Saturday, 9 March 2013

Mallorca Day 3 - 7



Time certainly flies when you’re having fun.

Tuesday saw the arrival of the first Tri Camp Mallorca group. The hours leading up to their arrival were spent doing the last few bits of admin and getting teas/coffees ready.


17 smiles greeted me, all excited about their week ahead. I’m sure going to be a master at remembering names after this 10-week stint.

I awoke to the pissing rain on Wednesday morning but got out for an 8km run regardless. Thankfully it stopped before the group rode down to the pool for their swim analysis session.

I joined the group for the afternoon ride to Lluc, making sure to smash myself up the climb. The beauty of riding climbs with varied abilities is that once you get to the top, you drop back down to the last rider and ride back up. It’s a great hill session.

Thursday’s ride is fairly flat and fast. On what we call the Reed Road (road is flanked with reed beds), I got down on the drops and started a great little chain gang. We kept at around 45km/h for what seemed like ages.


The 60km ride ends at Port de Pollenca, met by the van carrying our wetsuits. It was sunny but the water’s still too cold to be in for longer than 20/30 minutes. Getting a taste of the salt water was just enough.


Friday is a big ride day. Sa Calobra. In my opinion, one of the most beautiful mountain climbs in the world. It’s like a kid took a black crayon and scribbled on the side of a mountain. Switchback heaven. At the end of the day, my Garmin read 80km ridden, 2,000m ascended. That’s mega.


With the weather coming to the party, we declared Friday evening braai evening. Naturally the South African in me couldn’t resist volunteering. No pressure.

I needed to get a long run in this morning. Fortunately a few of the group were keen too so off I went with 6 others.


I’ve pretty much spent the rest of today drinking coffee at a café (free WiFi) then lounging next to the plunge pool on the roof terrace. It wasn't all rock n’ roll as I had a mound of laundry to sort out.

That said…la vida es buena.

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