Pre-Flight Checks

Pre-Flight Checks!

Right then...only a day to go before the flight and its FREEZING in the UK!! no change there then :) but we've had the shortest day now so its all good.

Xmas was fantastic with the family and managed to get in a couple of solid back to back 10milers in on xmas and boxing day, more just to check out the fitness and the legs really. No more gains can be made in the fitness department now, so just ticking over nicely at the moment.

So then....packing! the tricky bit of deciding what to take....after a few false starts the bike is in the box. When im back at work, I'll start designing stuff using the same threads as my pedals - im sure they are self tightening!!! never to be loosened. Fortunately an allen key with a 1.5m long aluminium broom handle seemed to loosen it nicely! :p

Im just chilling now, having a little think as what I want out of the training camp...after a lot of deliberation, I think i have the following aims;

1. Have fun and do something so far out of my comfort zone, I cant even see the horizon. Based on the fact that its fascinating to find out what happens when we go up and beyond normal physical boundaries but with full support from a team of helpers...interesting to see how i handle it :)

2. Train with some of the best endurance athletes in the world and see how i stack up, competitive edge starting to overtake the initial nervous anticipation that i had earlier today :)

3. Have fun (did i mention that already!?), get some top photos, some quality banter with people on camp and some quality pub stories for the next year or so :)

4. Play at being a pro for the next 18 days and experience what they actually get up to - apparently, despite popular myth, its not 8hrs training on the Wii!! - although the Wii Fit is pretty hard!!!

Haha...oooo....nearly forgot, also get to spend 18days chatting about bikes/training/carbon and whether Team Sky will dominate cycling season, without people glazing over, hehe...

My next update should be when i arrive in NZ on the 1st Jan, a couple of days before the start of training proper. Ill try and describe the training, food intake (massive) and a few general stats and comedy notes about the guys im training with.

Have a great New Years Eve.