So arriving back from the UK there wasn’t much time to recover before the annual Cartouche Heren 1 and Dames 1 (Men and Women’s teams) Christmas dinner. As promised by the guys this was a really good night. When we had arrived we weren’t too sure what we would do for Christmas. Luckily we were invited to celebrate Christmas with one of the guys from our team and his family. We had a really good day starting eating at 3 in the arvo and pretty much going all the way through until 2am the next morning. It was interesting to experience the Christmas festivity in a different country, especially one that has a different perspective on Christmas day than we are traditionally used to. So thanks Piet and Gillian we had a really good day.
Next up was new years…….well this was a new experience for me. So this is how it works, in the Netherlands fireworks are only allowed to be let off on one day each year…..being new years eve. We had known that it was a big day of fireworks but didn’t realize that it would be as crazy as it was. I think this year they country spent something like 60 million euro just on fireworks for that day. It all became apparent when the fireworks started at 8 am and continued all day with about an average of 1-2 explosions each minute which only increased as the day went on and you can imagine that by the time 10 pm cam it was just mayhem. Ive put the photo on the left of us gettig into the spirit.
Now before I left on this trip one of my old work mates (who is Dutch) said that I needed to take the new years dive……To be honest it was not until on new years day I knew what he was talking about. Apparently about 50 or so years ago on New Year’s Day people stated to jump into the North Sea to cleanse them for the coming year. This “dive” has since become a tradition attracting 10’s of thousands of people all over the Netherlands each year. Our location was Scheveningen right near Den Haag. When we arrived I then understood the hype were although the middle of winter there were people lined up on the beach as far as you could see, all dressed crazy outfits and some dressed in not much at all. Anyway come 12 o clock the bell went and everyone went rushing into the ocean for a quick dip and then out again. Believe me when I tell you it was cold……..very freaking cold, but a sure way to get over your New years day hang over. With the Festive season over it is time to now get back into the full swing of training. Although my training continued (well at least my running) through the break life was made difficult with all the snow and ice. Now that has melted I can now get back into a good routine and set a solid base for the up coming races. Thanks to the Australian dollar being strong I took the opportunity to cement in my main race for the upcoming euro season. The first is the Belgium 70.3 ironman in Antwerp on the 25th of July, The Tri-Star 111 in Estonia on the 6th August and the European 70.3 Ironman Championships in Germany on the 14th August.
Looking forward to racing in Nice. It has been far too long between races (last in August 2010). Ill try to get an update on how I go close to the date…..
Dan – Daniel – Edgey
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