Trains, Travels

Somehow I’m pretty much packed and ready to go for the ITU Long Distance Triathlon Championships in Almere. All part of the glamourous lifestyle of an athlete, I’ll get a train to Gatwick and spend a night in a Travel Inn before flying out to Amsterdam.

The bike is prepared for a championship race, well it’s got my flag and name stickers on now. It’s actually a bit on the dirty side and with perfect timing my front derailleur broke this week. Fortunately it seems to hold together still and with a flat course I’m not going to be changing too much. When I’m back I will have to get a new one though, can’t really rely on it too much anymore.

I guess that kind of sums up my attitude going into this race. For once I’m relaxed and not in the least concerned because I don’t have any expectations. It’s not a standard distance I race so I don’t really know how my times will work out and even so I know I’m not at the peak of my fitness right now. It won’t be a terrible race, but I’ll not be at my best that’s for sure. Still it’s fun to race in GB kit and it can’t go worst than the last time I raced as a GB age grouper. My race plan this year is not to get a virus/food poisoning and spend the day before the race throwing up. As a race strategy goes it doesn’t work too well if you’re concerned about getting to race weight there are better ways. Still I struggled through the Duathlon worlds last year and wasn’t last despite running on empty.

And the helmet has its flags too. Sure that’ll go down well in Oz too. Next year’s long distance triathlon championships will be in Perth so the plan is to be there and to be ready to race. That said it’s only a month after Hawaii so the exact state of my fitness could be interesting. And by interesting I mean that race will probably hurt. However I can’t really turn down the chance to race the Worlds in Oz and I’m committed to racing a lot in the coming year. There’s a new championship series coming in Oz and even though it’s Olympic distance I’m keen to give a few a go. Whilst you need to balance training and racing, this year tipped too far to training and the lack of racing showed in my race nerves.

This weeks continued the theme of high volume training, too much to count as a proper taper for my race. I still feel like I’m just getting back into a position where I can do decent training, it’s hard right now to pick up my pace and do anything above basic aerobic training. Checking the powermeter files it’s clear right now I’m training below where I was in July. I doubt it’ll take too long to get back to where I was and the plan was to back off completely and then rebuild. A good massage yesterday has certainly helped me feel a bit stronger. Once I was warmed up I was riding better this morning and my open water swim felt the best in ages. After months of being a cheapskate it’s back to regular sports massage for me. At this training load weekly I think, but should be cheaper in Oz!

I just need to fit a run in before I head off. Run volume has been low this week, a not entirely planned taper in a sense. One thing that is clear is I need to get onto a fixed schedule soon so I stop wasting time. Once I’m back from Almere I’ll switch to my planned weekly structure at the lower end of its volume. Hopefully that’ll ensure I’m more effective in getting my training completed and getting the rest and recovery I need.

For some reason I’ve dreamt of climbing every night the past week. Mostly I’m on a tough mixed terrain ridge really testing me to my limits. In fact so testing I tend to wake up with the physical effort of clambering whilst in bed. It was amusing the first night, but 5 days on it’s getting a bit much really. It doesn’t compare with Michael on the last night of our climbing course. I woke at about 5 in the morning to the sound of him trying to put on his waterproofs in his bed after 10 minutes of struggling he threw them on the floor in a huff. Not that he has any recollection of any of this, a combination of an obsession with climbing and far too much alcohol in one night. If I stuck to the theme of odd activities in the night there’s another story from the Moiry hut, but it’s not pleasant so if you want to know you’ll need to ask in person…

Ok, I’m struggling with content for the blog, after a week of heavy posting when I’m just back from holiday things are slowing up. I’m starting to get used to the unemployed lifestyle and the lack of routine in my life right now. A big downside to this is that the days tend to blend into one and they don’t make for very interesting blog posts. It’s tough enough as it is if you’re not interested in endurance training as there’s not much else to read about here.

On that note the weekend continued in the same vein as the week with more hours spent training. I’m pretty certain now that weekend drivers are actually better than weekday afternoon drivers, I definitely have far more close calls in the week. Plenty more hours spent on the bike leading to over 500km of riding in my first week back. Quite a lot, but at times there’s not much else to do, perhaps the secret cause of over training is boredom! After all it can be a case of go and train or watch a repeat of Ugly Betty on Channel 4.

