Finding the edge of one's limits.

Often you'll be pretty satisfied with the way that your life is going, and where I'm at right now is no exception - I'm in a fantastic university course, I'm keeping fit, I have many good relationships and I'm working on developing a number of skills which will surely be beneficial in the future. My training schedule in terms of rock climbing and triathlon training is gaining some sort of shape (I'm planning to try to do a triathlon by next year), and everything is going fine :D

...

And then I got sick.

Well; I'd already had a flu shot so I wasn't really sure I had the flu, but with the setback of a severe sore throat, what did I decide to do?

Train harder. I actually ended up riding my bike from around Killara to Sydney Univeristy, which is a merry 23km trip, then from USyd to Cremorne; another 10 km or so. By this stage I was thoroughly buggered, and I called it quits after doing the cremorne -> artarmon leg. I got a train home - needless to say it was pretty tough, but a good experience. It also taught me a few things which are easily translated to many other things that you'll do in life:

• Planning can only get you so far. Yes, it is highly important to make sure you plan out everything in advance and try to cover as many unforeseen circumstances in order to minimize risk, but a lot of the time you won't actually figure out what risks are involved unless you're proceeding with the activity. Take for example, I'd set up the bike the night before and checked the brakes were working, the gears were fine, and it rode well; but I was still caught out once or twice when the gear change kicked in when going up a hill, and my lights had ran out of battery so I had to get new ones on the fly. Not exactly mistakes that you want to be making, and many may argue that this is simply lack of foresight; but had I not taken the opportunity to get out there, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to make those mistakes.
• Often, things really aren't that bad. I thought the route to the city would be gruelling and incredibly dangerous; yet here I was riding along the bike route that runs underneath the gore hill freeway, on essentially a straight-line to the city. Most of the ride is downhill as well, which made it pretty easy to get through. It is most certainly something I'll be doing more often!!
• Pushing your limits is a good way to reach the next level in training, and yesterday was a great example of that. I'd been stuck doing the same timing on runs for a little while, but this was a great opportunity to see if it actually would be viable to bike all the way to uni in the mornings, to save some money, and has also become a really good training tool. With petrol prices continuing to hike up, I don't see why I wouldn't use this resource more often in the future.

Anyway that's all I have to say for a little while. I'm currently working on something pretty big, and that'll be released over the next 6-12 months, whilst I'm training for triathlon. In the mean time, stay focused and set your goals - and make sure you're actively pursuing them!