jo c - day 11

after a massive 12hr sleep yesterday i'm up bright and early ready for my swim in the 'closed because of weather' pool. we were anticipating a freezing and ice-cream headaches...but were informed on arrival that it was a balmy 22 degrees. very pleasant, verging on too warm in the wetsuit. no complaints from me on that score though - it was a leisurely 3 x40 lengths as swim/paddles/swim in the 33.3m(?) pool for me.
the headache was ensured by a hefty clash with the van door as i loaded bags for the trip to the pool, leaving me in a happily concussed state as i cruised up and down the lane.
today's ride 190km to christchurch, and again a KOM early in the ride. great! i enjoyed the sharp start to our ride yesterday and am well up for it again today. the general terrain for this section is more rolling and therefor not only less exposed to the winds but less psychologically challenging too! We all rolled together in one long line to tehe start of the climb - a cheeky double humper with support and film crew parked at the first 'false' summit to fool any poor suckers ( like me!) into thinking that they were done, when in fact they had to hold off all the big fellas with drop-bars on the following descent before a smaller climb to the REAL top. huh. luckily i only lost 1 place, and to be fair - even if i were still racing the descent i would have lost it anyway - i suck down hills. Douglas almost past me too, but i began to get suspicious of the work he was putting in and decided to act on the safe side and catch him again before the top....

we had a re-group for fluid exchange after the hill, and in the process of deciding my on-bike snack, i got left behind by the group. bummer. since my adrenaline was still pumping a little and legs warm, i rode my TT bars at a steady -mod effort, seeing Russell and Tara up the road in the distance, but also off the back of the pack. i could see that Tara was pulling away from Russ, and reckoned that i'd be able to reel him in if i kept up the effort. it took a while, but in the end (with a little assistance from the tail vehicle for the last 500m or so!) i caught him and persuaded him to catch Tara who by now was a speck in the distance - but still visible. we rode 2uTT with short hard turns for another 5km or so , gradually making progress. it was hard to believe how long it took the two of us to get her - i was working just about as hard as i could when i was on front, and presumably she did even not know hat she was being chased!! 3 of us worked rotation for the short ride remaining to the 70km aid stop. the first 2hrs of eh day were pretty decent effort for me , and by that point my head and neck were killing me (i put it down to the conflict with the van door earlier), and i felt a wee bit sick. We re-grouped after drinks and bars - and i found myself eating the jelly bean sweets, but only the black ones - and rolled as a line along the shoulder/in the gutter. me, glued to Steven's wheel with gordo /john on the front. a solid but not painful effort if you're on a steady wheel. Lunch at about 130km....great spread and i did my usual of eating too much for my tummy to contain when the pace hotted up after lunch. we'd agreed to ride friendly, and i considered the pace a little faster than friendly, and that throwing up on my colleagues may not be very friendly either, so dropped out of the line and rode in easy on my own. i knew this road into christchurch pretty well, and made slight detour to our temporary ChCh home to pick up a couple of things before checking into our hotel.