I have to apologise for being a little hypocritical too. I went for a long ride on Saturday and passed another cyclist without saying a word. I didn’t mean to be that rude, not least because they said hello to me. If I’m making excuses I was planning to ask them how far it was to Wantage when I saw a sign with the distance on then as I went past them by the time my brain caught up they were gone. Pretty lame! Karma got it’s own back when I was taking an easier ride the next day, suffering a bit in the legs and a guy came blasting past me. Doesn’t often happen and if I’m making excuses again then I was eating at the time!

He did at least acknowledge me whereas whilst out yesterday I was apparently persona non grata. It was a Bank holiday here in the UK, which doesn’t mean much to me now, but for those who work is a bonus day off. There were a fair few people who clearly chose to take the opportunity for an extra bike ride. Not one road cyclist I saw acknowledged me, I don’t expect it, but that’s a pretty poor hit rate. Got me thinking about cyclist snobbery and whether the problem was I had quite a large backpack on for my trip that day. The presence of a backpack transformed me from someone cycling for cycling’s sake into someone cycling to get somewhere. Any cyclist knows that the former trumps the latter! Personally I’m for more friendliness on the road, the random encounters and occasional chats whilst on the wheel are one of the pleasures of cycling. It’s not all about the pain of intervals.

Whilst training volume has been high, I’ve not really felt in form yet. Running seems to be fine, but cycling and swimming are taking their time. However this may all be a matter of motivation as I discovered yesterday evening. I can hammer out a pretty hard ride with the right motivation. If you want to give yourself a good push I highly recommend racing the sunset. Knowing you have a limited time before it’s going to get dark and a bit more dangerous can help you knock out that Ironman or above pace for 90+ minutes. I don’t recommend getting caught out on the road in the dark though, things become quite tense. On the bright side my legs ca put the work in if they need to, just want them to do it next Sunday in Almere.

Fourth day as an athlete and you know I have a lot of time on my hands… Today is an easier day because knocking out 12 hours of training in 3 days after 2 weeks away (however active and strenuous that was) is taking its toll. By easier I mean somewhere around 3 hours of training… It’s all relative after all.

What easy day does mean is more free time and not much to do. I have to admit that whilst I’m only 4 days in I’ve noticed the lack of human interaction. To avoid insulting anyone I’ve spoken to via text or IM, I mean direct human interaction. Certainly I’ve spotted a few changes since I’ve got back. For instance should I have the opportunity to chat with someone I will chat as much as I can. Clearly I’ve recognised these are a scarce resource and am making the most of them when they occur. Suddenly I’ve got on top of my email and am actually contacting people I’ve not spoken to in ages (if I haven’t contacted you, sorry, send me a mail I’ve time to reply). I may even have sunk as far as to text someone essentially saying “I’m bored, talk to me”! 4 days into an entire year and I suppose it’d be fair to be a bit worried, but to be honest once I’m in Oz and training with squads things should be much easier. The thing about being a full time athlete when everyone else around you isn’t is there’s not many people to train with at the best of times.

The past 3 days I’ve been riding without any specific objective, I’d make claims about them being easy rides, but honestly they were all over the place. Lots of steady and above efforts followed by glycogen lows, recovery and then back to the moderate pace. Carbs is something I need to get sorted at the moment, my calorie output has shot up and getting the balance right (especially without resorting to junk) is tough. That’s an aside though, whilst I’m out riding very occasionally I’ll see another cyclist. Not having specific goals in mind I’ll think, maybe I can ride with them for a while, I’ve even detoured to catch up a cyclist. What happens though is I meet them, I sit up and say hello and if I’m lucky get a reply. Then I drop them, not intentionally, I’ll not be going hard, but they’ll vanish. Yesterday I saw a guy come off a roundabout 20m back from me. so I kept a comfortable pace thinking he’ll hop on my wheel. Nothing. I ease off more, he must be easing off too. There’s a headwind, my wheel is there and I’d happily have pulled him all the way to Goring, but short of stopping he wasn’t going to come close. Is it something I’ve said?

Enough with the self-pity and loneliness… It’s been pointed out that the problem is I’m used to a schedule and I don’t have a proper one right now. I’m in a transition between office life and athletic life, a break in training and my next race and life in the UK for life in Oz. Things will settle into a routine in time and then I’ll be happier!

