In spite of the festivities, let's be real. For an athlete, there's on 3 days of exciting times in the month. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The rest of the days are filled with the manic, organised, "early bird's" followed by the last minute shoppers which stupefy the majority of us.
Point being, the roads were permeated with drivers. Most of whom, would not pass today's P1 Provisional Drivers license test. From a cyclists standpoint, this is not an ideal circumstance.
Thankfully there wasn't much happening outside a 10 kilometre radius of any major shopping centre so the GIANT and I spent the most of our hours together in the more rural areas. Many New South Waliens will know, the rural areas don't have great roads, but it certainly beats the traffic. After all, Safety First!
For the most part riding was different and mixing it up makes things easier. Happy days!
Not much 'mixing up' has been done with swimming though. Unfortunately, I have not come up with a way to change that black line. I feel I never will.
Any who. Mid-month I went to Race 1 of the Australian Junior Triathlon series (sadly, only to watch) because my brother was racing and I figured this was a great chance to catch up with fellow athletes and mix things up with training even more. It was great fun!
I spent about a week on the Gold Coast on a 'family holiday' which was more like, spectating, training and sitting at coffee shops rather than hangin' with the fam. But hay, priorities. Right?
Despite the good times there were nerve racking times. Like when Keiran said, "you may as well jump in and do the 1km TT on Tuesday morning."
A mere 12 months ago I was thinking, no more runaway bay 1k for me. How wrong I was!
However, it wasn't a terrible experience. Not a PB but 'home-coach' and coaches alike were surprised and pleased, respectively, with my performance given the..hiccups in the earlier days of the season.
Must say I wasn't expecting any less of myself but nonetheless, surprised and happy!
Back home and into the madness.
One thing I was looking forward to was the Christmas set in the pool. Everyone does 100 100's, so we are doing one hundred-and-one. As our coach took pleasure in saying.
Before you get the wrong idea, I didn't do 101 100's. Like always, priorities! So the instructions were 60 to 70 at the most.
Stressing about the 1:20 cycle I was doubtful in the beginning. However, I was feeling confident at 20. Starting to struggle at 40. Then BAM! Hit the wall at 61 and used the stairs to get out.
Was a fun and challenging session and I am already eager for 2014's Christmas special. I've got a feeling the aim will be to out-do 2013's efforts.
Nothing exciting has been happening with the running side of things. Just building and building and building.
All in all I guess things have been going swimmingly...
Let's hope January 2014 is fun filled and electrifying.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you for your time.
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