Check out my home for the next few months

 Thought I would take some shots of my pad over here so everyone back home can see what this place is like. Its only small but in the centre of town with some amazing views over the Swiss alps.
We are at about 1200m so similar to Thredbo back in Oz.
The village is alot bigger than I was expecting and has most facilities that we need including the 25m pool.

View out the window over the Alps, still with snow over the peaks.

Through the front door into the kitchen

Sleeping with my new bike and wheels on the top bunk!

The kebab shop to the left. My room is on top of the building behind it. My lastest dilemer is that it has shut for the next month. Now I have to do some cooking..

Looking through my front door into the kitchen/living area

Training for an Ironman..

Time for a change

Exactly twelve months ago I was racing for a small team in Germany as I had for the previous two years before, I was in quite a comfortable position getting paid by the club and looked after well, both in and away from the triathlon scene when it hit me that I needed a change. I was doing the same races every year, getting the same or similar results without really improving and just getting to comfortable with the position I was in. With our first child on the way later that year the same results weren’t going to cut it and I made the conscious decision that if I couldn’t improve my results it was time to move on with my career.

At that time I didn’t know what the answer was, I knew I needed a proper triathlon coach some proper training partners and a fresh beginning.

I finished the last race with the club winning the series both as an individual and as a team.

I kept my plans pretty quite, the only people I talked openly about it with, were the family that had taken me in. They understood exactly what I meant when I talked about my lack of respect for the teams main sponsor and my frustration that I was not improving and helped me look for other alternatives.

One year later and with some help from some good friends I am in the Swiss alps part of one of the most successful triathlon teams of the modern day with a list of great sponsors as long as my arm and a coach who has guided the best athletes at the peak of their careers to greatness.

As for the results, they’re coming! After a broken leg which cut my training for four months I managed to win the Noumea triathlon off basically a months running then finished third in Weihai Long Course World Championship series a month later. With a long way to go to get back to 100% the results can only get better and I am excited about what I might be able to achieve in the future.

Getting out of my comfort zone and making the change was the best thing I could have done and I am determined to make the most of it for however long it lasts. I look at my former training partner who is still at the club doing to same thing and getting worse results and think what a good decision it was. If you ask him why he’s still there he’ll tell you he gets paid well and has a good setup with the sponsor but  when it gets to that point in my career when I lose that desire to improve and the desire to win its time to move on. The change has given me new focus and more determination with a platform to achieve whatever I want in triathlon and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Now the rest is up to me.

First day

I received one of my new frames and disc wheels today. I have to wait for the rest of the bike to turn up but I could'nt help playing with it and got as much as I could togeather.
In the next couple of weeks we are going to be the first team to promote the new Campagnolo 11 speed electric groupset. So it should be a pretty sweet ride in a few weeks! Hopefully its together for my next race in Aarhus.

Short detour

I got back in the air last week on my way to Europe with a quick stop off in China for one of the races in the ITU World Long Course Championships which proved to be a good move, giving me a bit more confidence in my form before Europe.
I reluctantly left home at 5:30am on Wednesday and with several connections and delays arrived in Weihai 30 hours later. With a couple of days before the race I had heaps of time to recover and I actually felt fresher than I had since I started my new program with Brett four weeks earlier.
Race day came by pretty fast. With a later starting time we got to have a sleep in and after our introductions hit the water at about 9 in the morning for our 3km swim/80km Bike and 20km run.
The water was so cold it was on the borderline of being shortened to 1500m or cancelled all togeather. Somewhere around 15 degrees.. We ended up racing the 3km course broken down into 750m laps and I managed to stick with the lead pack of about six guys. What I didnt know at the time was that one of the guys had raced away by himself and had about a minute gap back to the rest of us.
The bike course was seriously tough and technical with strong winds making it hell the whole way. It was so tough that I almost rode the entire 80km without seeing any of my competitors. It was’nt until the last half lap that I caught one of the guys in front of me, a young russian guy that I thought was suffering bad from the hard bike, then as I came into T2 I caught the race leader, Kieren Doe to find myself leading the race comfortably. I thought if I could just hang in there I would have the win for sure! After the first 5km loop I felt good and had a clear gap back to second which was now the young Russian kid that I had passed on the bike but it was’nt much longer and I started to lose all my efficiency and speed and slowed down fast. Pretty quickly I was back to second place and struggling to hold onto that. Coming into the last km 3rd place caught me and we both had to serve a time penalty together for not putting our helmets in our boxes when we came into transition, I got out a little earlier but still could hardly get my feet moving and Kieren sprinted straight past me for second place leaving me to take third wondering what had happened. Hopefully it was just a combination of just not enough km after injury and the heat that affected me as my hydration and nutrition were both fine.
Although I had a bad race I got a good result, hopefully when I have a good race I will have an even better result!