Coffee bee

Whoosh! This weekend sure did fly past.

I decided to swap my ride and run, as I made an appointment at the student massage clinic at Central Tafe, Mt Lawley on Saturday morning. Just prior to the appointment, I did a 13km run, testing out my Orca 226 race suit and the Saucony Fastwitch 4 racers. Was pleasantly surprised with the result, clocking 54:23, an average of 4:11 per km.

The massage was pretty good, the young girl helped release all the tight areas on my lower legs. My only criticism was I wished she applied more pressure and she made full use of the 45 minutes as stipulated. But for $30, I guess I can't complain much, as it is a lot cheaper than elsewhere.

While waiting for me, Li-Ann wrote thank you cards for the participants for her experiment. Then, we had a big bowl of hot chocolate at Crown Cafii, East Perth before joining our friends for dim sum at Dragon Palace, Northbridge. And then for dinner, Li-Ann's family friend invited us over. They had relatives visiting from Italy and they made us traditional Italian lasagne. Yummilicous!

Extremely satisfied from dinner the night before, on Sunday I set out for my final 120km ride before Ironman Western Australia. It was the Great Bike Ride day, and there were over 4000 cyclists riding around the Swan River. I stayed at home until about 8.30am just to wait for the crowd to clear. But as I was feeling pretty drowsy by then, so we dropped by Cranked Cafe in Leederville for a cuppa, to wake me up.

And then the weather seemed a bit temperamental, so I waited again until it calmed down. Finally started my ride at 10am. It was pretty humid with the clouds and the intermittent showers, and I was sweating profusely just minutes into the ride.

Well, I didn't ride for long and just before 50km, I felt a sharp pain went through my right wrist. I briefly glanced at it, and there it was, a sizable bumblebee stuck to my wrist, with its sting pierced through my skin. I quickly flicked the bee away but I had to continue riding until I could stop safely. The sting wasn't pierced too deeply and I could easily remove it.

I wasn't sure if I could continue riding. So I called Li-Ann to pick me up, just in case I had an allergic reaction. This is the first time I was stung by a bee! We went to the chemist straightaway, and thankfully after taking a tablet of antihistamine, the swelling and the redness subsided. It's totally gone now, as I'm typing this.

What an adventure, let's hope next weekend is a little bit less stressful.