My idea was a clever segue from the mind games of starting out full time training and into the my issues with mental focus. I don’t think it was going to work well, so here we are - my issues with mental focus. An interesting insight to come out of my 2 weeks in the Alps was the way I approached each day of climbing. I’m not a very strong technical climber, though I’m obviously pretty fit. Each day I would generally find myself quite nervous about the day ahead, unsure how I’d cope or whether I was up to the task at hand. Each day I’d manage fine, not always doing everything right, but getting through the day without serious issues. Then I’d look back and be greatly satisfied by what I achieved. What this showed me was how my expectations genuinely impact my performance. My outlook on the climbing was an influence each day and I think to an extent held me back.

That same doubt I had throughout my weeks of climbing is present in the build up to my races. I can’t quantify its impact on my performance, both in terms of races or training for them. Particularly in races where it’s not uncommon to look back and feel you could have done more, at the same time you do push yourself throughout. In Switzerland for instance, much as I was unhappy with the result and certainly put myself under a lot of stress in the build up I’m not sure I’d put performance issues down to mental focus. At least not within the confines of 10 hours of racing, but in the build up perhaps it was an issue.

How does doubt impact my training? I’ve experienced it in 2 ways, the most obvious is ‘avoiding’ a tough workout. This can go from the most extreme case of deciding you’re not up to it and doing something else (I still trained one way or another) through to lowering targets or bailing early. Sure sometimes it’s reasonable when fatigue or otherwise is involved. An interesting point put to me today was how much of my post-Switzerland peak was really a lack of self-inflicted pressure? I had one ride within a fortnight of the race where I comfortably pushed at or above my usual efforts, but maybe this is something I could have done before if I wasn’t stressing myself. The other side of doubt which I am particularly guilty of is where I train just that bit more from fear of losing fitness or not quite preparing enough. I know there are plenty of people out there who have done this, it’s an easy trap and one I suspect I fell foul of prior to Switzerland. The difficult part is noting exactly where it went wrong, Epic Camp might be an obvious target, but I had a good 4 weeks after it to recover. My suspicion is I went into it fatigued and dug a bit deeper once there. Then the other side I put in one more week of solid training where I would have done better recovering.

It’s not the first time I’ve blathered on about mental issues and cathartic as it may be to do so in public it’s only helpful if I have plans to move forward. A good training program with a schedule should eliminate excessive training when combined with a realistic assessment of my state of fatigue. Training with others will be a big help in terms of hitting targets, the right training partners can make a massive difference. Also I’m well aware that I perform much better when others are in some sense depending on me. Looking over the past couple of years leads me to believe racing more often is a benefit for me. Not just as an intense workout, but because it gets me used to competition, makes it the norm and in turn eases race stress. The races are already being entered so I’ll soon get to test this theory out.

Sorry, went on a bit there. I’m officially closing this topic for now.

Miscellaneous post time, I’m not going to keep up this one a day posting thing much longer. Sure I’ve got the time, but things aren’t really that interesting round here.

I aim to get this post done quickly, I’m knackered thanks to my easy ride turning into a bit of a nightmare. It looked pretty good when I set out, in fact I saw a bit of sun, then it turned out that I was pretty low on energy and then it turned out the weather was going to really turn. Spent 20 minutes hammering out a hard pace trying to get home in heavy rain. Heavy enough it actually stung on my bare arms! Then having got out of the rain, a puncture… At least it had stopped raining, but by the time I’d done the change I was cold, wet and running on empty. No gels in my pockets it was a bit of a slog home. All in all, oops.

Also got in a swim this morning over at the Copthorne hotel. In keeping with the other training sessions I felt like crap, really tight and sore in my right shoulder. But hey, at least I’m being consistent in performance. Times for laps in the lake seemed really poor, but partly that’s down to the wind shifting one of the bouys 50m down the lake. The other part of it is me swimming badly after 3 weeks away from water. Someone nicked my bodyglide too leaving me with nothing to stop neck chaffing, it’s not cheap either!

