It’s a wrap….another year gone
The year has flown and I reflect on what 2008 dished out to me in terms of my physical activities. There were many watershed moments including Painathlon, the Rotto Marathon, the Busso Ironman run, the Cyclosportif season, some ATTA time trials, a few WA Marathon Club runs, Busso Half Ironman and a few more events besides including Anaconda.
I’d have to rate Painathlon as one of the toughest things I’ve done. My guess is that there will likely be a lot of people putting their hand up to do this event in 2009 and my prediction is over 300.
I have set a few goals this year for 2009. One of them is a sub 5hr Busselton Half Ironman. The other is a sub 3hr30m marathon (mainly because my running coach thinks I’m capable of it). I would love to do a time trial with a 40kph average (doesn’t matter what distance) but I am realistic here. My new wheels may give me 2 to 3kph faster but that won’t quite give me the 40kph average.
I reflect on my Busso Ironman marathon and wonder how/why my body shut down so quickly after 25kms of running. Those last 17kms were horrendous but I had such a bright start to this event. More training and gym work is part of the answer as is proper nutrition and hydration.
There’s a whole load of 40 and 80km time trials coming up so I guess I should get someone to glue on the back wheel. The front one was a ‘labour of love’ for Phil Ingpen from Runner’s World. It’s great to see a batch of new people getting into time trials. The likes of Mouse and Lorraine Shutz (and quite a few more) are surely bearing the fruits of nurturing ATTA over the last 20 years in such a spirited and professional way.
Dee is off to Kilimanjaro in 2 weeks now. Her fitness is phenomenal and her determination to conquer ‘Kili’ is great to see. The human body is capable of great things and feats like climbing Kili and Ironman WA just prove that.
I’ve had a good break now over Christmas and have just returned from several days at Busso. Even still, we brought the Colnago and Trek along. I want to be a ‘doer’ and not a ‘talker’ this year and I hope to let my performances speak for themselves. I can ‘t see me being ready for the Busso Jetty swim of 3.6km however this is on early Feb (7th or 8th I think). There is a half marathon run on the day before so a bit of determined training over the next 4 weeks may see me being able to do both.
Couple of days ago, we went home from Busso via Myalup to drop in on Dee’s brother. Had a great time there in a sleepy little coastal town. It’ll be great for me to catch up with family in Melbourne in mid January including two brothers, a sister and , of course, my parents. Cheap flight via Tiger Airways helped out with this decision. $118 Perth to Melb and $120 Melb to Perth.
This Saturday, we do a 21km bushwalk along the Bibbulmun in fairly hot conditions. Will be a solid test so good hydration will be important as will preventing blisters and other abrasion.
My daughter Melissa and her mates get ready for the Southbound concert experience and Matt has Big Day Out coming soon. Can’t wait to see what all the young folk make of Neil Young. Saw the Heart of Gold concert on Foxtel and is was magical. He’s a great muso.
Had a great day yesterday watching all the English Premier League matches and also watched Perth outplay Mariners only to lose in the A-League soccer.
Anyway, set some goals for yourself and achieve them. No excuses, no laziness. Just achieve them because you’ll feel better. I had a great moment when I found Lance Armstrong’s book ‘Its not about the bike’ in a Busselton second hand bookshop a few days ago. Needless to say, its been a great motivational read for me. I should also mention that we now plan on doing half the Bibbulmun track in November 2009 after deciding that we couldn’t really take 6 weeks leave to do the whole thing. Still, doing half the whole track will be around 20 days of hiking.
Reservoir
CHRISTO