I am riding in a team in a triathlon in two weeks. It is at Noosa and has a beastly switchback hill at about the 10km (out of 40km). So I have been giving the hills a good go in the last two weeks. This was my last weekend for going hard on the hills, to be followed by some speed work and some short and sweet stuff in the final week. So I was out getting me some hills in.

I decided on Saturday to do my "Nemesis Road" that I have not tried to ride in somewhere between fifteen and twenty years! I last rode it on my old roadie with horrid gearing and I vaguely remember getting only 100m up the worst hill and turning back, only to find the hill I'd just come down even worse! And then I rode home exhausted to the verge of crying and never went back!

This time it was different. Maybe I was faster back then. But I'm a lot stronger now, have better endurance, and I'm not too proud to ride a sensible set of gears now (and having 10speed cassettes these days helps there).

I headed out and rolled through the early hills on the road and then rolled down through the dipper to the really big sucker. Might not be a really big sucker to those of you who live in mountainous regions, but 12% for over 1km is big enough to get my attention. To my utter surprise I just slogged on up it in low gear, standing up for a count of 8 now and again just to change muscles, and never even *looked* like failing! Yay!!

I then rang DH to let him know I had managed to climb my Nemesis Hill, only for him to remind me the one coming back is even worse! So I turned around and hit it up. I did think about halfway up that he was kidding, because at 10% and a little bit shorter before it eased off it didn't seem so bad. That was before it kicked back up again and went for another nice long climb! It really was worse, but again I had no problems with it. Yay again!!!

So I have slain my dragons and nothing this tri can throw at me hill-wise is going to kill me. It will all just be a matter of "how fast?"

Sunday I was a bit tired in the legs after all the hills the day before, but I went out with a friend to do his favourite Sunday morning loop of 68km. The weather was a glorious and sunny 28degrees C. We took in Lake Kurwongbah and a lovely bit of shoreline around the Redcliffe Peninsula. The only hassle was the sprightly SE wind that was in our faces for much of the second half of the ride.

Got my first flat tyre in ages only 2km from home (picked up a nasty piece of wire) and to my shame, I was too lazy to sit in the sun and change it, too lazy to walk home in cleats, so called DH to come and pick me up!

A nice weekend on a bike!