14 is My Lucky Number

Since I was eleven years old and scored my first soccer hatrick 14 has been my lucky number. I am a pretty superstitious guy so I was expecting some big things for 2014. I decided to set myself some big goals and while it hasn't been as successful as I would have liked it has definitely been an amazing 12 months.

At the start of the year I decided that I wanted to go sub 4:30 for a 70.3 triathlon, run more, find a good balance in what I eat and just have a bit more fun. I started the year at Challenge Melbourne and was surprised to achieve my first PB of the year with a 4:44. I rode my fastest ever bike split but swam shocking 41 minutes for the 1.9km. I realised that I had gotten myself to a pretty good level by myself but now it was time to get some help. Quite literally about an hour after finishing the race I sent an email to my now coach, Ben Hammond and said that I wanted to work with him. This has proved to be one of the biggest successes of 2014. But more on that later.

Me and and my wife had moved into our new apartment in December and we spent the first 6 months settling in. We chose to buy our apartment where we did because we thought it would be a good place for property prices to increase. What we didn't realise was how much we would enjoy living there. For those of you not familiar with Sydney, I live in North Parramatta and Parramatta has always been a real western suburb, a bit rough, a few bogans and not necessarily somewhere you want to go out at night. Well I love living here! The training facilities are incredible with a great pool and park as well as a path that follows the river almost all the way into the city. The love of my new training ground and my new coach meant that my training volume for 2014 was almost double that of 2013 (and for 6 months of 2013 I was unemployed and not at uni). There is good food and I have made some really great new friends all who live in the area. Moving here allowed me to find a good balance in my life.

Now to my training and racing. I ultimately failed to hit my sub 4:30 target for 2014 but I came tantalisingly close 2 times and am certain I will smash that time in 2015. Plus I had a bloody good time doing it. I spent a lot more time making friends with some of my triathlon teammates and am truly grateful for all their support and friendship during 2014. You know who you all are. I also got to travel to Thailand and attend a proper triathlon training camp at Thanyapura. This truly cemented my desire to achieve my goals in triathlon. I loved the people, the training and the country. I fell in love with triathlon training in Thailand! I PB'd all but one of my 9 races this year and the one shocker that I had taught me a lot about myself. It sucked going through it but it has made me a stronger person.

I started working with other people wanting to lose weight and this is something that I want to work more with in 2015. I had a rough period towards the end of the year where I was feeling a little overwhelmed with my work, uni and training load but with the help of my family and friends I got through it. Uni has been intense in 2014 but I have been really happy with my results and I am also happy that I am still really enjoying it.

I think it is nice to reflect on the year that has been and by doing it, look towards the future. In 2015 I am going to focus this blog a lot more on weight loss and the food that I eat on my journey to weight loss and triathlon success. Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog and I hope you all continue to enjoy it in 2015. 

I hope you all have a happy new year, set some big goals, give them a crack and remember to TRI!

Me and Robo the flying kiwi!

Me and my mate Rob. Such a pom