So the voyage from St Raph to Geneva went smooth! For those that know my fondness of travel, you can imagine the relief! Ha. The train didn’t break down, I managed to be on time for my train (though a little “scented” with transpiration after an obligatory brisk pace walk from the car, as I didn’t allow for my useless parking skills to add ten minutes onto my voyage! Ha)not really…but maybe…

Ok voyage went smooth, but apon arriving realised I cleverly left my passport at home, lucky everybody country hops and it wasn’t an issue, as I concocted my sob story in my head just in case!

Geneva, well it makes Perth look cheap! Let us just say about 9 bucks for a frappacino from Star bucks!

Weather? Its definately no St Raphael, and I did not pack appropriately, so first day cycling required me to do the old “rubbish bag up your shirt” scenario…without rubbish of course!

Race day, was all smiles as the rain had stayed at bay for the meantime. !6 degree water ensured a wetsuit, and the 6 lap cycle up a very challenging hill, roads were dry.

I basically had a spot all to myself on the pontoon with only one girl beside me, a group far right, a group far left, and us loners in the middle standing at the spot what I thought looked like the shortest route to the first buoy. This was either going to work extremely well or extremely shit for me! Happy to report well was the outcome. Clean start, no cat fight, and was one of the first to round the buoy. A  better swim saw me exit in the second pack, with 4 other girls out the road already.

Onto the bike, as I have learnt all but too many times, it was go hard, and go hard now if you want to catch. So that’s what I did, and with the security of a solid climb lurking to slow people down, and the fact there was only four girls instead of a pack of 40, the hard work payed off, catching the lead two girls(as 2 had already fallen victim to the menace of the hill) in the first 5km.

One thing with leading a race is you have to know exactly where you are going. Problematic when there are a whole pile of volunteers standing in front of the sign, with no one waving directions, of course you are logically going to take the open road in front of you. So off I went down the wrong side of the road, with girls riding beside me…separated by metal fence! Lucky for them they had enough time to not make the same mistake. I was crossing fingers there was an opening down the end of my “metal fenced solo”, for me to get back on! Else I was going to have to hurdle the bike over the fence, and myself for that matter, and chase them back down! Not cool. Word had trickled down to the far end of the road though, and a chicane through a gap in the fence to pop back on to the back of the group. Anyhow from here on we worked, to put in time on those chasing, and let the hill eat away at screaming, grumpy, quadriceps!

A quick transition got me out first to the foot race, and from there it was good to see the hill had cooked the legs of opposition behind and I could go on comfortably to run my own race to grab my first ITU win for the year!

Radka Vodikova from Czech Republic came in 2nd, and Bec Kingsford from New Zealand took 3rd.

So a good day at the office, happy to see some of the training block pay off, still got some more work to do but its heading the right way for now!…. Now just to keep the metal fence out of the way!

Now, to chow down on some protein bars to recover for Banyoles European Cup next weekend. J

So I have now settled in to my hard life 200m from the beach. It was tough to adjust to fresh air, sunshine, and some grand canyon style scenery just behind the beach. But I managed!
There have been a few incidences, as we like to call it "getting Frenched" such as almost having a punch up with a taxi driver who decided taxis dont take bike bags? and convince the taxi driver behind me "taxi drivers dont take bike bags", long story but lets just say the most colourful of my French vocabulary came out to playwith this "pleasant" cabby. Hours later, police involvment later, some lovely by-standers later and a couple of taxi drivers later, my faith was restored with a lovely old man cabby who eventually got me home, and begged me not to catergorise them all by the lovely young "pleasant" cabby that started it all!
Its now one week til my next race, where I am aiming to gets some points back on the scoreboard and get back in the mix. Iv been consistently back in the "travelling gym" as iv named it. The travelling gym usually consists of benching pots and pans, squatting off tables and most of all weirding out all the new neighbours, but so far so good, with a solid few weeks of the
- travelling gym,
-some new bouncy BROOKS running shoes to train in.
-running getting faster, surely running away from wild boars gets the intensity up! (Just have figured out to tame them to chase us round the track yet.)
-Numerous rides getting lost in the hills to add an extra hour onto a planned ride, plus I must have been descending THAT fast, that even the bees couldnt get out the way! haha yes a nice bee sting on my chinny chin chin.
-Hours of watching the tour climbing the mountains ( must equate to some hill kms in my own legs),
-Swimming getting better after taking my relationship with paddles to the next level,
- and some tan improvements, as much as my hidden irish heritage allows for anyhow, are all sure fire signs that training is going well and things are heading the right direction. Cant wait to get my new SCODY go fast suit, and im looking forward to Geneva!
Au revoir
Flick xx

Ok so after a disapppointing start to my Euro season of racing, I have decided to move south to join my friends Kris and Ella and do some training by the beach at Saint Raphael.

A couple of difficult weeks of training and racing, were thrown at me which to be brutally honest took a lot more out of me than i had anticipated. Coming down with flu just before I left Australia, and having it linger around for a few weeks in Europe ultimately cost me a lot in terms of my racing. WIth Madrid and Kitzbuhel both displays of some substandard racing and results. Iv decided to forfeit a couple of the next races I had planned to do in order to get my form back on track, and "turn that frown upside down"
So I packed up shop and headed south to "la plage" where i could just focus on myself and my training for the next few weeks, time out form big races and will be jumping back into it with the Geneva European cup.
Of course Saint Raph had many other bonuses, 1. I could rekindle my love affaire with the beach. 2. I get to hang out with Kris and Ella. 3. Crepes pretty self explanatory, and 4. I get to be attacked by wild Boares! Yes apparently St Raphael forestry is filled with wild boares! Yes teh giant pigs with tusks that look like Pumba from the Lion King! Well i met Pumba....and his family! After a laugh and a joke with Kris and Ella, warning me that there were wild pigs as I went out on my run to explore some trails into the fading light, i thought i would tempt fate anyhow and go explore the running tracks, cos thats what i love.
I wont lie as once or twice I had ther lingering words in the back of my head as i was certain i heard snorts and russels in the bush as i jogged into the "feeding time " hours ie sunset. Pfft as if. Anyhow making one last fate tempting decision to cut back through the forest rather than take the safe option of the road (as its much more fun that way) I was running down this trail and Holy C$%p! Sure enough Pumba and his family were 50m up ahead of me. I promptly stopped in my tracks, scouted for the nearest tree i would climb if they chased after me, and for the first time that run had no desire to whinge about running straight back up the hill. Luckily Pumba and his mates hadnt seen me, and my life was spared this time...but not without soiling my pants at every little russels from a bird or a bee in the bush on teh way home...