New Year

Well its now the second day of January and a whole new year is underway. This time round I greeted the new year with a combination of a great big bonfire, a bunch of friends, loads of excited kids who couldn't believe their luck in staying up so late, with absolutely no alchole and was promptly to bed shortly after midnight. Our new years celebrations were held at a riends place who lives out in the county, so of course, making the most of every opportunity I biked and met the family there (the long way) - my wife was a little amused that I was going to show up well after most other people and would most likely be the only one clad in lycra ... to her credit she didn't duck and hide when I finally rolled up.

On New Years Day I had loosely planned on going for a long ride in the morning, figuring that the roads would be empty as half of the country would be nursing hangovers. But as it turned out there were much MUCH more important things to do. For the last few weeks there has been a mysterious box in our garage, inside of which was a trampoline for the kids. We hadn't put it up earlier as if we had the kids wouldn't have wanted to leave for our trip down to Christchurch. So in the morning, up it went.



And once up it wasn't long before the neighbourhood kids started arriving.



So my ride got postponed till the afternoon. By the time the afternoon came along it was stinking hot and the wind (a good sea breeze) had picked up. We were all invited out to my sister-in-laws place for afternoon tea, she lives in Gulf Harbour (Whangaparaoa) so I started my ride from there. For those of you who don't know, Whangaparaoa is really hilly and exposed to the wind, meaning the first 15 k's was basicaly a series of short sharp climbs. All in all with the wind thrown it the ride was actually quite tough, and I loved it!

Here's a profile of yesterdays ride:



This morning I got up at 6am (which is very unusual for me) and headed out to Long Bay for an early morning ocean swim. It was the first time for a while that I'd been there and the beah was largely empty. There was a small swell rolling in so it wasn't quite the mill pond that I'd hoped for, still a good way to start the day. And I managed to get back before the kids were up, so my wife wasn't left sorting out breakfast for them all. This afternoon there's a 15k run scheduled in so its all good.

Here's hoping the year continues down a similar line.