A tale of 3 bike trips – part 3

This one, the third and final bike trip of the summer, was a jaunt up to Whistler with my lovely husband. We had a great time.

Let me start by stating for the record that IT WAS HIS IDEA to cycle to Whistler and back. I just happily agreed, thinking he’d never bother to get organised. But he did. We picked a day, booked a hotel after deciding that there and back in a day wasn’t going to be much fun, and set off.

The inimitable Andrea joined us for part of the ride, some lovely coastal rolling hills en route to Squamish. Nothing too steep or too long, but one or two to make you sweat. Then she had to head back to Vancouver whereas we cycled on. After a short stop for lunch, we roll back onto the Sea to Sky highway where hubby declared his pleasure that at last the roads were flat. No more pesky rolling hills.

Hmmm. There are a few clues here about what’s to come. Clue one: We are cycling to a famous ski resort. It’s on a mountain. Clue two: The road is called the Sea to Sky highway.

The total ride was a little over 100km with around 1,800m of climbing. Again, nothing too troublesome but it was almost relentless low grade uphill from Squamish to Whistler, broken up with the occasional chance to freewheel down for a kilometre or two. I could swear that the road looked like we were going downhill for much of the ride, until I’d look behind me and see that the other direction was definitely downhill. Strange.

We made it there in good spirits, ate as much as we could and promptly went to sleep. We treated ourselves to massages, rode the peak to peak gondola and wandered about. After some debate we decided to stay a second night and rest the legs before heading back.

The ride home was not as much fun. Despite there being a good chunk of downhill, it was rainy and a little bit frightening trying to stick to the shoulder while big trucks whizzed by kicking up gravel as they passed us. We managed to dry off in Squamish and the sun came back out, so once more it was onto the rolling hills. Here is where my days of long rides have paid off. I was fully recovered and in great spirits, ready to stretch my legs. The hubby was not. To his credit, he only had two tantrums and eventually we made it back to where we started in time to catch the ferry we needed. Phew.

Now, I love Vancouver and the west coast of Canada. Some of the views are stunning and every time I’m there I wonder why I bother heading back to England. I feel it’s my spiritual home.

But. . . but. . .despite some stunning views, a cycle along the coastal highway isn’t that great. Traffic is noisily whizzing by at speed, there aren’t any alternative roads to meander along and frankly it’s a little bit monotonous.

It might be controversial to say it, but for a good day out on the bike my heart belongs to the English countryside.

A tale of 3 bike trips – part 2

In July I headed back to the Alps with Freya and Colin to ride one of the stages of the Tour de France. Colin whizzed off near the front of the pack, while Freya and I decided to ride together all day, and then race each other to the finish over the last kilometre.

It was hard.

Nearly 10,000 people started the ride. 4,400 finished. We were two of the 154 women who made it from start to finish. We rode the whole way together, going slowly uphill and stopping for a brief rest whenever one of us had a sore knee or back or hip before getting back in the saddle and carrying on.

It was a beautiful ride. The scenery, the sense of being part of something grand. The french people lining the roads to cheer for us, ‘allez les filles!’ they’d cry out.

The camaraderie of everyone working together, hurting together.  I stopped once on a hill and it was too steep to get going again. A fellow cyclist who was too tired to ride and was walking his bike up the hill offered me a push to get me going again, running along behind me for a few steps to give me a boost. We chatted to people we passed, talked a lot of trash, called out a merry bonjour to all the spectators and officials.

After nearly 11 hours of cycling we got closer to the last kilometre and I didn’t have the legs or the heart to race Freya to the line. I told her to go ahead and take it home, and that I’d see her at the finish. Or, we could cross the line together and I promised not to try to pip her at the last second.

Freya refused to go off ahead. She insisted that we’d started the ride together, rode together all day, and we were going to cross the finish line together. Side by side we pedalled up the last little stretch of road. As the finish line came into sight, Freya called out for one last push. Come on! You can do it! Take it to the line! And somehow we found the legs and the heart to finish together with a sprint. Allez les filles.

A tale of 3 bike trips – part 1

Trip 1 – June, the Alps:

Somehow I signed myself up to cycle the Tour Etape, 154km from Albertville to La Toussuire, up several ‘beyond categorisation’ hills with nearly 5,000m of climbing. Tales of the relentless broom wagon – steadily driving along and sweeping up cyclists who are too slow to keep pace – had me second guessing the wisdom of entering this event.

