Just arrived to Newcastle for the Du worlds, and what a beautiful place. It sits along the coast with beautiful beaches, with lots of surf. Too bad we aren't swimming here. The course is a killer. Relatively flat run, but the bike goes only up or down. There are 4 loops on the bike, which is going to make a nightmare for the race directors and competitors. They have small time gaps between the starts, and I figure that up to 80% of the field could be on the loop at one time. Many of the down hills are switchbacks, so there will be people doing the paper boy up, while others are going 100k an hour cutting tangents down. To top it off, you ride to the left here, and pass on the right. It should be quite an E ticket ride'

Unfortunately for me, I got up two mornings ago with my first cold of the season. I'm craming all the usual pills and potions, but I've just adjusted my goal to beating one guy in my age group. I always set my sights low so that I can always go home with some satisfaction. They are calling for rain on Sunday during the pro race, that should be interesting. It will really be interesting if it comes a day early for our race. They have over 1200 racers, which I though was pretty good for a Du worlds, and the people here are great.

I'll post some updates here after the ag race tomorrow, does anyone still care about duathlon???