70K with Scott, weekly laundry and "the place"

Today it was a really long day. Alarm clock at 7.00am, breakfast (pancakes, as usual) and ride till Moseley. Moseley village is the meeting point of BRAT long Sunday run. 3 grups, based on ability, and I've picked up the easy one. I raided with Paul and Emi in the English countryside. The chain went off the on the fist hill, and I fell down. I did not have enough speed to change gear, the hill was already started, and everything went basically wrong. Apart for this small incident (the shop guy said me on Friday, when I collected the pedals, that everybody fells off at least once with the clip pedals, usually at the traffic lamps....) everything went fine. 70K in total (from home and back home), and the view of the English countryside was amazing. Hills, fields, small and narrow roads with no traffic (but wet..), sheep, horses, dogs..... it was just fantastic. I had the chance, while pedaling, to chat a bit with Paul about my training and the races I'm going to do this season, and his tips were quite useful! 

Back at home, I had to clean up Scott (poor guy...) and to do some laundry. I'm learning that heavy training means frequent washes! Here there is a picture of just the T-shirts I've used for just the training over the week. And in the picture are not included the training shorts, and all the other non-training clothes I've used during the week! I felt lucky to have the washing machine and a sort of dryer (which is working really well....)...

At 5.30pm I went to Sally Oak. Every group has its own "place".... BRAT Sunday "place" is "Sally Sausages", in Sally Oak. They go there every Sunday, after the afternoon training session. It was nice, and it is strange to see BRAT people in normal clothing!! they are reeealy easygoing, and reeealy into triathlon. The conversation is all about races, times, equipment, trials, people in training, training sessions, food and diet..... ecc ecc.... They are really into it, and I feel I finally found my world... Staying with them it is really nice, because I don't feel strange, I don't feel I'm doing something wrong or wired, I don't feel I'm acting with a not normal behavior, because they do the same, and they go even far behind the point I'm now... and they don't ask the usual stupid question: why do you do it.