Despite the slightly fairytale life I live here in Europe, life goes on back home in Australia. ‘Big Jim’ celebrates his 50th birthday, our Labrador puppy Sasha gains many kilograms, and my gorgeous niece Leila Lee has started on her first words. Not surprisingly, ‘Peta’ is not yet in her vocabulary, but my twin, Angie, insists that the little one is still my biggest fan! Mum has a new hairstyle and Dad a new X-Box 360. My brother, Matt, has easily recovered from a broken nose obtained in karate training a while back, and the youngest, Kerry, is no doubt busy raiding my wardrobe of all my clothes while I’m away! I’m not one to get all sappy, but the closer I get to my departure date from Europe, the more I seem to miss them all.
In the ‘bigger’ world, the Tour De France has come to an end with Cadel finishing second once again, and I think it’s safe to say that those in Australia lost more sleep over this than him (due to an 8-hour time difference)! Discounting a small fall during post tour celebrations, he looks ahead to Beijing with the Olympic Team, most of who have been preparing for the games in nearby Varese. I could almost say that the weather has been turned on for them, but occasionally, we endure the wrath of Mother Nature out of the bike. Carlee and I only ever get lost when it’s pissing with rain, then we decipher some random Italian directions, get lost some more, and return home with a new kind of sock line (pictured above).
Back in fairytale land, some interesting developments have been taking place. Our AIS sports physiologist, Laura Garvican, has been flooding the basement for the past few days, attempting to set up multiple ice-baths for recovery sessions after training. It sounds good…relaxing in a large yellow inflatable pool-like structure, powered by a generator with a fancy iPod dock…but at a cool 10 degrees, for 15 minutes, with whole-body numbness, you really shouldn’t be all that jealous! They came in handy after sub-max V02 testing at Mapei today, helping to remove the lactic that I didn’t want in the legs for travel tomorrow. We leave at 5am for Germany. With three days, two races, and over 30 hours of driving, I think I’ll be in desperate need of the ice-baths when I return!
In the ‘bigger’ world, the Tour De France has come to an end with Cadel finishing second once again, and I think it’s safe to say that those in Australia lost more sleep over this than him (due to an 8-hour time difference)! Discounting a small fall during post tour celebrations, he looks ahead to Beijing with the Olympic Team, most of who have been preparing for the games in nearby Varese. I could almost say that the weather has been turned on for them, but occasionally, we endure the wrath of Mother Nature out of the bike. Carlee and I only ever get lost when it’s pissing with rain, then we decipher some random Italian directions, get lost some more, and return home with a new kind of sock line (pictured above).
Back in fairytale land, some interesting developments have been taking place. Our AIS sports physiologist, Laura Garvican, has been flooding the basement for the past few days, attempting to set up multiple ice-baths for recovery sessions after training. It sounds good…relaxing in a large yellow inflatable pool-like structure, powered by a generator with a fancy iPod dock…but at a cool 10 degrees, for 15 minutes, with whole-body numbness, you really shouldn’t be all that jealous! They came in handy after sub-max V02 testing at Mapei today, helping to remove the lactic that I didn’t want in the legs for travel tomorrow. We leave at 5am for Germany. With three days, two races, and over 30 hours of driving, I think I’ll be in desperate need of the ice-baths when I return!