A mini 2-day training camp seemed to be in order, and luckily my cycling buddies had a friend with a chalet where we could base ourselves.

A quick flight to Geneva later and some nifty manoeuvring had the three of us plus bikes and luggage squeezed into our rental car. Next up – find the chalet. We didn’t have an address, but we did have the name of the town, some vague directions (turn right at the furniture store) and a picture of the chalet. No problem. After only a few navigational mishaps – including getting stuck in a town warp in Annecy, then driving halfway up a mountain and back down, driving all the way up a different mountain, realising we should have gone all the way up the first one – lo and behold we found the village and actually recognised the chalet from the picture. Perfect. If only we could get the water on.

Never mind. We started collecting rainwater in buckets and cooked dinner using our bottle of sparkling water. This was before we spotted the fresh water well, just steps from the chalet. And obviously before we had the local mayor/roofer over to use his ‘grand clef’ to turn on the water mains for us.

The next morning, day 1 of training camp, we tackled the Col de la Madeleine. It’s a 26km uphill grind, bursting through the cloud line at 2,000m of elevation. It was hard. Hard enough that we felt justified in buying Col de la Madeleine jerseys at the top and stopping for a huge lunch. Then, we had to go back down. Cycling down alpine switchbacks with tight, blind curves is scary. My first few kilometres down, I was probably as slow as I was going up. Eventually we made it to the bottom in one piece, headed back to the Chalet and hit the sack.

Day 2 of training camp we drove to the starting point of the next climbs – up the Col du Glandon, Col de la Croix de Fer, and then a bonus 6k up the Col du Mollard. At the top of the Croix de Fer we had a choice – descend a few kilometres and then tackle another hill, or head back down the way we’d come up. Frankly, the way up was steep and narrow and we decided we’d rather keep going and hope for an easier descent. And so on we went.

It was another hard day and a fairly uneventful until near the end when our French wasn’t quite sufficient to decipher if a road sign meant to tell us ‘no cycling’ or ‘only cycling’. So we decided it meant ‘only cycling’ and carried on. After about a kilometre or two of downhill, it became clearer that the sign probably meant ‘no cycling’. Decision time: Turn around and cycle back uphill or keep going. We kept going.

Another few kilometres down, there appeared a large concrete barrier across the road. We slammed to an emergency stop. Decision time: Cycle back uphill or keep going? We picked up our bikes and carried them over the barrier, and kept going.

Half a kilometre further and suddenly there was no road. It was completely dug up, about a foot lower than the paved surface. There were construction trucks and diggers, and a crew of somewhat bemused French workmen. What to do? (Frantic whispers – how do you say ‘we are lost’ in French? Nous sommes perdue.)

We unclipped, stuck our bikes on our shoulders and marched through the dirt. As we came around the switchback we saw the concrete start up again. Phew. Back on the bikes. Keep going.

It was the end of our mini training camp, and early the next day we flew back to the UK with a bit more experience and a little less fear of the broom wagon.

Ready to ride the Etape.

Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Happy birthday to me!

Hey hey it’s my birthday. I’m having a lovely day. I’m still in bed, surrounded by coffee, chocolates and presents. My phone is buzzing like crazy with birthday wishes (thank you facebook) and I have a book in one hand. In the distance I can hear the sounds of my husband tidying. And cooking. Bliss.

We are talking about going for a bike ride but it looks a little rainy so it might end up being a chocolate/coffee/book/bed kind of day.

How to blag an ironman

Here I am sitting in the airport in Johannesburg with a couple of hours to kill before I board my flight back to the UK. Apparently, I am an ironman.

Some months ago after far too much wine and a little bit of encouragement I found myself signing up to race Ironman South Africa. A 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile cycle, and 26.2 mile run. One after another. Fun!

Somehow, I forgot how much I struggled just to get through a marathon on its own last year. This ironman stuff sounded easy. A bit of swimming, a bit of cycling and then I’d be nicely warmed up to knock out a marathon. No problem. No worries. The big selling point of the race was the fact that it had a time limit of 17 hours. Having spent nearly 18 hours rowing around Lake Geneva, I was delighted to know that if I was still on the race course after hour 17 then somebody would pick me up, put me in a bus and take me home. What luxury.

