Holidays

Monday, March 07, 2005

Holidays are wonderful things. The returning Ultimate Olympian enthusiast (or ‘mum’ as I like to call her) will surmise that I have been on holiday already, but in truth, I don’t leave for South Africa until Friday.

An impending holiday is good for the soul, but it can also be bad for the stress levels. Trying to cram most of March’s work into the few days of it that I have been or will be in the office has taken its toll – so much so that I’ve let the blogging slip somewhat and find myself now in dire need of… well, a holiday.

I don’t for a moment claim to have been tied to my desk since last I wrote here – far from it – but my mind when it wanders has been annoyingly wandering back to work instead of off at tangents about all things Olympic.

Dr Stephen Martin very kindly forwarded me the presentation he gave to the University of Ulster Alumni Association in February, but I haven’t the time to do a précis of it justice, so you’ll have to wait.

Having swum a couple of times and discovered that, while I can’t seem to do any other stroke to save my life, I am still handy enough at the breaststroke, I have since limped from one vaguely debilitating virus to another and haven’t been back to the pool.

Several hours of hard grafting research into triathlon training produced a schedule that should get me safely from one end of the race to the other in August – it begins in earnest the week after I return from South Africa, as does my membership of the (Oxford) university gym.

I have high hopes that I might be able to muscle in on a game of beach volleyball whilst in Cape Town, but have no other plans to do anything even bordering on the Olympic whilst there.

I hope to return refreshed, reinvigorated, revitalised, renewed, resolute… but, knowing me, I’ll probably just be red from too much time in the sun and therefore rendered reluctant to reveal my farmers tan in the swimming pool.

I may try to post from my travels, but than again, I may just not bother.

I have too many things going on to focus on anything properly, but like everything else at the moment, sorting that situation out is something I have assigned to the vague future period that is for now labelled “when I come back from holiday.”