France Update

Evening friends, and welcome to the first blog posted whilst ‘en France’, brought to you from the well documented home away from home that is Aix Les Bains. My brief sabbatical in Japan was enough to test the legs and eat my yearly quota of rice, and thus it was straight to France to join the rest of the Aussie team, and back in the trenches of training. I’m currently sipping coffee, watching the Tour, and have just decided not to sing the song I just wrote for my room-mate Matt Brown, who flatted during his ITU race yesterday and could probably use the afternoon off my banter. In a vein effort to kill the ‘Black Hour’ i.e the time between the last training session and dinner, I thought it was high time to put quill to parchment in the name of a blog.  

Aside from the usual training, doing the 1%ers, crossing the t’s, dotting the i’s, giving 110%, and other such triathlon cliches, there is a few spare moment every now and again for leisure activities, as delineated in the following syntax. 

Digital Recreation

Last years purchase of the PS2 has made a triumphant return, and launched the inaugural Aix Les Bains FIFA tournament, due to kick off on Monday. If the passion shown in the warm up games is anything to go by, our neighbors can expect to be harangued to the sound of GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLL on a regular basis. 

Financial Recreation 

The 15 min Ebay challenge. Highly recommended for anyone looking to pass some time. Find yourself a worthy adversary (In my case Browny), and giver yourselves 15 minutes and 15 Euro to buy the ‘coolest’ thing possible on Ebay. Bonus points awarded for first delivery, and the rest is judged by the rest of the squad. Pictorials of our spoils to follow upon delivery of our goods, perhaps we can start an online judged poll, but only if you vote for me over Browny...

Facial Recreation

Mutton chops. Yep, myself and fellow ‘chopper’ Pete Kerr have taken it upon ourselves to bring a taste of the 70s back to triathlon. As comfortable playing rhythm guitar for Led Zeppelin as they are in the pool or on the bike, look for myself and Pete to be repping the chops big time come Tizze World Cup. Another online poll shall decide who indeed has the most hideous facial hair, myself or Pete. 

Navigational Recreation

Showing the sense of direction of a headless chicken, I managed to turn a brisk 3 km off the bike into a vagrant’s roam across the French countryside. After 30 mins of rapidly increasing fatigue, and rapidly diminishing optimism, I chanced upon some French civilians mountain biking through the trails. Obviously not seeing the way I looked at their bikes, then a rather large rock on the ground, and then their heads, they informed me I was at least an hour away from my destination, and heading further away with each stride. Pleased with their benevolent instructions, I abandoned my previous thought of rendering them unconscious with the rock and stealing their bikes, and cut a crude path through a thick corn field in the general direction of my now somewhat frantically searching teammates. An hour and 12 kms later, with legs completely rooted by this stage, I returned to my comrades, who had turned from a rescue mission, to a recovery mission, and were busy checking ditches for a corpse with sideburns. 

For all those intrigued, next week Tizzie World Cup, the week Hamburg World Series, and possibly the Alpe D’Huez Triathlon a few days after that. Stay tuned for racing anecdotes aplenty.

Take care friends,

Willy.