HO HO HO!!

Apparently Christmas comes early here in the Philippines! As of 1 November it seems everything here is geared towards Christmas. At first we suspected it was just our over-enthusiastic hotel manager, but now there are decorations everywhere - and I mean everywhere! The streets, shops, hotels, resturaunts and everywhere. The only music you hear now is Christmas carols... and we are still over 6 weeks from christmas! Commercialism at its best.

Training is still going really well. I am certainly more tired now than I was last week, but still able to put out good effort in the sessions which is great.
One thing we have had to deal with in the last few days is rain. Lots and lots of rain! It has pretty much rained constantly for two days. It is manageable as it is not too cold, but it wears on you when you ride in the rain in the morning, then an hour later get back on your wet bike with wet helmet and bike shoes (arghh!) to ride to the pool, and then a few hours later you must get on the bike again in the rain for another session! My bike is filthy, creaky and my shoes are still wet! And they're beginning to smell - eewww!
Luckily today we did not have to ride (Coach even sprung for a taxi to the pool - yeah!), but we still had a very wet run this morning, and will have another run later - again in the rain as there is no promise of it letting up any time soon. It also makes laundry an issue when all your clothes are wet - but when your biggest issue in your day is laundry, things could be worse!

The Bike Boutique officially opens its doors here this weekend so we are in for a busy one with our training being shuffled a bit to allow us time to be present at the opening and the associated lecture by Brett Sutton. Should be an interesting talk and an interesting weekend. It will be my last weekend here - time flies!