Rules about keeping a travel blog

The first rule about keeping a travel blog is not to get behind. Once you are behind, it seems to become too big a job, and you end up not doing anything. The second rule is to not get to hung up about typos and grammatical correctness. It just takes too long. The reader must take what they get, or nothing at all.

And the first blog of the trip is usually the longest and the hardest, because you have to set the scene. After that you can just hurl some snippets into the web-form, and away you go. So this is an attempt to get a head start on the blog. I know it will never get written once I am back in Palmerston North, so it has to be done enroute.

So right now, I am sitting on a plane between Auckland and Narita. Yep, I'm headed for the largest city in the world. Actually, I am enroute to Beijing to compete in a triathlon, but somehow the race seems incidental. I'm having a little adventure, and so far, so good!

I qualified for the World Age Group Triathlon Championships for the sprint distance in February at Kinloch, and then for the standard distance in Wellington a week after Ironman New Zealand. I chose the standard distance. I had high hopes of getting really fit over the winter and presenting myself in top condition in Beijing. After my fitness debacle in Edinburgh last year, I had promised I would only come back to this level when I was ready. However, it works like this, first you qualify to represent New Zealand, and shortly after that you are required to acknowledge your participation with Tri NZ. And therein is the start of a slippery slope. You need to pay a licence fee, and then a race entry fee, and then you need to book your flights early to get a good price, and then of course your accommodation, visa, pay for your immunisations, and so it goes. And all this happens in the 3 to 6 months before the race. By the time you realise your training has gone awry, its too late to get yourself into decent condition, and you are pretty much financially committed.

In early June, after a month of work distractions and the flu I found myself at Challenge Cairns, for my third ironman-distance event of the year. I'd had a great run over the previous six months, but I took it pretty easy and I walked most of the run leg. Despite that however, my knee flared up, in a repeat of what happened after the 2009 Challenge Wanaka. That time I could not run for eight months, but despite a number of specialists, x-rays and and MRI, it remained undiagnosed. It's peculiar as apart from these two times I have never even had a twinge.

This time it has not been nearly as bad and I have managed to get about 6-10km running in a week. Yes, I know not material for preparing for the speed event of your life. But hey, that's just the way it goes. And a little training always goes a long way.

So in some respects the race has become almost secondary. I'm on a trip. I booked everything myself after not finding joy with the TriNZ travel agent who couldn't meet any of my flight requirements and tried to sell me an accommodation package costing over $1000 more than what I could book at the same hotel myself, way more than double. There was also a team flight, but it leaves at night meaning I would be awake for a day, spend a night on a plane, suffer a rather inconvenient transit stop, and arrive in Beijing totally exhausted with less than a week to recover. No way Hosea, I fly gentleman's hours. I leave in the morning and arrive at my stop over in the afternoon, and then I go to bed. A few days later I repeat for the second part of the trip, and I arrive as fresh as a daisy. Almost. Well that's the plan anyway.

So I decided to stop over in Tokyo for 4 days. I can adjust to the timezone, and acclimatise to the heat with a lower risk of TD (work it out). Besides, Japan presents itself with a special and unique opportunity. So, I look forward to the next four days with enormous anticipation.