Finally this morning after three dry weeks I managed to drag my sorry ass out of bed early enough to check out what was going to be one of the few sheltered spots that would be working. Magicseaweed was giving this for Gwithian -

Swell 17ft @ 13secs
Wind 29mph

Got to the beach just after 8:00am to be greeted with a big, fat high tide and dozens of birds working the surf really close in. It looked like they were taking sand eel, whatever it was there was loads of it and they were filling their boots for winter, almost wanted to go back and get a rod.

Text from Shane said

'It's a bit full but it's going to crank as it drops back, and there is still some parking'

By the time I got there there was just one space left, I slipped in and got changed immediately. The word was out and cars were turning up left right and centre. We trogged off down the path and launched ourselves off the rock's at the cliff base into a decent, clean, chest to head high break.

The wave here gets a bit of backwash from the cliffs where we get in creating a lumpy left hand wedge. The short boarders love it and for a place that only really works when everything else is pretty much maxed out it's got a bunch of punch. I left Shane to get on with it and paddled outside past the half dozen or so guys that had made it in earlier than us. I took up my station way to the right of the last guy where there were a few more peaks and got down to it.

The further from the corner the more exposed to the wind you are, but it had to be better than battling with the pack on the first peak especially as there was a steady drip drip drip of more surfers coming down the path, thankfully they must have been cold as they all decided to 'huddle up' in the corner. I'm always amazed at how much water moves through here , it's almost as if the sea was convulsing, it was very clean just so strange.

Three weeks off the board coupled with the rising wind conspired to make things a little difficult for me. I caught plenty of waves but can't say that I made that good a show of it. getting caught inside was fun as well, a lot of power for such a small wave, straight out of deep water I suppose. Having said that I noticed that a few of the surfers were struggling as well so it's all relative I suppose. The wind was cross off and again I found that holding my mark with the nose into the wind made it more difficult to turn and catch as the wind would get under the nose rocker of the Naish making me concentrate more on staying on the board and less on paddling in. Turning away from the wind resulted in easier footwork and an easier catch. Trouble with this was I was being blown further down the beach, away from the lee and into harder conditions. I suppose I fell about a dozen times in the session, not too bad in hindsight.

I had some reasonable if not spectacular lefts and rights and decided to call it a day after my last right which was a decent little cover up, always end on a good one if possible. By the time I got out there must have been 30 people in what used to be a 'secret spot', including a group of three or four longboarders who again plumped for cuddling up on the inside. Not sure that they would have been too popular.

Back to the car changed up and off by 11.00 which made me realise how easy getting my new SNUGG winter suit on and off was. It was funny seeing guys struggling with their 5mm steamers, mine's 3mm and warm as toast, I have used it before but this was the first time when the conditions have really warranted it and it was the first time for the year in boots. MMnnn have to work on that one I think, for some reason I have been loosing the sensation in my toes the last couple of trips better today with boots, getting old I suppose things are bound to start falling off sooner or later.

Talking of which, better keep this short and sweet as I can hear the groans already, latest check post surf this morning 13 stone 10lbs OOhh Yeaahh. That's 192lbs ok ok I know its weighing my lowest low but hell that aint bad going. 4 weeks 190,000 meters to date (apparently 60,000 meters burns 1lb so the diet must be good as well) and I feel great. Two weeks to go and I can PIG OUT, silly thing is I don't want to now.

Follow the link for the last rowing session training chart.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tQFGnF8-r6vE9t7Dwu8-5pg&output=html