Woke up this morning after only a moderate sweat, to a blue sky. It was fairly breezy, although not as bad as last night when the big bad wolf was huffing and a puffing rattling every nook in the house. The wind died down as the morning wore on, but not until it managed to blow the remaining clouds away. This is what Canberra winter days are all about ~ it might be 12*, but the sky has a clear intensity so that is it feels much warmer.

Whether it was the improved weather, or an alignment of the stars, I felt great, and achieved a great deal in the morning before heading to the Customs run at lunchtime. I did a warm up jog today, and went out reasonably hard. It didn't take me the first couple of kilometres to hit my straps today, and I was able to remove my long sleeve top under Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, just past the 1km mark.

Adrienne started 45 seconds in front of me, and I sought to keep touch with her on the course, probably gaining about 20 seconds on her to the turnaround. From there on, we both probably lost pace a bit, as we were heading back into the wind which can blow off the lake with some ferocity. Whilst not scientifically rigorous, my estimation of her lead on me as we past milestones along the return course was around 22 seconds, and she was able to retain this to the end. An excellent result ~ when she first came to Customs a few weeks ago, she had not broken 25 minutes for 5km. Today she did 23!

After dodging some errant kids on a school excursion I finished in 22:36, a pleasing 8 seconds outside my course PB. The rest did me good, and it looks as though I might be back on track. In the afternoon, I managed to get out on my mountain bike and ride much of the course for the Sri Chimnoy off-road duathlon. Gee, it's great to get out on the MTB and burl around the bush! Play time! OK, I was quite slow, not helped by the number of locked gates I had to negotiate by stopping, lifting the bike over and starting over. But thankfully I was able to ride up all of the hills, and didn't supplement my diet with dirt at any stage. I missed one small section, however I am keen to get back out again during the week.

A good training day, even if not exceptionally long or hard. I am looking forward to running with Aki tomorrow, and the Woodford to Glenbrook trail run on Sunday. Bring it on!