Gold rings#

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Today we had the morning off before heading out to the hills after lunch. This was a great opportunity to stay in bed until midday and rid myself of the sleep deficit caused by having woken up at 4am every day so far this week.

The hill skate was, if I'm honest, a bit of a disappointment. The climb was hard but not a killer at the group's speed, and the downhill I tackled rather more cautiously than I probably need have done. Although that did make it easier to cope with the herd of cows in the middle of the road halfway down, which Fred in group 1 apparently had a near-death experience with. Someone commented afterwards that they had never before seen a T-stop performed while the leading foot was speed wobbling.

Total around 18k horizontally and 250m vertically. Max speed 53km/h which admittedly is higher than I've yet managed in London, even if it didn't feel that fast.

After the skate, and still in the hills, the authentic Sardinian Evening. A restaurant on top of the hill (we had to walk up the last ten minutes as the coach couldn't climb it safely) serving locally produced food (mostly pork: vegetarians might be advised to stay at home if the sight of quite recognisable bits of pig - heads, ears, etc - at table bothers them). And locally produced wine - hic - and grappa ditto. Then back down the hill holding flaming torches to light our way, via a short and accidental excursion into a drainage ditch (I stepped backwards and suddenly the ground wasn't there underneath me. It was very very funny at the time, but you had to be there and you probably had to be slightly inebriated too)

Quads a little sore but quite a lot less so than they have been (walking downstairs I notice it still, but not really any other time). My hip hurts a bit. But it feels so great to be well-rested for a change that I'm just not worrying about the rest.