My spokey dokeys must have been too heavy for my race wheelset, cos I bwoke a spoke today!  What a bummer – I’d made the effort to be out the door by 5.45am this morning for my long ride, and was around 35 minutes into it when I heard a good bang from the back wheel.  If I hadn’t read recently on Bec’s blog about her spoke breaking during the Hawkes Bay race, I wouldn’t have known that spokes even break!!  I’m so naive!  What to do, what to do?  Naturally I phoned home, because I’m a female and had to share my news with someone.  Oh dear, I got Graham out of bed.   “Can I keep going on it?” I asked.  “Um, no!” he replied.  So I had to limp home, while Graham resurrected my old back wheel (it didn’t have a tyre/tube on it).  Unfortunately I didn’t have a spare tyre at home, so he had to wait until I got home to take the tyre and tube off my damaged wheel.  Fortunately he’s quicker than I am at changing tyres so I wasn’t off the road for too long.  So it was back out to Motukarara for the second time (that road is boring enough once in a day, let alone twice!).

It’s amazing how quickly a wheel can develop a wobble in it when it doesn’t have the spoke to support it.  I was down to 19kph on the way home, because the darn thing kept rubbing against the brake on each rotation (I remember Bec commenting on that too, but at least I didn’t bike 100km on it this morning, like she did!!).

Question:  Does anyone know what happens on a long distance course like Ironman if you have a mechanical failure like a broken spoke??  Does someone give you a replacement wheel, make a temporary fix, or is your race over??

I took the wheel into the LBS this afternoon and typical, they don’t have that particular type of spoke in stock and will have to order it in.  But I’m in no hurry to get the wheel back, and I took the opportunity of booking it in for a service the week prior to Wanaka.  There you go – I was meant to break a spoke today.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.  My leggies were pretty fatigued still, and it showed when it came to gear selection on the hills.  The granny gear got deployed a few times, which I wasn’t happy about!  The Summit Road was blanketed in thick cloud, and and the easterly wind up there was beastly – it made the cloud swirl around and it was pretty cold.

Right, at Bec’s request, here’s the piccie of my ‘new do’ – a before and after.  Stacey who applied the colour wanted to take a before and after photo too, because she was so excited that I was willing to go for such a change (although I think she thought I was going to go shorter than I did!).   I looked like a bloody surfie when I arrived (my frizzy, straight out of the shower look), so it was really nice to get my hair straightened after yonks of being afraid to fry my hair for fear of going bald.  I wish I could stand parting with $380 to buy the new purple GHDs – my cheap Briscoes jobbies are going to have to continue to suffice…

  

 

I can’t possibly go swimming now!

Tomorrow I have a 45 minute OW swim to do, plus a 90 minute ride, then on Sunday, it’s a pool swim.  I’m also thinking I’ll have to do Tuesday’s 2.5 hour hill run on Sunday too, as Graham is working late shift next week and I won’t get out otherwise.  Such is life.

Six people are watching my boat on TradeMe.  Graham seems to think that if it sells, he’ll put put the proceeds towards a holiday in China – I’m not quite sure how much he thinks I’m going to get for said boat!