It was hard leaving home this time, much harder than it has been on previous trips away and sitting in Heathrow Terminal 5 on Xmas Eve alone is not something I would stick on a ‘to do’ list any time soon. However, now that I am here I am dertermined to make the most of the trip; I have some fun and exciting things ahead of me to take the mind off leaving Scotland – on Tuesday my good friend Tim Don marries Kelly, which will be lots of fun and then in 3 weeks I have the South African 70.3 to prepare for. Busy times.

Eat well and enjoy the festivities everyone!

A few days in already. Time flies. After a late arrival in Los Angeles I stayed in the airport (well, a hotel room, not a terminal bench) on Monday evening and then drove myself the couple of hours south to the San Diego area I now know so well. There has been a coldy type thing hanging around since the flight – the bonuses of travel I suppose – and I am doing my best to shrug it off. The warmth of the sun is helping

I am not doing the best with my swim training of late. It turns out the pool is shut for ‘construction’, so I am having to drive a fair bit to get to the next one. Luckily I can borrow the truck to get there…hHopefully it won’t be too big an issue, as I swam pretty consistenly right through September back in the Shire.

The biking is going ok – I just got 2, 3, 4 hour rides in to remind the legs over the last 3 days. The riding is pretty hilly in these here parts, and I had forgotten just how hilly.  Nice views though, and once I get off the beaten track, no traffic either. Just how I like it.

I’m only here another 5 days and then it’s onwards to Texas for the Longhorn 70.3 in Austin. It will be a new State for me to visit, and a new race to experience. I’ll keep you posted

There is time for just the one more cheeky bike ride before I head back to the airport this afternoon, which will take the tally to - 9 days, including; 10 rides, 10 swims (some a lot shorter than others) – 5 in the sea without a wetty! , 3 runs (being careful with my tender calf), 4 massages (Bart(olome) is still a funny dude), 5 boxes of cereal, 2 jams, a melon or 3, too much coke and of course ….. LOTS of coffee.

I’m headed back to Edinburgh airport again in the morning – first time on a Jet2 plane, first time to Prague; first time in a few years since I headed to Eastern Europe (although I am guess technically its Central Europe) too. – I have my cereal box in the bike bag just in case it’s cold meats for breaky in the hotel!

I’ll be wearing GBR colours for the first time since I raced the World Long Course Championships in Lorient, France back in the summer of ‘07…. seems like an age ago.

There is a new tyre on the disc wheel after the expensive-post-race-puncture in Antwerp on Sunday (thanks to Continental for the rapid postage!) and Czech money in my wallet (28.33 Czech-things to the Pound if you’re interested!). Should be sorted then.

Blue sky in Stirling. It might just last....

This week since the Disney 70.3 in, erm yes, you guessed it, Disney World Florida, has gone something like this:

Monday – pack and get ready to head home whilst watching the rain pour down in St Petersburg

Tuesday – leave and savour the splendour of Tampa and Newark airports.

Wednesday – arrive in Scotland town. It was raining but i was glad to be back! Easy 90 min bike, easy run.

Thursday – LONG sleep! Easy 3k swim to get rid of the ‘wierd’ feeling’, easy hour run, solid bike at the Falkirk APR – 75k total with 38k at 41kph – this is effectively my motor pacing session until Blair gets a moto licence .

Friday – Squad swim, 4k long course. Kaboom! – I was fine for 1500m of the 3500m main set and then the long course aspect of the session kicked in. – Lets say that short course yards in America for 2 months hasn’t been a good thing for my swimming…. 70 mins easy run. Easy bike with Gavin to come.

As I said, it’s good to be back.

The hills around Stellenbosch. Beautiful.

My downtime has all but reached its endpoint; I have been home in Stirling for nearly 2 weeks and in 2 more days I will boarding a BA flight to Cape Town, so that I can spend the next 3 months in Stellenbosch… I’m a lucky person.

Since I got back I have been tried to be productive with my time; a trip to Lake District for some mountain biking was great fun; a drive up north to see mum and Abbie; a trip to Heriot Watt to graduate; a couple visits to Glasgow to meet up with old school pals, to name a few. All were good fun and just the sort of stuff I would never normally get a chance to do in such a short space of time.

