Mon premier Europeen saison finit!

So I've finished my first European season. It has been amazing. The experience has been wonderful and the highlights have been many.

 

The obvious ones would have to include;

• Winning the Long Course World Champs in Germany in August
• Racing across cobblestones and under the Eiffel Tower in Paris in July
• Racing my first ironman in the pro field in Spain finishing in the top 10 in a good time.

The less obvious but probably more real highlights are:

• Learning to love the many and fantastic training options throughout our region, the Aravis Valley and surrounds,
• Struggling with and coming to more friendly terms with my swim
• Beginning to feel a part of my team, TMT Triathlon
• Swimming with triathlete friends from Australia past the castle under the cliffs in Lac d'Annecy

• Appreciating the ever growing practical and emotional support from Rob and the boys both at races and throughout my training (as a team we have grown stronger and our results are Team Hemphill's not mine)
• Watching the Tour de France pass through our village with Cadel in yellow and watching on TV as they rode over many cols I had also riden on (albeit somewhat slower!)
• Getting some great guidance from good people and slowly building and learning to trust my own internal guidance better
• Most of all though, meeting the many, various and wonderful people at races, in training and through our travels.

Of course it has not all been sunshine, fresh pastries and smiley faces. We had a month of rain and cold when we first arrived in France exhausted and disoriented in our new world that we hoped to make a home in, I lost a good friend, feeling like an alien at school events and realising how hard it must be for the boys each day as they go through their own significant transition, cold cold descents off cols through sleet and/or rain, occassional injury and illness concerns, mechanical troubles (generally with our car and scooter not bikes as they are much better designed, built and looked after), and of course the tired muscles, body and soul - sometime all at the same time.

Overall it has been overwhelmingly a fantastic, rich life experience. Like all good experiences, not without its challenges, but with plenty of great rewards too.

But for now, after enjoying a short holiday with the family in Barcelona, the Pyrenees and Avignon it is time to settle down for a quieter, more stable period of recovery, more focussed language learning and building a triathlon based business for next summer in the Aravis so we can stay in this great part of the world.

Thanks to Valdora, Jaggad, TMT and Louisa for your assistance throughout this season. For now, my new Valdora roadie and I are off to get in a few more rides before the snows fall and stay on the roads and I need to swap wheels for skis for the winter.

A bientot
C