So in December I bought a new bicycle. In January I started riding it a little bit. In February I panicked a bit and took it home to Canada with me and rode it a bit more. In March I did a warm up race in Abu Dhabi and struggled to get through a 60 mile bike ride. In late March I panicked more, so planned out a few longer rides. After each long ride I’d stagger home, lie in the bath aching and call out to my husband and beg him to bring me food. I did not feel like running a marathon. Not even a tiny bit. I didn’t bother to practice getting off the bike and going for a run. I was too tired.

To be fair, I did log a reasonable number of cycling miles. My odometer had just ticked over the 1,000 mile mark when I was packing it up to fly to South Africa and I’d done close to 100 miles in a single session. Performance aside, I at least felt able to sit on my bike seat for hours on end and was pretty confident I’d get through the ride.

I did a little bit of swimming. A very, very little bit. It is no exaggeration to say that I completed precisely 6 training sessions for the swim. 3 in a local pool, 1 at my old haunt Kerrisdale Pool in Vancouver, a brief swim for the Abu Dhabi triathlon and then 1 short coached session in a hotel pool in Morocco. Not a single session was for further than 1.5 miles. Yep, sounds like enough training to me.

I did a similar amount of running. It quickly regressed to the run/walk. Which regressed further to the power walk with the occasional 30 second burst of running. Total miles run/walked/power walked in training – approximately 45.

Anyone out there who has trained for any sort of triathlon is going to be quick to realise that these numbers aren’t even close to being sufficient.

When I first told my mom that I had entered an Ironman, she reacted something like this: “Be careful you don’t train too much, because then you’ll get too thin. If you get too thin then you’ll stop having your period and then you won’t be able to get pregnant.”

My mom is somewhat keen for me to create a grandchild for her.

Then, following my arrival for a short visit to Vancouver in February she took one look at me and relaxed. “Oh, good. You’re fine.”

Yup. Fine. She had no worries whatsoever.

Here we are in April and I’ve already revealed that I am an Ironman. It’s brilliant. When you cross the line they boom out your name over the loudspeaker in a voice that sounds like Optimus Prime – “Emily, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN” – and for about a millisecond you feel like a champion. Then, the adrenaline wears off and you feel f**king awful.

I did have a brilliant time. I loved South Africa, loved being on holiday with the lovely Trimbles, loved having a race buddy who was in it with me and actually loved the race course.

The day before the race it was a beautiful day and all was well with the world. On race morning it poured with rain. And it howled with wind.

The 2 mile swim was brutal. On the first lap it was okay, but as the wind picked up and up and up it got worse and worse and worse. The waves were so high that you couldn’t see the marker buoys. You’d lift your head up to get your bearings and get smacked in the face with white water. And you kept touching slimy things that you tried to tell yourself weren’t jellyfish. But they were. It took me nearly 2 hours. I am a capable swimmer and expected to go faster. Apparently I should have trained.

The 112 mile bike was epic. The rain had stopped but the wind had picked up to 60kph. The bike consisted of 3 x 37 miles. On each lap, the first 8 miles were uphill on a relatively gentle gradient. But into that blistering headwind and you were barely moving. It wasn’t uncommon for those 8 miles to take more than an hour. An hour! Then you had another 6 miles to go into a headwind that blew so hard you sometimes came to a standstill. Once you reached the turnaround you would absolutely fly along with the tailwind. Of course there were the cross wind sections, one where I was blown clean across the highway to the far side by the force of the wind.

After lap 1, you’d do it all again. Then again. I survived the bike relatively unscathed in approximately 7 hours and 40 minutes.

Oh bloody hell, after all this I have to run a marathon. As if.

Well, I walked it. I power walked it pretty quickly in 5 hours and 54 minutes. Although approximately 30 minutes in the heavens opened up and it poured. I was soaked to the skin. Wet clothes, wet shoes, wet everything. But still. I kept going. And going. A few more hours and I had dried off and was even getting sort of warm. Not to worry, cue the rain once more. Soaked.

Somehow I had a brilliant time. The crowds were amazing. My husband redeemed his poor spectating record and was there at every turn. I had just enough gas in the tank to do a victorious run across the finish line. Optimus Prime told me I was an Ironman. 15 hours, 54 minutes, 52 seconds. It’s not a great time, or even a good time. But it’s a fair time for the amount of training I put in, and I came out the other end uninjured.

