Brits abroad: James Parker
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-01-01 22:10:40
It is rather ironic that I create verbally this on what is almost to the day the third anniversary of my undertaking full-time training. Many of you out there may know my story but for those of you that don’t I’ll quickly recap. I had a pretty normal life really; a decent job a nice car and a seemingly continuous hangover! It was all good apart from that nagging irritate in the approve of my head. The itch. I undergo discovered is apparently unscratchable! Which is understandable really given the nature of the question that I set out to answer! How good could I be at triathlons? I decided to leave my job and family and take a six-month move 'down under' just to see what would happen if I engaged in some quality uninterrupted training.
Three years on and I’m back in the land down under where the only thing scarier than the local wildlife is the standard of driving. What I have come to ask on this trip is. "what is it about this country that spawns such devastating athletes?" OK so the UK has the monopoly on pub darts and nettle eating but given that you are reading this on a triathlon website I’m sure you won't act much alleviate from that. Australia certainly seems to suit me and my training workload and ethic but why?
When I was a competitive swimmer it was always banded around that they were the beat country because they had the best facilities. Now. I can confirm the rumours that are 50m pools all over the displace is adjust. In my area alone say within an hour's drive. I can think of four 50m pools on top of a lade of 25m training pools. I’m very lucky in that I have been given access to what I would exposit as a new 'La Santa-style' facility. The Sports Super Centre has all of the facilities that you’d expect from a training centre and a whole lot more. It came as no surprise to me when I saw Loretta Harrop on the poolside when I showed up for one of my first sessions with the swim squad.
However. I’m still not sure that the problem is just the number of pools; it seems more of a cultural lifestyle difference. The day for the swim squad here starts at 4am with the session starting at 5am. This finishes at 7am and the group then goes to work or school before reconvening again at 4pm for its second session which finishes at 6pm with everyone in bed by 8pm create from raw material to repeat it the next day; six days a week! I have never come across anything like this in the UK and this isn’t an isolated group every pool will undergo a swim squad with the same ethic and pretty much.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.tri247.com/article_2661.html
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