So now the tangents… Firstly brief book review - Peter Falk’s Just One More Thing. I loved Columbo when I was younger, still enjoy it now though it’s pretty rare to find an episode I haven’t seen, but a Peter Falk biography had limited appeal. Actually the only reason I had any interest in the book was the surprising regularity I’ve seen it being read whilst passing through airports. I know Columbo was popular, but were there really that many people that interested in Peter Falk. I succumbed this time on the route out to Switzerland and finished the book off whilst out there (it’s a very quick read). The brief review - it’s OK. Peter Falk has led an interesting life, he recounts bits of it as short stories. It’s not a biography in detail, it’s just highlights. I’m not entirely convinced they all stand up to outside scrutiny much as they may have been of great interest to Falk. All that said, it is enjoyable and Falk is likeable in his attitude to life. Don’t buy it if you’re interest is Columbo though, there’s not much about it in there.

Actually that’s the only tangent I can think of, which is great I can have a nap before my run and dinner. I did mention writing about mental focus issues at some point, but not today.

My first day as an athlete is done. What was it like? Pretty good actually. OK it’s just the first day and not entirely typical of things to come, but still I’m liking it more than real work!

I opted for a bit of a lie in, getting up at 8am. Then first things first, check my email and see how the Women’s Triathlon had gone in the olympics. No real surprise on the winner there, it was always likely to be Snowsill or Fernandes and they got gold and silver respectively. I guess moving to Oz for a year I should be happy that an Aussie won when the Brits were so far back. Of course, they’re not too happy with how things are going at the Olympics right now.

Important stuff done it was time for the first bit of work for the day a short 30 minute run just to find out how things felt. Crap, they felt crap… I ran my usual 30 minute loop and completed it in 30 minutes fine (if I’m tired or going super-easy I’ll take anything up to 3 minutes longer) it just felt crap. Not aerobically, but my legs were so stiff. It’s enough to make me think I need a massage and I should probably be stretching them out too!

After breakfast it was time for a little admin work and some preparation for Oz. So a few calls to banks and magazines to cancel subscriptions. All is good except that Future publishing insist you cancel in writing, nice. To help prepare for Oz I also spent the entire day in board shorts when not out training. I wasn’t going to go outside like this, it’s too wet and cold, but it’s a start to getting used to my new lifestyle…

It took me a while to persuade myself it was acceptable to watch the TV. When I’ve worked from home in the past I’ve had no trouble having trashy daytime TV on, but now it felt a little wrong. Even with something like the Olympics instead of Cash in the Attic. Daytime TV seems the domain of the unemployed and I don’t want to be associated with that too much,. Sure I’m not employed, but I’m busy with other stuff. It’d just be wrong to spend the extra time I had watching Jeremy Kyle. Besides if you think UK TV is bad, you should see what they have in Oz! I watched about 3 or 4 hours of the Olympics today…

At some point in the early afternoon it was time for my second piece of work for the day - a bike ride. I put it off for a while, the weather isn’t too good and every time I make a move to go out Women’s Pole Vault is shown on the athletics… But I kick myself out the door for a really mediocre ride in shitty weather. Again legs just have no spark right now and there’s way too much tension in the left leg. I do need that massage! As in Switzerland my nice Campagnolo rain jacket keeps me dry for 3 hours in the drizzly rain. Now training is my life I’ll have to accept that crappy weather will be a factor. I’m not too disappointed by things overall, 2 weeks off training and tight muscles meant things would be slower than before.

On the other hand I did wonder what state this means I’ll be in for Worlds in less than a fortnight’s time. No use worrying about that too much now! Best use of the next 2 weeks is getting some good training in and getting myself back into a routine. Loosen up the legs and get myself feeling fresh in time for the race. Much as I’m racing for the GB Age group team it’s not an A race for me, my focus is more on Western Oz at the end of the year. I want to be hitting good form in November for Port Macquarie Half then peaking at Western Oz in December.

So all of that is done, along with a few other less interesting bits and pieces (I’m assuming the fact I shaved my legs after 3 weeks letting the hair grow isn’t interesting to most). Fitted in a blog post… And still plenty of time for dinner and some stretching… Yes, I’ll actually start stretching.

I’m back home after 2 weeks of climbing and mountaineering, that’s my holiday done so I’ll be back into training from tomorrow. It’s a weird holiday in that it’s the first time I’ve come back and not had a job to return to, that’s still got to sink in.

I’ve climbed more in the last week than I have in the entire year and that includes my first try at lead climbing. It was all good fun and a lot of work and at times a little nerve wracking. I learnt a lot in the Alps, both in terms of skills and new ways to test my fitness. I’ve not swum in the last 2 weeks, nor run or biked. On the other hand I was spending at least 4 or 5 hours a day hiking or climbing in the mountains, often at altitude, so I don’t think fitness will really have declined.

