The day my car was stolen

These things happen. However, I always thought that they would not happen to me. Well it did. Maybe it was just bad luck. Maybe it was poor judgement. Maybe a combination of both.

I went for a swim at Balga Leisurepark on Tuesday night. I placed my bag in the changeroom. It only contained my clothes, access card to the pool and my bunch of keys, which consist of car keys, house keys and office keys.

I started swimming at 6.20pm. About 55 minutes later, I returned to the changeroom with my bag wide opened, clothes thrown to the side. My first thought of relief was luckily I did not bring my wallet or phone with me. But that relief quickly changed to panic when I could not locate my keys! I quickly reported the incident to the staff at the front desk. The shift manager escorted me to where my car was located and true enough, my car was gone!

The receptionist was quick to contact the police and after finalising the report, I used the front desk phone to call Li-Ann to pick me up. Once we reached home, I started calling all my credit card companies and banks to cancel the cards. Murphy's Law... normally I leave my wallet at home when I swim, but I left it in the car this time as I wanted to fill up the tank after the swim.

Nothing much we could do after that, but at about 9.20pm, I received a call from the police saying they found the car and the culprits caught. According to the front desk staff, they are mostly likely a group of teenagers who have been banned from the centre for previous misconduct and it seems vehicle vandalism is pretty frequent. So I don't think I'll be swimming there again!

My car is still with the police at the moment for further investigation. It has been a bit inconvenient for the past few days, but Li-Ann is very supportive, sending me to work and all. To be honest, I rather have the car be written off as it is insured, and we could get a new one. God knows what they have done to it.

Another first for me, I did a 20km bike time trial hosted by the Australian Time Trial Association at Champion Lakes. It was quite a drive, about 45 minutes away. I found it really hard. The winds were blowing strongly, with gusts knocking me off balance a few times. And there were some tight corners which I slowed down a lot due to my poor handling. I thought I could achieve an average pace of 35kph but after the first of four laps, I knew there was no way I could clock that in those conditions. Hence, finishing in 36:54, averaging 32.5kph. Can't complain.