jo c - day 13

a brighter morning and the promise of some fun at the pool with the traditional epic 400IM race. we had an hour of free swim time so i used this last opportunity to get my 1000m bands only swim done. i managed it a lot better than last year, which pleased me. still took a while tho!
there was some close racing action in the 400IM - not for me though having almost drowned doing the butterfly i did race to finish not last with some fast freestyle at the end.
back on the bikes and trundled out of town. there was a lot of talk about how tired each was feeling and were going to go at their own, steady pace today - a flat ride with no competitions. Ha~! had me fooled. the pace soon picked up thanks to Tara and David (who, admittedly had not uttered any words about fatigue) and it became a question of just hanging in the bunch, which before long had turned into a splinter group off the front. strangely my heart rate was not registering very high intensity, but my legs sure were. Still, it was manageable. A very quick stop at the drink station at 50km - so quick that they did one whilst i was down the road in the loo. i was not sure what the hurry was at the time, but since David is currently out running 20k whilst the rest of us kick back at the hotel, it figures! in any case - it wasn't long before the next group , which contained steven, scott, john, class and petro arrived giving me the option of company. i was relieved to see that Russell and Rob were hanging in there and so i should be able to stick with them too. Th pace started a little hot, and got hotter and hotter as Petro gnashed away along long flat stretch of highway ahead of him. But once Scott pointed out the 'comfy' spot to ride (to the right of the rider in front) and steven took the front in attempt to prevent petro detonating himself( failed!) and me in the process (succeeded). From then on we rode together nicely averaging about 22mph - riding just outside my comfort zone, but worth it for the benefit of the group's pace. We also picked up a couple of guys who'd been blasted out the back of the DC's rocket mission. weird muffins at lunch, a few laughs and a glimpse of the first pack before they hurried off along their way.
our group held together as before, with Eric and Richard joining us, until we turned onto the coast road Oamaru. This turned out to be a very scenic, rolling country road - and the pace really eased off to enable the group to roll along, chatting and enjoying the sea air and scenery for the last 30km or so. A real contrast to yesterday's ride - and this lovely landscape suggests some real scenic treats on the southy-south part of our journey.