And in the past 4 days I have eased slowly back into some form of swim/bike/run routine, so that when I arrive out in SA I am ready to hit the gound running with the start of base winter stuff; miles, miles and miles.

I’ve been in the pool early doors with the squad 3 times, and consequently now remember what my ‘catch’ is – I fall out of fitness horribly quickly in the pool! Indeed this morning coach Volley had us doing an open water session – where he takes out the lane rope in our side (not the swimmers ’side’) of the 50m pool and hangs bouys from the turn flags – one at either end, and viola, we have an open water venue, roughly 100m in length. We do sets of 3 * 5 laps as a mass start, and it is bloomin hard work, especially when you have been out of the pool for a while. – And this morning we had a guest mixing it up with us – Andy Hunter was a part of the GB 4*200M freestyle quartet that smashed the British record at the recent Olympic Games, and when he saw us ‘having fun’ he asked to join in for a bit. – His comment of “anything is better than that Medley pi$$” whilst pointing a finger backwards to his swim squad made us laugh! He knew he wouldn’t have the chance again, for next week Ian Thorpes’ old coach will take over as the High Performace swim coach on deck in Stirling, and he’ll not be interested in Coach Volleys sets we doubt….

I’ve been getting out on the mtb a bit too, thoroughly enjoying the surrounding hills – have a look at my flickr.com account for recent pictures.

When I get out there I will have great company to train with – Tim Don has been out there for a week or two, plus Gavin Noble is leaving Stirling tomorrow and will be around till Xmas, plus the many good friends I made whilst I stayed there last time around. I have a major race to look forward to in the form of the SA 70.3 in January, plus I may also enter a few local events like I ended up doing previously.

As I’m told – Winter miles = Summer smiles!

….for a chuckle.

I’m sitting in Houston Intercontinental Airport. Tired, bored, and fed up with the prospect of yet another flight onwards to San Diego. It’s been a long 20hours or so since I got out of bed this morning (or yesterday?) – Stirling. Edinburgh Airport. New York Newark Airport – where the Customs and Border official gleefully (and with a substantial hint of menace i might add) told me ’your going downstairs, have you ever been downstairs?‘. No i hadn’t. – Having pondered it during the flight out of NY I am confident the problem was with my delivery. – When asked what I was doing with my stay in the US, I stuttered, ever so slightly – and he went straight in for the ’so you’re working here’ line of questioning.

Anyway, there is enough there for a whole other post. I have a reasonable feeling the note punched into the computer might jump up and bite me on my next entry into the country. Although I will say ‘downstairs’ was a lot less of an issue than I was building up in my mind. ‘You’re racing in Clearwater? Cool. My buddy is training for that one too.’ Fantastic I almost yelled! Passport stamped. Good to go. For now.

But I digress. As I said, many a time have the posts of Gavin brought a smile to my face. Check out the pics and report of the Relentless 24 mountain bike adventure Blair, Gav, Coach Volley and ‘Daddy’ Coull tackled over the weekend at GavinNoble.com. – Between live Hawaii coverage and the sporadic texts and phonecall updates I was almost as tired as them on Sunday morning! Almost.

Now, which gate to San Diego?

03.50 alarm, 04.30 get in the car for airport, 06.45 depart San Diego, arrive in JFK New York at 3.00. Then a delightful 8 HOURS!! spent wandering a terminal as boring as any i’ve been through.

We were delay-ed leaving for Edinburgh, but seemed to land at the gate spot on this morning, which was a blessing, since i was finding the flight hard work, depsite the pretty impressive onboard entertainment system! – Restless leg syndrome coupled with being stuck at the window and inside a couple NOT pleased at having hear me ask ‘can i get out please?’ for the 4th time, was not much fun after 7 hours. – Movies to watch however: Drillbit Taylor (“what’s this? – A wing, and you’re under it”) (imdb.com), Kungfu Panda (imdb.com) and Tropic Thunder (“i’m just a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude”) (imdb.com).

I wound down quite nicely in San Deigo the last few days, managing to catch up with a few folk out there which was useful, plus got some tweaks to the bike sorted and obviously slotted in some steady training.

I’m trying to stay awake till normal bedtime tonight so as to hopefully get the body adjusted back to the home time zone asap, and lessen the effects of the jet lag. I’ll write something about my thoughts going into the Ironman in Sherbourne in the next day or so.