The first week out in Switzerland was spent learning the basics of Alpinism on the ISM Summit and Skills 4000m course. Lots was covered - a bit of climbing, lots of rope work, glacier travel, crampon use and basic rescue techniques. The group that week was quite large - 8 of us plus our 2 guides, but fortunately we all got along really well. We were pretty fortunate to have a large group that worked so well together, in general the larger the group the more likely they’ll be problems. Certainly the same course the next week had one person who really didn’t enjoy things. The training included summits of two peaks the smaller Pigne de la Le and the 4000m Weissmeis to finish the week. Both very enjoyable with the Weissmeis providing a bit more challenge and a little more exposure.

Hard to pick highlights from the first week, obviously both summits. I’ll not forget being dragged across a snow field by one of the guides as I tried to practice self-arrest techniques. He definitely enjoyed that! Nor taking a dip in the glacial off flow from the Moiry glacier, seriously cold water, but after 3 days without a shower very refreshing. Hopefully for us all the photo of my bare arse will never make it to the internet. Thanks to Chris for taking that one, thought the fact it’s his kids favourite is a little worrying…

For the second week I’d signed up for the Technical Alpinism course so had already committed to pushing myself further in the mountains. I was pretty pleased to find it was just me and Michael (another guy from the first course) for this week, thanks to someone deciding to cancel. With only 2 of us and one guide the schedule became much more flexible. Unfortunately the weather for the week was much less obliging and limited the amount of time we spent on snow and ice. However the result was I spent time climbing rock in 3 different countries over 3 days!

We spent the first 2 days of the week in Switzerland staying around Leysin still. I started the week with my first large mutlipitch climb, the Miroir d’Argentine. We climbed the direct route up the face, about 500m of elevation and 15 pitches. I’ve a long way to go with climbing so this route was at times testing, but I relaxed into it a lot more once I was a good few pitches in. It took around 5 hours from bottom to top and was fuelled by only 3 Special K bars! It’s remarkable how appetite vanishes whilst you’re in the mountains, there’s too much else on to notice. We followed this big climb with a second multipitch effort up a local pillar, rain however called things off sort of the top and I got to have a go at my first multiple abseil descent. Abing off things before the top became a bit of a theme for the week thanks to the weather, but I think we were getting fairly slick at it by the end.

With bad weather moving into the Alps, we headed off to the Aosta valley in Italy to find some sunshine. It was pretty amazing to go from rain, fog and clouds on the Swiss side and descend into sun in the Italian valley. On the climbing side it was more rock and also my first lead, but food really was the highlight of this day. We ended up in a little B&B nearby and ate at a local restaurant. The volume and quality of food was fantastic, all fresh local produce in a simple daily menu letting them focus on the meal. I doubt they see many foreign visitors there, but the owners spoke excellent English and took great care of us. The meal was amazing, though the next few days we questioned the wisdom of opting for raw beef as the first course.

After another multipitch climb in Italy which we actually summited before abing off the top we drove over to our guide Twid’s place near Chamonix. Again the advantage of such a small group was the mobility and the fact our guide could put us up at his home! At times it felt more like we were hanging out with a group of guides than on a course. We always knew we were with a guide on the climbs though as Twid made sure we kept the pace up and didn’t mess about. Eliminating faffing was a major priority of everyday. I have a long was to go to achieve the efficiency of a guide; their ability to get equipment off your harness without you noticing verges on sleight of hand.

So finally we went for some ice climbing up the Cherie Couloir in the Aiguille Du Midi. Thursday we were up at 5:15 for breakfast and to head off and catch the first lift of the day. It was quite luxurious not to be staying in huts and to have our only Alpine start being after 5am. Winds were high once we got there and we started on the ice climb, about 5 pitches up though Twid decided it was time to Ab off as winds picked up and the next pitch had poorer anchors. So once again we didn’t quite make the top but did get our first real ice climbing. We’d planned to follow the climb with the Cosmique Ridge up to the cable car, but conditions and poor reactions to something that had been eaten aborted that. A short ridge climb into the Cosmique hut was opted for instead, not as long but quite enjoyable, with one very long leg stretch in the middle of it.