I’ll call that one a win.

Moving!

At long last, I am finally moving.

Over a year ago we decided to do a little property shuffle. My husband owns the top flat in a house so we approached the owners of the bottom flat to see if they wanted to sell. Cue several weeks of negotiation and we eventually ended up on a price we both could live with. For us it makes perfect sense. We will own a whole house, divided into two flats. For now we will live downstairs and rent out upstairs to cover the mortgage. When we need more space, we’ll do a bit of construction and ta da – a whole house.

Only it hasn’t been that simple. I found a buyer for my flat almost straight away. Then they couldn’t come up with the money since they needed to sell something first. So I waited. Got a bit distracted with a big holiday away and our wedding. Eventually after 6 months of waiting I decided to put it back on the market.

A few weeks later, the original buyers announced that they had the money. Hurrah! Only they didn’t. They still needed to sell this place, it’s just that they’d found a buyer for it. Only their buyer had a buyer. Who had a buyer. Who had a buyer. Basically 5 other people had to sell their houses first before our guys could come up with the money.

But they were convinced it would work out, so we waited. And waited. And waited. Then just 2 days before the legal paperwork was all set to go through, it fell apart. One of the many buyers in the chain no longer wanted to buy.

So again we put it back on the market. This time we found a new buyer. Hurrah! We said yes, and we got moving. Then our original buyers came out of the woodwork again. Good news! The chain has reformed! Only now there are 6 people who need to sell their house first. Gah.

In the meantime, the nice couple that we were buying from had gone out and found a place to buy. And their sellers had found a place to buy. And THEIR sellers had found a place too. Link all these people up and you have 10 people all trying to buy and sell, and all reliant on someone else either buying or selling first. Utter madness.

As a back up plan we decided to remortgage my flat and turn it into a rental place. If all else fell through we could rent it out, and use the second mortgage to buy the new place. Except the property valuer for the mortgage company rumbled us. He’d been around before to value it for one of our buyers, and told the mortgage company that we weren’t serious about renting it out. So they said no. Oops.

After a few very tense weeks and countless emails, texts and phone calls from just about all 10 of the people in this chain we at last got to the point of signing contracts. Thursday, the day before good Friday, we all paid our 10% deposits and signed contracts committing us to completing the deal and moving just 5 business days later – Monday the 16th.

Then we had this conversation with our sellers:

Them: We are going to be away on the 16th, can we stay on a little bit longer and move out when we get back?

Us: Okaaaay, but that means we are going to have nowhere to live for a few days and will need to put all our stuff in storage and pay to move twice. We are willing to help you out, but you’ll need to contribute towards our extra moving costs.

Them: Actually we don’t feel we should contribute. We told you and everyone else about our holiday a long time ago so it should have been factored in. We get back on the 21st really early and will have the moving trucks turn up at 9am.

Inside my head: Really? Really!? REALLY!??? You think you can just live in our house, rent-free, for 5 extra days and expect us to pay for storing boxes, moving boxes twice and you don’t think you should CONTRIBUTE to that!? And where was the fricken thank-you to us for offering to do you a favour?!

Us: Hmmm, on reflection if you are moving the same day you get back then you don’t really need to stay there, do you? Why don’t you get YOUR moving company to pick up your boxes early, store them, and then pay again to move them to the new location. Let’s just stick to the contractual date of the 16th.

Them: Oh, okay. 

The end.

Bad blogger

I’ve been a bad blogger. Far too busy doing fun stuff to stop and write about it. Here’s a quick round up of updates.

Early March – Abu Dhabi International Triathlon
Yes, somehow I was persuaded to do this race as a warm up for the Ironman coming up in a couple of weeks. Gulp. I went to Abu Dhabi with my friend Laura and her sister Helen. Laura is hard core, and is gunning for a slot at the World Championships in Hawaii. Helen was just coming along to have fun. I was somewhere in the middle. We had an awesome time. One day on the beach, a few days with race stuff going on, and a day to relax afterwards – including dune bashing in a 4×4 and the world’s shortest camel ride (get on, camel gets up, camel walks in a circle for about 20 steps, camel gets down, get off)

The race was a good learning experience. I learned that my bike shoes are too small. I learned that my run/walk strategy is awesome. And I learned that, much as I don’t rate myself as a swimmer, I’m even worse at cycling and running. It’s my best leg. Sigh.

