The Olympic Road Race – we have arrived!
Well, to be honest, it’s been a few days now, but the dust has only really settled enough to write anything as of today.
We’re staying a little out of town, allowing us the opportunity to train without the stress of dealing with the traffic of London, the slog of battling other athletes for everything in the Village, and the chance for the boys to decompress, relax and recover after the Tour.
Thatched roofs and little thatch geese sculptures on top… I’m pretty sure the Ye Olde Englishe translation for this area is “Quaint”.
Another example? The pub down the way pre-dates European settlement of Australia by over 200 years.
Good grief! It’s a beautiful part of the world.
In “me” news, I’ve made it to the Village once, saw the apartments, checked out the recreation area, looked at the gym and pretended to be interested in lots of stuff, waiting for when I thought it would be considered socially appropriate to go to the food hall and open my Chicken Nuggets account for the Games.
Suffice to say, the account is open, there’s a lot of food options in there, but Philistine that I am, I chose six nuggets and BBQ sauce. Sigh.
Elsewise, I saw a random gorilla sculpture in front of some great lawn mowing; Aussie girls doing the famous “Hello Boys” move under the Olympic rings sculpture, and a couple of Olympic legends.
This morning back at our little cycling base we were visited by Official welcoming-type people and had a little ceremony. At one point we linked arms with John Eales and Lawrie Lawrence whilst singing songs.
That is not a sentence I ever thought I would type.
As for the boys, they have gone from looking positively skeletal, coughing up their lungs every couple of minutes and groaning when they had to do any large movements (such as sit in a chair) to slowly dragging themselves back to humanity.
It’s been best monitored with the cough frequency measure, which has shown a steady slowing of the rate of coughery all week. Very scientific. Trust me.
We now have five blokes in unbelievably good shape, having ridden the Tour, who have recovered to the point that they are now going to be able to delve into their bodies and produce something pretty special. We’re all massively looking forward to it now!
Read more from Toby on his site.
