It's been a while..... (again)

I finally finished my 365 self portrait project on the 3^rd of June…… I think in total I only missed something like 2 days. I confused myself immensely due to the time-zone changes I’d done, particularly around the Hawaii and Puerto-Rico time. Looking back on it, I’m really glad I did it; it taught me a lot more about how to use my camera, and made me a lot more comfortable about taking photos in public. I’m contemplating doing another project of some sort, probably starting in the New Year. Maybe not a 365, but maybe a 52-week project or something like that.

Aside from finishing the 365, June ended up being quite a fun month. I moved house (AGAIN), and had 3 out of 4 weekends away racing with the rowing club. The last of these races, Henley Women’s Regatta, is the ladies’ version of Henley Royal Regatta (daaaaahhhling). We did pretty well this year actually, considering we were racing in the senior category, and we made it to the semi-finals. We lost to the eventual winners though which always makes losing a little more acceptable, even if they were juniors (from the GB squad I would like to add!).

Got a day’s sport climbing in with a good friend as well which was nice – very chilled out and fun. So much so that I was even convinced to do my first couple of lead climbs outside :D Then two days later I did the Wessex coast cycle challenge – 66miles, 6 ferries. It was great fun, and the weather was perfect for it, although I would have enjoyed it more if more people had been on road bikes, and I didn’t have to keep stopping and waiting for people.

The next day I flew out to Nice, to join the old rowing girls on holiday. I’d gone out late so I could do the Wessex cycle, and so I didn’t have to take too many days off work. I didn’t realise, but the day we arrived was actually the day Ironman France was being run in Nice. Gave us an awesome opportunity to cheer for my friend Alex who was racing her second Ironman race. I knew she was racing, but she didn’t know I’d be there, and I got a lovely message from her afterwards saying how much it had helped her when the big group of us had all been shouting for her and cheering her on during the marathon section. The 4 days of holiday were absolutely blissful. Blazing hot sunshine, lots of friends, sailing, bikinis, gin, and come-dine-with-me-esque dinners. Exactly what I needed!

In terms of Ironman….. I made a fairly big decision after we watched that race….. I’ve entered Ironman UK for 2012. Terrifying. For those of you who don’t know what an Ironman triathlon consists of… it’s a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile cycle ride, and a 26.2 mile run. There’s normally a cut-off time of around 16 hours. I am terrified about this event already. I’ve swum that far before (or nearly that far I think), so I’m not overly worried about that, as the least weighting is on the swim. However….. that’s a bloody long way to cycle and run! I’ve only ever run a half marathon before (and I only did that in September this year!), and never cycled that far before. I’ve entered the Cheshire Cat cyclo-sportive in March, a 100miler to try and give myself a bit of encouragement that I can do the distance. Eeeeeep!