What a Weekend

What a weekend that was! Evidenced in some part by the number of changes of outfit I had. I was up early and into shorts and T-shirt on Saturday morning. After coffee, breakfast and some playing of games on my phone the wind started to fill in so it was time to head to the estuary for a windsurf.

That meant getting out of my shorts and into a wetsuit (outfit number 2).

A Morning Windsurf

Once at the estuary there was a decent katabatic wind blowing but it wasn’t howling. I started off with my 5m sail and 85 ltr wave board. There was enough wind to get planing but in the relatively flat water it was a little lack lustre. Rather than rig a bigger sailI I grabbed my bigger 104 ltr board and headed out on that. This gave me a little more power, more speed and the ability to keep that speed and power through the gybes. The larger fin also allowed me to point a little higher upwind meaning that the estuary was now mine to play in.

I sailed upwind, headed across to Aberdyfi and played in the deeper water of the channel there. I then had a mad downwind run back to Ynyslas, weaving my way through the channels. The tide had now been going out for an hour or so. This meant I was a little wary of running aground as the water over the sandbanks was getting a little shallow. I had a few more runs being hyper-sensitive to my fin starting to tickle the sand and then decided it was time to head home.

It wasn’t the longest of session due to the early high tide and rapidly shallowing water but it was a good way to start the day.

Morning Training

At home it was straight into the shower and then into outfit number 3 so that I could have a coffee and recover from the windsurf session. I didn’t sit around for long as I was soon into my cycling kit (outfit number 4) and on my bike. I was going to cycle in the real world but as I had been accepted onto the TrainerRoad ‘Adaptive Training’ program on Friday I wanted to get going with that.

I’ll write more about the Adaptive Training plans another time, but as the name implies they adapt to your performance in training sessions rather than just being a prescribed set of sessions to follow. To kick start the process I had to do a ramp test which is always tough. I did OK though, raising my FTP by a measly 1 Watt from 248 Watts to 249 Watts. I guess any sort of improvement is good at my age as I’m more likely to be seeing a decline!

Ramp Test
Ramp Test

With the Ramp test done and dusted it was off the bike and into my running kit (outfit number 5). I ran around the Boat Yard loop a couple of times which is just over 5 miles. Michelle who had come out kitesurfing with me earlier was still out on the water.

Amazingly, by the time I’d finished my run and I had showered and got into ‘normal clothes’ (outfit number 6) it was still only 11am. The perfect time for elevenses with Anna so we had bagels and tea. Also cool was the fact that I’d already got quite a bit done and the day was still young. As well as windsurfing, cycling and running, I can also claim to have vacuumed the house, mowed the front lawn and mowed the back lawn. OK, maybe I didn’t actually do it myself but our little fleet of robots had been busy too and their jobs were completed for the day.

Time for something New

There was a small casualty from the windsurf session this morning. One of the buttons on my Garmin Fenix 3 watch had fallen off and disappeared. This made selecting the various menus for my bike ride and a run a little difficult. It then stopped working completely later in the day. I have been wanting to upgrade to a newer version, the Fenix 6x Sapphire, for a while. I was however kind of holding out until either the Fenix 7 came out or the price of the Fenix 6x dropped. My hand how now been forced so a Fenix 6x Sapphire was ordered. I did get a fairly good deal on it of course!

No doubt I’ll tell you about it when it arrives.

An Afternoon Stroll and some Gardening

I had plenty of time for other activities all afternoon of course. However, I spent quite a bit of it pottering about in the garden and then Anna and I had a stroll across to the Boat Yard and then through the dunes. I did change my shoes for this but you’ll be pleased to hear that there was no need for another change of clothes. Although it was quite warm in the sun by now so a few layers were shed. It was actually the warmest day of the year so far with temperatures on my Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station hitting 19.9ºC

The evening was spent chilling courtesy of Netflix and Amazon Prime

An Awesome Windsurf Session

Sunday was pretty much an action replay to start with. This time however there was considerably more wind once I got to the estuary. The tide was also an hour later which worked out better too. I was on my 5m sail and 85 ltr wave board the whole time today and was well powered up too. My 4.5m would have been sufficient but the 5m is nicer. Once again I headed across to Aberdyfi a few times. We haven’t had any rain here for weeks so the sea is crystal clear and a gorgeous turquoise colour. The wind was steady and I was flying! A couple of guys launched from Aberdyfi too so I had a couple of other windsurfers to drag race across the chop with too. What a session!

Back at home and into yet another change of clothes (I’ve lost count now!) I was going to go for a run but decided to myself that the windsurf session was probably enough – it had been pretty full on! So, after elevenses it was into some work clothes so that I could paint the shed. Anna helped too so we managed to get it all done which was good. I even managed to hammerite the metal work as well. Lunch was had outside to break up the painting and then some gardening was done too. It’s looking nice out there.

There’s still time left to pack more into the weekend, but I think the plan is to be a bit lazy now. I’ve just written this blog post but I don’t now have anything else planned. I think we might get a takeaway for dinner too. The end to a perfect weekend.

3 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum x says:

    Nice relaxing week end then ! X

  2. Avatar forComment Author Stuey Gwynn says:

    Good to see you on Sunday! Wish we’d launched on your side of the estuary as wind/channels better, but we ended up having a good surf up the road so not all bad!!

    • Avatar forComment Author Alan Cole says:

      You can’t beat it when the sun is shining – I tend to sail on the seafront but my last few sessions on the ‘flat’ water of the estuary have been top notch. Maybe that’s a sign of my age!!

      Also, I launched from ‘my side’ of the estuary and ended up sailing over to ‘your side’ anyway. The channels over here have silted up quite a bit this last year so aren’t as good as they used to be. They are also changing all the time so I’m always wary of running aground once the tide starts to ebb.

      Al.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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