Lead up to and first few days in China

Hey folks, sorry about the lack of info but here in China there is no social networking and it's pretty hard to do anything.  No blogs, no Facebook and no twitter.  Thanks to Grace you are now reading this!
After the up and down time I had last week this week is more normal.  After returning to Palma from Ireland I had one track session and let’s just say Andy was going to make it count.  Thinking the way he does and a bit outside the box he decided to give me a heart rate strap and he kept the monitor on the MOTORBIKE.  I didn't like the sounds of this at all and it didn't take a genius to work out that it was going to hurt.  The warm up hurt a lot and Andy seemed pretty chuffed that he'd got me a new max heart rate!!!  If I thought that hurt, I was in for a shock.  The next session was more of a points race simulation and it hurt a lot, I’m not kidding, it was the worst I've felt after any training session.  It took me about 10mins to catch my breath afterwards and I felt sick for the rest of the day, no joke!  That evening was spent packing up bike and bags and getting ready to head for China.
Next morning I was up at 3.30am!!! Yes 3.30am.  We were leaving the hotel at 4am to catch our flight at 6.40am.  From here on we were Beijing bound and it took the best part of 30hrs to get from Palma to China, door to door. Apart for the length of travel time it went painlessly enough and after a surprisingly fast long haul flight I was in Beijing.  Nothing is much of a surprise out here for me as this is my fourth trip but what never fails to shock is how cold it is and how different it is.  It is really cold but the air is dry, nothing like back in Ireland.  Any bare skin is likely to fall off if you are outside for a while.
After getting settled in and struggling to stay awake for the first night I was back into a decent routine.  Breakfast was at 8.30 and then off to the track at 10am to build up the bikes.  When the bikes were ready I hopped on rollers for 40mins steady in an attempt to make my legs feel attached to my body, they really felt numb and heavy.  After the session and after a good stretch I felt 100 times better.
When everything was built and cleaned up it was back to the hotel for lunch.  I'll skip over what the food is like; after all I am in China!!  The rest of the day I hung around and tried to stay awake.  We had more yummy Chinese food at 7pm then it really was hard work to stay awake until and reasonable hour.
With another good night’s sleep I was pretty happy this morning.  I think I’m dealing pretty well with the jetlag as other people are up at all hours.  Today was my first time on the track and it felt good to be back on the boards.  It's hard to imagine that this was my first ever world cup back in 2008, it seems like a lifetime ago.  Today's session was more or less a session to get a bit of nasty stuff done and blow the crap out of my legs which it definitely did.  I felt average enough but nothing worth shouting about.  When that session was over I packed up and headed back to the hotel as quick as possible.  With every piece of cycling clothing I own on I cycling back for lunch.  That pretty much brings me to now and me typing this blog. 
I'll try to keep you posted the best I can but I’m telling you now that nothing too exciting will happen until race day. Also, I’ll try get some more interesting photo's next time too.
Talk soon
M

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