Mid March – Moroccan Mini Break!
I love mini breaks. My pal Sara and I have an annual mini break tradition. This year we’re both freelancing so we decided to go mid-week and to go further afield. Hence a lovely 3 night stay in Morocco.

There was a lot of lounging by the pool. Sara, a former competitive swimmer, gave me some awesome coaching. I guess if swimming’s going to be my best leg in a triathlon I might as well get better at it. We ate a RIDICULOUS amount of olives. We wandered through town, explored the night market and visited the Yves St Laurent gardens. We lounged by the pool some more. We played with the 6 Dalmatian puppies that lived at the hotel. 6 puppies! It was fabulous.

Mid March (again) – The Vets Head
Hey hey, another race. This time it was a rowing race. I’ve been a retired rower for the last two years, but the Veterans Head of the River is a wonderful race so I just couldn’t say no. The morning after I flew back from Morocco I found myself donning club colours and heading down to the river. We fielded two 8s, and drew names out of a hat to set the crews. There was no training or practice outings. In veterans rowing, training = cheating.

And just for a giggle, we did it in fancy dress – Cowboys vs Indians. We were the Indians. I was back in my favourite seat, facing my favourite cox. My goodness we rowed hard. We had a good race plan, executed it pretty well (even if it was a bit of a splashy, bumpy ride) and ended up winning not only our category but the whole darn event. Dressed as Indians! It almost makes me want to come out of retirement. Almost.

Late March – Panic
Holy crap, it’s only a few weeks to go until I have to race an ironman. Swim 3.8k, cycle 180k and run 42k. Paaaaaaaanic! In response to this panic I shelled out some more cash to get my bike set up as a triathlon bike, and made a list of more stuff to buy. New bike shoes, new running shoes, stupid looking arm covering things, electrolyte tablets, energy gels. I still haven’t bought them. S**t.

I also realised I had very little time to do the necessary miles on my bike, so I met up with my cycling buddy Freya to come up with a plan. Basically, we put 3 long training rides in the diary and decided that would have to be enough. I think it’s working.

Ride 1: 60 miles with a breakfast stop in the middle. (Completed)
Ride 2: 70 miles non-stop, following my race plan. (Completed)
Ride 3: 90 miles non-stop, following my race plan. (To do)

Oh, and in amongst all this I’ve been trying to move house. It’s been a stupidly complicated and protracted experience, hopefully ending soon.

Here’s how I feel about the English property system: jmmbgdffgghhgjyjygtdfdfdcddfffrfgbgcvcddghjuytyhtgbvbg
(that’s me banging my head against the keyboard)

Bring on April!

Home sweet home

Woah! It’s March! Where did that come from? Last month I was waxing lyrical about how to be a lady of leisure, and suddenly I find a month has gone by. I guess I’ve been busy.

I took a trip home to Vancouver for my dad’s birthday in February and spent a lovely 12 days there catching up with friends and family. I’ve now been an ex-pat for almost 9 years. In the early years a visit home was a whirlwind affair, packed with breakfast, lunch, coffee, dinner and drink dates with all sorts of people. As time has gone by, the group of people that I’m still in touch with has whittled down to a manageable and close few. They are the friends I look forward to seeing each and every time I’m home.

At first when my list of friends started shrinking it was a little bit sad. And then, frankly, a relief. It’s hard to stay close to people when you’re not there. It’s exhausting to see every person in your circle for the few days you’re around and trips home can end up feeling like a mission.

Not anymore. After this many years I can count on one hand the number of friends I still have in Vancouver. I’m not sad about it at all. It means I can spend quality time with each of them, and catch up for longer than a token coffee date. It also means I can spend more time with my family.

On this recent trip I was also training for a triathlon in early March so I packed along my bicycle in an attempt to fit in some miles. Some rainy miles. Very rainy.

