'Stralia

The time has finally come. Tomorrow, I'm leaving, on a jet plane (sing along)... Where am I going? You guessed it, Australia baby!

It's a 3 week holiday that includes Brisbane, The Whitsunday Islands, Byron Bay, The Gold Coast, Sydney and hopefully a few other lesser known spots. I can hardly contain my excitement.

So, for the 2 of you who actually read this blog, there probably won't be anything new on here until I'm back at the end of April. I'm sure I'll have loads of things I heart, to report back on, on my return.

Enjoy the days off over Easter.

Sorry Lance

I think I jinxed LA. Only a few hours before his crash I received the above so I could declare my support for the Astana Cycling Team and in particular, Mellow Johnny. What a lot of good that did hey?

Broken collarbone and possibly out of the Giro. Pants!

I promise to not buy anything supporter related in the week before the Tour.

Get well soon fella.

Rat Horror

The girlfriend and I went to watch the amazing Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday night. I'm going to sound like quite a sad-o, but one of my favourite parts of going to the cinema is watching the ads before the movie starts. So the ads started, there were a few crappy ones, a couple funny ones and then a new NHS ad screened. It's been a while since I've seen such a graphic and hard-hitting ad. And the response from the audience was noticeable. People just felt down right sick and uncomfortable. I don't think anyone tucked into their popcorn or sweets for a while after.

Watch it here. Just make sure you're not having your lunch.

It certainly got the point across to me.

Box Hill Hurt

Well, it's 20 weeks until the big one. Just looking at the training schedule scares me. Since doing the Cambridge Marathon a couple weeks ago, I decided it was time to up the mileage on Big Rig (my bike), in preparation of the of 180km (112.5 miles) bike leg of the UK Ironman. Luckily the Surrey Hills are nearby so it makes for ideal training.

Having not been on the bike for a while, we (my training partner, Beloki, and I) decided to take it easy and not really worry about maintaining an average speed. Plus we were both running the Fleet Half Marathon the next day. The weather was lovely (how sad calling 14'C lovely?) so the ride was great. Until we reached Box Hill. I've climbed it many times and I seriously love the switchbacks and the cup of coffee that awaits at the top. On this particular day, my legs were having none of it. I struggled up. Bonked they call it in the riding community. Beloki has the best description of what it feels like to climb a tough hill. He reckons you can feel your muscles and ligaments pulling away from the bone. I don't think he's far off.

Box Hill hurts, but it's that kind of hurt I enjoy. I know the hurt now will make me stronger later. And I'm sure going to need it later. On the 2 August to be more specific.

AWOL

Okay, so I've been very quiet on the blog front lately. I would love to say that it's because I haven't seen anything I heart lately but to be totally honest, it's because I've been fitting a new kitchen at home. It's been super stressful (DON'T EVER USE IKEA), time consuming and massively tiring. I can't knock the quality of IKEA's products but their delivery and project management skills are appalling (AKA non-existent).

Well, it's all done now and hopefully soon it'll all feel like it was worth it.

So as a treat, I'm going to a motivational talk tonight by Karen Darke. I'm super excited for it and I know it's going to put life into perspective. I heart talks like that.

It's good to be back.