What's that coming over the hill, is it the race season...?
Hi All,
In late September 2008, somewhere in northern France (OK fine, the place was called Lorient, I was just trying to make it sound more dramatic), I finished my race season with a solid 6th at the Lorient World Cup, which promoted me to 5th place in the World Cup rankings. 6 months later, I'm in California, preparing to do something that I feel woefully under prepared for, and the suggestion of which would (and did) make me laugh hysterically a couple of months ago...but that's what it's all about, right? (I think the correct answer to that is "No Olly, no it's not")
Unintelligible rambling aside, I will explain how I ended up here. The winter has gone really well in general, and I've been able to maintain a consistency of training far above what I've managed in previous winters. It was great to get away to Lanzerote with Bodyworks for our annual trip, but most of my time has been at the chalk-face (literally) in Eastbourne . I'd been planning to get away for a spot of warm weather training for a while, and when Glenn suggested that I maybe tied it in with having a crack at a 70.3 (to the old-schoolers, that's a 'Half-Ironman') I honestly thought he was having me on.
Anyway, as the not-so-subtle '70.3' references started to increase in frequency, and the suggested location and timeframe for my training camp miraculously coincided with a well-known 70.3 race, I started to realised that the this was for real, so I pulled up my cycling shorts, grabbed some anti-chafing cream and started spending some quality time with my two-wheeled friend.
So here I am, tapping away, with a few weeks of great training behind me in SoCal (that's what the cool kids call Southern California , apparently). Apart from the last week or so, when I have felt a touch under the weather (and hoping it leaves me alone before the race), I've had nothing to complain about. I've been staying with an awesome family (mostly awesome because their 7-year old is into Spongebob SquarePants and Star Wars, so I can watch the same TV as him without anyone thinking I'm immature/geeky/weird etc). The weather has been great, the food has been great (more Mexican restaurants than you can shake a very large stick at), training has been great, the tanned, toned, occasionally botoxed and 'enhanced' Californian beauties have been great, but to be honest, the best thing about the trip has been getting away from those god-forsaken idiots I call team-mates back at home...hopefully they will have all got the point by the time I get home and moved somewhere else...
Anyway, I guess on Saturday I'll have to step up to the plate, man-up, HTFU, get my game face on, and sundry other phrases that generally mean, in the words of the great Barry Shepley (ITU commentator), 'get the job done'.
This could get messy...
Olly
posted by ollyfreeman.com at
10:05 AM
