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Getting back into the groove.

Bonked. Broken. Toasted. Spannered. Call it what you like, but that was me after my first ride of Winter Training 09 yesterday. It was supposed to be a cruisey three-hourer with a few of the Swindon Tri boys – and maybe it was cruisey for them – but for me, ouch.

Admittedly, I didn’t make life easy for myself by taking minimal nutrition (a Go bar and a titchy Sainsburys cereal bar). This minimalistic feeding approach became skimpier still when I (a) dropped the unwrapped Go bar two hours into the ride into a pile of cow dung (the six second rule certainly doesn’t count in this case) and (b) realised we’d be out for 4h30, not three hours. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem as you’d just rock up at the nearest shop but living and riding in the sticks like I do, this was such a rural route that there were NO shops en route at all. Cue me dying on my ar$e, feeling dizzy, getting the shakes and wondering where on earth my fitness had gone.

You might also have been wondering where my blog entries had gone. Apologies. I realise I’ve gone a bit Bloggle AWOL in the past few weeks, but I’ve been dashing about doing all sorts of cool and crazy stuff, most notably being in Kona, Hawaii, for the World Ironman Champs. Absolutely awesome. The race – and the place – definitely live up to all the hype. I can quite safely say that watching Chrissie come across the line in record time was one of the most amazing – and inspiring – experiences ever.

Equally as inspiring (although he refuses to accept it) was Ozzer’s race. He’s the first one to say he suffered like a dog and not much of his day went to plan, but when everything that could possibly have gone wrong pretty much did, he didn’t quit. He wanted to DNF from about 60 miles into the bike, if not sooner, but he didn’t. When he reached the finish line he barely recognised me he was in such a bad way, but in getting there he achieved more than that highly coveted Ironman Hawaii finisher’s medal. I look forward to seeing him doing battle on the Big Island in years to come and settling that score. Who knows, maybe I’ll be there too. The Kona atmosphere is simply unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced and it’s so infectious it’s hard not to want a piece of it yourself. One day…

I was also there in a work capacity, writing for Triathlete Europe magazine. I’m pleased with the 11 pages of copy I filed for them and hope it conveys some of the magic of Kona. It’s in the November issue – available at all good magazine retail outlets now ;-)

Not much more to report from EK HQ at this stage. I do promise to get on the Bloggle more frequently from now on and I’ve also made it my mission to Tweet every day, you can follow me and my madness here

Happy training
EK