way home for me! You will probably soon notice that I’m slightly obsessed with this hill. Last year I rode up and down it ten times in a row! Anyway, today I headed out the usual way, and even now the stunning scenery of the South Downs makes me catch my breath in amazement. The weather was lovely although I had to try and block out the traffic jams of Brighton, which were a bit annoying. However, once I was past the notoriously clogged up villages, there were miles upon miles of glorious country roads with not a single car in sight.
After a couple of hours on my usual route I decided to explore further and I headed into relatively unknown territory. I like doing this occasionally, just picking a random destination and then trying to find my way. Sometimes you discover pretty bad roads and awful routes, but today everything was right. Good road surfaces, little traffic, only once did I have to join a dual-carriage way for a few kilometres. Just over 4 hours and 120 km later I was back home, sitting in the sun once more, this time in the garden with my first bowl of ice cream of the year. Actually I’m just realising that this is a lie – I ate a lot of ice cream in Mallorca – but you get the picture.
Suitably exhausted I spent the remainder of the day eating, having the usual Sunday evening chat with my mum via Skype, and catching up on the weekend’s race results. Sometimes life just doesn’t get any better!
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