Something like 5 days here now, to be honest I’m losing track of the time a little. Days blend into one pretty quickly, though sometimes they’re a bit cloudy or there’s a storm to break up the monotony of the relentless sunny weather. I guess maybe it could get boring otherwise, maybe…
I got myself into training pretty quickly. I don’t suffer from jet lag a bonus of years as an insomniac student getting by on 4 or 5 hours sleep a night. A run to the beach to start Sunday morning off and remind myself of why I was here. Then real training started Monday, and so far I’m sticking to around 4 hours or a little over a day. In between that training I’m slowly organising my life here.
It’s been great to get some cycling done in warm weather, being able to get out on the road at 6am in just shorts and a jersey is so nice. By the time you finish it’s starting to really warm up and you get to enjoy the sun for the last hour of the ride. I haven’t been too adventurous in my routes yet, having essentially ridden up and down the front both times. Still it’s only the first few days and I did go out on a nice hilly ride with a couple of mates before heading off down the front. Looks like I have some training partners lined up shortly and based on that first ride they should push me pretty hard too. The course was lumpy and we weren’t holding back for the two loops we did. Almost a relief to ride the front on my own afterwards! That said when the winds pick up here it can make it pretty tough going.
I’ve thrown myself into the 20-25k a week swimming program, it’s not so hard here. I’ve a 50m pool only about 20 minutes walk from where I’m living. Compare that with a 1 hour drive back home. It’s an 8 lane open air pool so importantly you can even out the tan lines whilst you’re training. It’s fine if you go in the day, you’ll more than likely get one of those lanes to yourself, go when squad training is on and it’s a bit like back home though. A bunch of us stuck in just 2 lanes with 3 women having decided the lane I was in was ideal for incredibly slow breaststroke. One of them couldn’t actually make the full 50m in one go and would hang on the lane line for a while each length. I am having to get used to not being the fastest in the pool in public swimming. I have been wearing the drag shorts to slow me down a little, but even without them there are some decent swimmers here. Right now I’m focussing on getting used to some weeks of higher volume swimming before doing specific sessions.
As a training environment it’s living up to expectations aside from the perfect climate, that I might have mentioned, I have very few distractions. I’m not watching much TV, I’m barely on the internet and I’m in bed by around 10 most evenings. It’s an exciting life! The reward is you get up before 6 and feel rested and ready to train. Little faffing, straight out the door to get the first session in before breakfast. Weather aside I could have achieved this all at home I’m sure, it’s just much easier here.
Outside of training? Well there’s not much to tell really. I’ve sorted out the bits and pieces I need day to day and got my bearings on the area. I’ve stocked up on all the drugs supplements I need. An old lady offered me drugs, if she’d had them on her, OK admittedly it was just a supplement I was buying which she had a bottle she didn’t want. It just sounded better to imply that elderly Australians were drug dealers, pensions aren’t what they were after all. I also highly recommend the Ironman movie, nothing to do with the triathlon, but the one based on the Marvel comics. I can’t say I’m a particular Ironman fan, though there were probably some n the comics I gave away, but the film was great.
As part of my new improved time management I need to get to the pool to get a 3k minimum set done before lunch. I’ll try and get a decent photo showing off how nice it is here for next time.