The sun has returned!!

Guten tag everyone

Well I have been a little slack with my updates.. I am currently in an internet cafe in Offenburg as Jase has gone to England and Scotland for work for a few days. The weather has finally improved! Yesterday was 28 degrees!

Just trying to think about what we have been doing...
I have still been swimming in the Hallenbad (warm indoor pool) Tues-Fri when it is open. As it happens Thursdays are the 'elderly' swimming day - I was under the impression that every day was elderly day based on my experiences! It turns out that on Thursdays the pool temperature is raised by 2 degrees (to 30 degrees) especially for the old timers. Man it was chaos in the pool. Old timers everywhere! I decided to continue to use my aggressive passing manoeuvres in order to clear my lane- but this time it simply didn't work! The oldies wouldn't budge! Two oldies were swimming (well kind of sidestroking) in different lanes (there are no lane ropes) whilst talking to each other. I decided to put a stop to this by purposely swimming between them each time I had to pass, not to mention using my secret flick of the fingers to splash them! I sound evil but if any of you were here you would understand! That didn't even work! They were simply not phased by me! Then just when I was thinking how boring swimming is with nothing to look at other than the bottom of the pool, the man from Atlantis swam by!! That's right - some old geezer was swimming widths underneath everyone at the deep end! He must have done about 20 of them so that kept me amused for some time! Today I was sideswiped by a woman doing double armed backstroke with breastroke kick, and basically swimming across 3 lanes each time! The crazy thing was that she seemed to get annoyed with every person she swam into!

Jase had a big ride scheduled on Saturday, so I drove some of the route in the car and gave him extra bottles when he needed them. It was good to see where he rides and check out more of the scenery, although I REALLY wanted to join him. After I left him, he had a major tyre blow out. Said he heard a huge bang like someone had shot at him! The back tyre had bubbled then split right down the middle - luckily he was on the flat and not hurtling downhill! This happened 6.5hrs into his 7 hr ride and pretty much left him with an hour run on the tarseal to get home (he doesn't take his phone as it is a little big, but we think he may take mine in future). He was wearing his favourite socks and didn't want to wreck them so ran the hour in bare feet! I will attach some photos of his feet afterwards (well Jase will!) when Jase is back. We have since found out that there was a problem with the tyre he was using and they have all been recalled due to this problem.

Sunday was World Cup day. We went along early and watched both the women's and the men's race. It was actually not too bad watching, and good to be able to support our sole kiwi racer (Nic Leary) and the Aussies too. Nic did awesome finishing 40th out of a field of around 100 riders. Catherine (Aussie rider pictured in last blog) also did well finishing around 60th. The competition is just so fierce. I also managed to have a good chat with Sabine Spitz afterwards about her recovery. It was her first race back after her surgery for iliac endofibrosis. She did awesome to finish 12th, and definitely gave me hope that I can return to racing again - although at this point I would just settle for feeling good and being able to ride my bike, walk stairs/hills, and run.

The mens race was incredible. Julian Absalon just tore the field apart. There were over 200 starters and only about 70 or so actually finished the race - the others were all pulled due to the 80% rule. He was simply on fire!

Sunday night we went out for dinner with the Aussies, Nic, and Nic's friends from Switzerland. It was a good night, and guess what I had for dinner??? (5th time at the Weinstube, and 5th time for steak and onions!! - Most unlike me to have the same thing!) The next morning we were up early as I dropped Jase off at the train station, so he could begin his journey to England and Scotland. I just cruised yesterday as my legs were a little dodgey after walking hills at the world cup race. I learnt French for several hours, then went to the local pool and sunbathed and swam. Nic invited me for tea that night which was great as we had forgotten that everything is closed on Sundays and we were pretty much out of food!

Well this is super waffly, so I'd better dash. Looking forward to seeing some of you soon!! I will book the good weather!

Auf Weidersan
Jeanette