cycling at last! and some golf news

i finally got out on a real bike ride this weekend. out of the blue i got an email from someone i met a few months ago at a bike shop in mito. i was looking for a cycling group and they recognized me from the radio interview i had done fo IBS when i handed over my business card with my email address on it.

the group is run out of a bike shop called "Nemoto" and is pretty serious. but like most groups, no women and mainly middle aged men. but they were all nice people and they didnt leave me behind on the hills. in fact i was keeping up even though i havent ridden seriously for many many months.

we rode up some country road out the back of mito and up towards where all the golf courses are. we actually rode very close to the course that tom and i play at!

in the end it was around 70km and i was home by 2pm. the weather was really bad, but the rain didnt pour down so it was bearable. it was just really really cold. i heard on the news that there was snow in some areas of japan overnight it was so cold.

i better get some more practice in before Tom and i go to lake biwa in a few weeks. he is worried now that i am going to leave him behind cause he has no chance to practice while he is off on the golf tour.

btw, brendan jones, the guy he caddies for, came 2nd is yesterday's final in gifu so we are all pretty happy. lets hope he can go one better this week in hyogo!

it was funny, when i turned on the tv on saturday arvo to watch some of the coverage of the tournament, the first thing i saw was tom's face filling the screen! but on sunday they hardley showed his group at all, even though he came second. apparently it could have been because of the big scene brendan cause on the 17th hole on saturady by throwing his clubs around in the mud...