Sydney

I am still wrapping my mind around mental toughness - so for now I post the promised entry on my training weekends away from Brissy. First one: SYDNEY
I stood near Bronte, Tamarama. Tamarama surf & life saving club was the first one in Australia. Heath Ledger lived in Tamarama along other celebs. The weather was cool but sunny and the beach path was filled with athletes and fitness warriors. Surfers, runners, kick boxers, boot campers, triathletes on trainers, swimmers. I have been to this area in 2006 as I stood with a friend from the Xterra circuit. Beside a run at Bondi that stay had included a training camp to Jindabyne (vivid memories of that one).
And swimmers are all over the place. If you ever happen to enter a pool in Oz, you will notice one thing: Everybody can swim. I mean really swim. Freestyle. And they are all moving quite well, acutally; and if they don't, they pretend they do. There is always a nice swim climate no matter what time of the day you go to the pool. The city pools get interesting at lunch. Business people show up like bee swarm. They show up in suits, disappear into the changing room, come out transformed into speedo's, swim 30', disappear, come out geschniegelt & gebuegelt (sorry that's german, means "all spruced up") into their suit and disappear with their laptop bag like they just closed a big deal. What is very special in Bondi area are the ocean pools. There is one on each corner. I am not exactly sure why people prefer doing laps over "free-swimming" in the ocean itself. I was happy to be able to go for several ocean swim's and the water temp was ok enough to not wear a wetsuit. The ocean is very different to the one at home. No corals, turtles, fishes, not drowned engines.. but empty. Literally. All you can see is the blue wide water and the sandy bottom. And if you stick your head out you can see the buoys of the shark nets. I did not bring my bike, so my training consisted of swim, run, swim - swim, DWR, swim and stretching. I ran the path from Bronte to Googee. It is stunning. It runs along the cliffs and if you are eager to do so you could do an entire marathon distance on that path going along the coastal line.