But, on Thursday the 23rd of February the day was clear and bright. It was also my dad’s birthday and he had elected to head up to the coast early to get some things done. I couldn’t very well fly close to 5,000 miles for the visit and then spend his birthday 20 miles apart. So I hopped on my bicycle and rode to Horseshoe bay in West Vancouver to catch a ferry to the sunshine coast. I managed to get on the 11:20 ferry and was at the house shortly after noon. Then we drove the short distance into town where I treated him to lunch and a piece of cake. Afterwards we had a little stroll around the marina, bumped into some friendly faces and then headed back to the house for a quiet afternoon.   I had to be back in Vancouver that night, so I once more took the ferry and had a peaceful evening cycle. It was my favourite day of the trip.

How to be a lady of leisure

Well now, it’s been over a year since I became a lady of leisure and life is pretty well balanced. I’m pleased to note that my leisurely lifestyle is somewhat infectious. A dear friend of mine has jacked in her job to become a freelancer and it’s lovely having another daytime pal to play with. We’ve already planned a mini break for March and we’re going away mid-week, JUST BECAUSE WE CAN!

Another pal has dropped down to 4 days a week and I now try to make sure I’m not working on her day off so that we can go on bike rides or coffee dates or runs together. And yet another friend is seriously considering quitting her job or taking a lengthy sabbatical. Infectious, I tell you.

Everyone who’s made the shift or is considering it has asked me the same questions – how do you find work? what do you do with your free time? how do you make ends meet?

And herein are my answers.

Finding work was easy. I didn’t seek out any work, it found me. I updated my linkedin profile to show that I was freelancing (it’s now a bit out of date but I’ll sort it out eventually). I said yes to every invite, opportunity, night out, event, etc that came up. I had TIME to go to these things, chat to people and find out about them. I offered free help to any person or business that was local to me. When a former colleague wanted my help doing a research proposal for someone, I found the time and did it. (That little piece of work has led to an ongoing 1 day a week engagement that looks set to carry on indefinitely.) I actively sought ways to stay in touch with my network. Someone was looking for a copywriter? I fired off introductions to every copywriter I knew. Someone wanted a creative agency? Same.

In short, I helped people. It was easy to do. I had time, I had energy and I was happy to help out. You could say that I paid it forward, or that it was clever networking with the intention of staying relevant, front of mind. I honestly didn’t aim any higher than helping out, but as it happens that’s how I found work. You give, then you get.

Once I started picking up a few freelance jobs, I then tapped back into that network for help. Could they recommend an agency or a person? Did anyone know a good tech consultancy? And from doing that I met so many new people.

Plus, I discovered (or rediscovered) a group of friends who already had weekdays off. Shift workers. New mums. Part-timers. Flexi-workers. So we played. We had coffee dates, met for lunch, went for walks and runs, even got out on the water for a paddle. Through this group I met new people who were part of this daytime circuit. And so the circle grows. There are new people to play with. More people to recommend, or to ask for favours. People who want help with projects. People doing interesting things.

I made a decision early on to be a reliable daytime friend. No flaking out. My approach is simple. Diarise your play dates and then fit work in around it. If a work opportunity comes up that conflicts with some fun, say no to it. “Oh, I can’t do Thursday morning but I could do the afternoon or anytime Friday.” It’s easy. One thing I never, ever, ever do is watch daytime TV. What’s the point? You’re taking time off to have a life.

And last but not least, how to make money. Well, I put together a little spreadsheet to calculate what I called my ‘break even’ day rate. How much I needed to bill to be on par with the total salary, bonus and pension package I had left behind. Plus an allowance for sick days and holiday days. And then I charged more than that. I went in and priced higher than I thought I could achieve, and to my surprise people were willing to pay.

You’re actually relatively cheap as a freelancer. No sick days, no bonus, no holiday pay, no national insurance, no management cost, no tech set up, etc, etc, etc. And you bring in expertise and connections that would cost a company  a lot more if they had to hire someone full time to deliver on that. As long as you’re honest with your billing and take responsibility for delivering value then it’s a fair deal for both sides.

So there you have it. It’s simple to be a lady of leisure. Do fun things, help people and charge what your time is worth.

Training

I’ve vaguely started training for a couple of triathlons this spring. Today I went for a 54 mile bike ride on fairly tired legs. It was my 6th training session in 5 days.

At the end of that bike ride I did not feel like doing more exercise and I certainly did not feel like running a marathon. I put on my pyjamas, heated up some soup and had a cup of tea.

I need to return one phone call for some work thing, and after that I am seriously considering having a bath and taking a nap.

I’m beginning to think that this ironman is a very bad idea.