BRING ON THE TAPER

Build phase is finished and now on to the taper! I am under three weeks now and feeling pretty good. This past weekend we (along with about 50 staff members from our school) travelled to Al Arish. This is a sleepy little Egyptian town (about 400 000) on the Mediteranean Sea in Sinai about 30km from the Rafah border crossing to Gaza. This border crossing has been open off and on over the past few months under much controversy.

The hotel we stayed at was great. It was right on the beach with beautiful surf. On Friday morning I got up and did my last long ride. A six hour, fifteen minute 190km ride along the coast road. The ride was mainly flat with a few rollers just to throw your rythm off. It travelled through many bedouin 'villages' which added to the uniqueness of the ride. I got to witness bedouins selling crabs along the side of the road, a group of 4 men loading a camel in the back of a pick-up, many, many bedouin women and children herding their goats through the desert coast. I even had to stop at one poing while a women herded her goats across the highway. And only in Egypt does a foreigner blow through a security check point on a bike with 5 guys in uniform, wearing guns and shouting at you to stop! all-in-all I was happy with the ride. I went through a rough spell from about 100km to 140km but rode through it and felt fairly strong at the end.

Saturday morning I got up and did a 3 hour run. The run felt good all things considered and was easy to stay motivated knowing it was my last long run for a while!!

Now I have three weeks to focus on the taper, equipment checks, and stying healthy, as I am pretty sore today from the weekends events!