In need of purpose

The longer I consider myself an endurance athlete the more I see that I am not in it for the joy of training.

I know that a lot of endurance athletes out there love to train and could train for the sake of training all year round.

Me, I train to race... I train to compete...I train to go faster than the guy next to me to catch the guy ahead of me and to hold off the guy behind me. Training is a necessary evil to race fast/er. Without a race on the immediate horizon and without the pressure to get prepared I am finding it hard to find some fire.

I am in need of purpose.

Being injured and unable to run is making it much harder too. Because I need to get my body in shape to train again before getting in shape to race. This is not how I pictured the early stages of the 09/10 campaign.

I have sucked it up and made an appointment to see the Physio. I am pretty sure I put his kids through college last year, and it seems that they will be awarded the Duncan Scholarship again this year... Also Mr Ibuprofen will be rubbing his hands together when he sees me coming again.

Ahh well, neither ‘getting rich’ nor ‘lengthening my life’ were on my goal list for 2009...

The Lycra doesn't lie

Due to pressure from my adoring fan... I will be blogging again.

I hope to be regular; but with a lot on my plate over the next little while I may not be.

As I said to my to my fan the other day "it's been so long, I could write a novel to update what has happened since my last post!". I won't write a novel; but will give you the highlights and fill in the details over the next little while.

Since my last post:

• 1 Half Ironman – so-so performance
• 1 Ironman – major injury issues, glad to finish
• Numerous injuries – old ones and new ones
• 1 Sea Urchin attack – WTF?
• 1 Surgery to remove Sea Urchin Spines – Yes, the nickname ‘bubbleboy’ is appropriate
• 1 trip to NZ to not compete in a Half Ironman and not attempt to qualify for World Long Course Champs
• 2 months of 0 training sessions
• 1 month of easing back into training and dealing with lingering injuries.

In essence the 08/09 season was not my finest and good riddance I say.

I forgot to mention that somewhere in there I managed to get my wife pregnant and it is currently 13 sleeps till another Iron-Orphan enters the world (kidding).

I anticipate a continued ‘easing’ back into training due to fatherly duties. This all works nicely towards my plan to race Ironman NZ 2010, so baby’s first birthday is perfectly timed to see the grand-parents in NZ (you may remember that my wedding was scheduled around a race last year too…)

I have likely missed some of the details; they will come to me as I go.

It feels good to be back.

Oh, the title is a reference to the way my bike shorts groan when I put them on at the moment, race weight is a distant memory...