I have not written much on here in the last few weeks, mainly as I have either been struggling to cross off the final few miles towards the Chilean border, or partaking in various family festivities and therefore too inebriated to type.
Funnily enough this blog was an unexpected highlight of 2014: something I initially started writing to help track the distance I was covering, which in time turned into one of my favourite parts of the Challenge, and one that I expect to carry on into next year with whatever I end up doing next.
I honestly never expected anyone (except maybe my Mum) to read what I put on here, so it has been a great surprise that some people seem to have actually liked the odd post, with a number of people I don’t even know following me (I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that) and plenty more ‘likes’ and comments along the way.
95 post later, part of the reason I have written so much on here has been the amount of time I have had to think whilst exercising this year. When you regularly train in two hour plus sessions there is only so much you can focus on counting your laps, watching the pavement or changing your music, and inevitably you end up in your own world with your mind wandering.
I am pretty happy with most of what I have put on here, but there have been a few, er, misguided moments which I either managed to give a miss, or could have got away without mentioning. So a bit of a lighter theme this week, and in true Christmas countdown tradition this is my Top Five blog ideas that were best left on the training field:
5. Five reasons why Rocky IV is the best training film ever – To be fair, I still stand by this one and if anything part of the reason I never got round to writing it is that I struggled to narrow it down to just five. Personal highlights included the Back-to-Back Russian Training Montages (natch); Rocky’s midnight Lambo drive to the majestic ‘No Easy Way Out’; Apollo’s Dance with James Brown and Duke shouting ‘No Pain’ over and over again. I am not sure anyone else would have cared though, as this was probably just that bit too personal…
4. Fantasy Triathlon Team – The Ronseal of posts, this was sort of like fantasy football but with various different participants, ranging from comic book heroes to action movie stars creating some sort of triathlon relay team. For example a thin Steven Seagal in full Navy Seal mode kicking off the swim leg, Jackie Chan doing the bike leg in a comedy Project A style, and Tom Cruise with his head down & sprinting from just about any of his films to finish things off. Totally Random.
3. Music Posts – I really did write these for myself, and that is probably fairly evident from the lack of comments or likes on these during the year. The Led Zeppelin Spin Class was probably the height of insanity, but in my defence I did come up with it towards the end of a particularly painful class when other senses (vision, hearing, movement) were starting to shut down, so I knew not what I was doing.
2. Top Celebrity Moustaches – During my Movember phase I came up with a list of well-known characters (real or fictional) known for their facial topiary, which included Tom Selleck, Ron Burgundy, Hulk Hogan, Clark Gable, Merv Hughes and Eddie Murphy. In the end this one was simply too off track even for me, and it never saw the light of day. Although there is still next November…
1. A Triathlon Christmas Carol – The bittersweet story of a thirty-something office worker who spends much of his time being grumpy. Then one Christmas, say around 2013, he is visited by three spirits: The Ghost of Swimming Past, a friendly chap who shows him how much he used to enjoy spending time in the water and suggests it would be a good idea to do a bit more in future; The Ghost of Cycling Present, who explains how if he wants to become a real triathlete then there should be a lot more work on the bike as he should learn to deal with hills and valleys as well as flat roads; and The Ghost of Running Future, a terrifying vision of cold winter runs, boiling cross-country hills and exhausting half-marathons, who tries to convince the guy he will one day actually enjoy this sort of training.
The next day he awakes with an ambitious (or insane) idea, to change his boring ways and raise some money for charity by completing a virtual triathlon of 4,270 km across Chile over the course of the next year, and write a rambling blog about it along the way. Actually I still like this one and maybe one day will get around to writing it up – or maybe I really have consumed too much in the last few weeks. Who knows! Until next time…
Chile Challenge 