London, United Kingdom
dugong /ˈduːgɒŋ,ˈdjuː-/ //noun// noun: dugong; plural noun: dugongs; plural noun: dugong //1. a sea cow found on the coasts of the Indian Ocean from eastern Africa to northern Australia. It is distinguished from the manatees by its forked tail.// 2013 saw this little Dugong migrate from the warm climes of Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, to the more hostile climes on London. //2014 sees the Dugong take on the crazy challenge of the Tour de Force. 21 days, over 3,500km, one week ahead of the (other) pro cyclists in the Tour de France.// Join me in what will be a journey of crazy self discovery, on a bike.//

Sunday, 13 April 2014

Patchwork Quilt

The past five weeks have absolutely FLOWN by, and I'm not staring down the barrel of 11 weeks until the Tour de Dugong, and 7 weeks until the Hawaii Half Ironman. It is at this stage of proceedings that I have in the past had a bit of mini-mental breakdown. I'm pretty skilled at these, and luckily this skill has so far meant that I have avoided a larger more serious mental breakdown! 

You have at this stage of proceedings done some serious training, any the next 2-3 months stretches in front of you. It is short enough that you know you start to feel the nervousness of 'am I going to be ready', but long enough that you wonder if you have the strength to keep up the training volume and discipline.

Always one to multitask I decided to combine my triathlon-existential crisis with settling into a new job/ career move/ treechange, and a large bout of homesickness. How the hell can I pull this all off?

Knowing myself, and having some experience with race preparation, and having some consultation with my excellent and understanding Coach v2.0 I gave myself a bit of a free pass this past week. I did some short sharp training, I went for a swim, and I did a brick. But mostly I watched TV, unpacked my stuff and made my room feel like a little home, and tried to get my head back in the game.

So as I take a deep breath, I give a shout out to everyone in Team Dugong. Everyone who swims, runs or rides with me. Everyone who understands why I want to do this training. Everyone who thinks this training is mad, but humours and supports me anyway, everyone who calls or emails, everyone who follows my blog or laughs at my facebook posts. It is a massive, massive challenge to get through this event preparation, but without knowing your are there it would be an impossible challenge.

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