New season, new toys and new goals !!

I have been back in my old winter base of Stellenbosch avoiding the weather back in Europe since early January. I must say when we arrived and the temp was 37'c it was quite a shock to the system especially to Matilda my 16 month old daughter, she was in the pool twice a day just cooling off.Thinks have been ticking along quite nicely, just building my wall nice and strong and focusing on the process not the goal, loving the training out here.

I decided to race the ITU race in Cape Town last weekend as I need to be firing on all cylinders come Sydney and San Diego which are both early season races and part of the British Olympic selection. It is an amazing venue with a killer view of table mountain and ice cold water, oh and a few sharks. I had a solid race ( 8th ) considering I only came off a course of antibiotic the day before. We decided to keep my HR down on the run just to make sure I pulled up ok to hit a big block of work I have coming up.
I did get a nice little surprise the week before the race when my new Garmin 910XT arrived.

Very fresh indeed, so good for swimming open water in the dam so I know 300m is actually 300m !! It looks great and the HR strap is comfy too, but it’s what’s inside the unit that counts and it really is top notch, just what any Triathlete could want in a GPS watch. Here’s a link to one of my Sunday long runs: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151709968 I have also been riding since December on Rotor Q-rings which are amazing and I have really found they complement my riding style and help my running off the bike !! I can't wait for the new Garmin Vector to come out then I will be sorted for 2012 – power all the way !! 

I have one more race, before I fly down to Sydney for the first round of the WTS, in Port Elizabeth which is the SA Champs and again an ITU race. It’s so great to have high class races in Africa, the sport out here is really taking off. 

Well, train hard as winter miles mean summer smiles !!

Cheers

Tim