The final day had an even more leisurely start, with weather supposedly improving in the day and a lift that started later we could lie in till 7. The plan was another small ridge climb, but this time with a more challenging climbing and mixed conditions. We shot up the lift and got on the glacier it was a trickier crossing than we’d experienced with a bergshrund to cautiously cross. With a bit of care there were no issues and we were soon onto the ridge. Unlike previous ridge climbs, there was actual climbing involved not just a scramble. Four pitches up and there was a boom of thunder; that was it, time to get off the mountain. We abed straight off onto the glacier, roped up and carefully made our way back and down the lift. As we descended the snow we’d experienced up top thawed into rain. And that was it for mountaineering for the week. A stop for coffee, see Britain get a gold on the track whilst I drank it and then back to Leysin.

It was a great trip and learning experience and it leaves me with a focus outside of triathlon. I’m not sure how it will all fit in really, I need to work on my climbing if I want to get further with Alpinism. My fitness is not an issue, I had no problem regularly going up above 3000m and climbing. How and where I fit in climbing with my other training remains to be seen, I have some more contacts to try in Oz though. I also have a rough goal to get my climbing together and when I’m back in Europe next year a trip to the alps will be on the cards. Not sure of the objective yet, but something to challenge me a little more.

There are a lot of interesting and unusual ways to push your fitness and endurance out there and they don’t all involve trying to cross a finishing line before everyone else. My primary goal is still to cross that Ironman finish line ahead of more people, but I encountered a mindset that focussed more on testing your limits in a far broader way. Building up skills, fitness and mental focus and using it to tae on challenges that interest you, whether it’s summiting a mountain or completing a race. I find it inspiring and points to further places to go in the future. Everything I do over the coming year needs to address these 3 things and help enable me to take on bigger challenges.

This post is far too long, I’ll write about plans whilst I’m still in the UK, mental focus, training and at some point, I will write about Columbo in later posts…

Posting from a hotel internet terminal as I don’t have an iphone or that much idea about twittering… Pictures will follow next week when I’m back in the UK. Week 1 is done and I’ve climbed my first 4000m peak it was a lot of fun if a little scary crossing the final steep snow fields. That much exposure does a lot to focus the mind on the task at hand. The week has been challenging at times and has certainly tested me. I’m happy to say my endurance passed the test at the very least, though I have plenty to work on on the more technical side. I’m ok at picking up techniques and how they’re used, but when it comes to climbing I’ve a long way to go.

Lesson of the week is I need to stretch more, I’ve had it quite clearly pointed out to me that I’m lacking in leg flexibility which doesn’t help with climbing. My other deficiency is confidence in my feet and legs, I don’t have much trust for small footholds and end up out of balance. Hopefully the next week will help me work on and improve this as well as providing some even more challenging mountaineering. Ice climbing should be one of the highlights, I’ve really enjoyed the small amount I’ve done so far. It’s even helped me learn how to sew again as I fix tiny nicks in my trousers.

Details, pictures and thoughts about Columbo once I’m back in the UK.

A quick one as it’s getting late, I’m tired and I’ve yet to pack for my trip tomorrow.

I wasn’t on that today and won’t be getting on that much anymore. Instead I went out on my bike and tried out my leaving gift a Garmin Edge 705. It’s a pretty cool tool, will be even better when Saris update the Powertap wheel to work with it, but even without that having the maps there is nice. It’ll be a lot more use once I’m in Oz and will hopefully save me from myself and my lack of direction.

I had a plan for a big post today, but I’ve just felt really tired this evening. A little worried that maybe I’m becoming ill just as I’m about to head off again. So today wasn’t a big training day, in fact it was relatively relaxed. Full time training starts properly when I’m back on the 17th of August. Until then days spent hiking, climbing and dragging myself up the sides of mountains in the Swiss Alps will keep me fit. I realised today this is the first holiday I’ve taken unrelated to triathlon training in 3 years! I’m not too worried about losing fitness, right now I’m feeling in incredible shape on the bike, a bit slow in the water and ticking over on the run. Once I’m back I’ll start work on the weaknesses and develop the strengths.

No idea if I’ll get any access to the blog during the next 2 weeks. It’ll be an internet cafe or similar if I do and I’m not sure I’ll be that keen to spend the time on the blog. We’ll see. Otherwise in a couple of weeks I’ll hopefully have some interesting content to post.