Turning the corner….


September 23rd, 2009 by



I haven’t been too chirpy of late on the old blogging. Not with any ‘Fraser news’ at least. The simple reason is that there hasn’t really been any news of note to report. I’ve been in Stirling, and I have been training day in day out. The news if any, has been the lack of rain. And that IS news here in The Shire, I can assure you.

No rain = smiles all round

The summer seemed to fly by, and here we are heading out of Autumn with Winter  rapidly approaching….. shudder the thought. Brrr. The students are back and the University campus is bustling once again. Bustling so much that ….. it’s been playing havoc with my mile reps sessions, but thats a story for another day.

So with the heat in the sun diminishing even quicker than the hours of daylight available, it is that time of year again when I fire up my old pal Expedia.com and book myself the hell outta here.  It’s been as productive a month as I could possibly have hoped for whilst being at home. – The consistency has been there, the training has been improving by the day and week, and in turn the confidence has been building. It’s been a groundhog type of existence; much of the time enjoying the company of me, myself and I.

There is still a ways to go, but thats ok, since Clearwater is still nearly 7 weeks over the horizon…. but not one to be fooled, as those weeks will fly by, I have a plan of attack and it looks a little like this:

– Finish up this week here in Stirling, which will wrap up 650ks of running over the past 6 weeks. I will race on Sunday morning at the Scottish Aquathlon Champs in Edinburgh (THAT will be cold!!) before flying to the South of Spain later that afternoon for a little training camp. It’s been 2 full years since I last spent time in our old haunt of Aguilas, and I am looking forward to heading back to start ramping up the bike milage. Fellow Clearwater competitor Dann Brook is also going to hang out for a week or so down there.

– Arrive back in Stirling on the 9th Oct (I have to see Hawaii on the live stream!!) and race the Scottish Duathlon Champs here in Stirling on the Sunday morning or the 11th. Bright and early the following morning I will step aboard for a flight to Los Angeles. Back to the land of jet lag!

– Spend 8 days in the San Diego area, where I have trained so much over the past 18 months, before moving on once more to Austin, Texas for the Longhorn 70.3 on the 25th Oct. Given I haven’t raced properly over the distance since the Antwerp 70.3 in August, we figured it would be more than sensible to see where I am at competively. Good I hope, since with only 3 weeks remaining till Clearwater at that stage, there won’t be much else to do!

– From there I will finally settle in St Petersburg for the last 2 weeks leading into the World Championships on Clearwater Beach on the 14th November.

Stay tuned, as I think I am turning that corner.