Lucky

When I last wrote, I was having “pre-race jitters” over my upcoming weekend of time trialing. Ok, so my nerves were not totally the same as pre-race jitters, but I was a bit anxious about finding out what sort of times I could put down.

The time trials I had to do were a 400m swim and a 5k run. Overall, I was pretty happy and I’d say that both TTs went fairly well. I think I laid down some decent times (for me that is – 6:51 for the swim, 23:54 for the run – both efforts were PBs) and gave myself solid markers to try and beat as the season wears on.

I know I will be doing time trials quite often as this season progresses, so now that the first set is out of the way, I’m hoping the next ones will be a little less butterfly inducing.

Since the TTs, I’ve had a week full of short hard workouts - lots of those “14minutes of hurt” workouts. Wednesday night, however, was a break from the training action, as Shane, Kirsten, Tyler and I made the pilgrimage to Silver City to check out Chasing Legends. Anyone who knows me knows I could sit in front of the tv for the entire month of July and watch nothing but the Tour de France. So, needless to say, I really enjoyed the movie. It definitely made the idea going to France and following the Tour rise up the old bucket list, which got me thinking about all the other fun stuff I would love to do before I kick it.

So, here are a few tidbits in no particular order:
- Follow the Tour de France – live and in person.
- Cycle across Canada
- Volunteer at Ironman Hawaii
(while I’d really love to race in Kona, qualifying would be a hell of a long shot, and I don’t seem overly lucky with lotteries, so volunteering seems the next best option)
- Hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
- Spend some time backpacking around Europe and Central America
- Learn to speak Spanish

On a different note, I’ve read two different blog posts that I quite enjoyed recently. (I’m just now noticing they were both written by Adams).

The first can be found here. It is totally non-tri related, but well, it really stuck with me. Since reading it, I’ve been trying to make a more concerted effort not to avert my eyes and ignore strangers. I find this particularly satisfying while out running as a little smile from a fellow runner passing in the opposite direction can be quite a positive little boost.

The second can be found here. This one hit me for a bit of a different reason, as I had a similar "I feel lucky to live where I live" moment the other day while out on a walk during my lunch break from work. I wandered down Government Street to the inner harbour and was amazed by the quiet calm that surrounded me. There was no road construction, there was no wind or rain, and there were barely even any other people. The harbour was all mine and it was perfect. I think sometimes when I am running, I forget to look around and take it all in, but that walk, on that day, did everything to remind me how beautiful Victoria is. The weather was crisp, the sun was shining, and the day just felt incredibly peaceful. While I may want to travel a little and explore other parts of the world, Victoria will always be home, and this walk just reminded me how very lucky I am to live here.