Goodbye doesn't mean this has to be the end...

... faded dreams grow cold as ice

And I have a feeling that we will meet again

when we return to paradise...

Ah... Bernie Taupin at his finest.  Well, not actually his finest but a song that I like to sing to myself in my inimitable out of tune drone when I'm alone in the car.

And it was with a certain sadness that I bade farewell to open water swim training this morning. At least on a regular basis.  5 am starts have become a thing of the past recently, where pre IronMan they were commonplace.  So rolling out of my bed at that ungodly hour was something of a shock to my system especially when I was confronted with driving rain, heavy winds and a tar black sky.  But it's not called 'Iron' for nothing (my mantra when things get tough) and I headed out to Brogborough, east of Milton Keynes to meet up with the few stalwarts left of our Team MK swimming group (several others swim at another lake).   Here we are in this week's photo.  From left... myself, Corinne (age group GB representative in Vancouver this year), Martin Paul (IMCH this year and IMUK on Sunday and Graham Mackie (IMA with me this year).

I'd not swum for a few weeks with various injuries so the quick 1km burst added to Saturday's 2 hour bike ride has brought some much needed movement to my muscles.  I'm easing back to training and trying to approach it sensibly so I don't strain or pull anything.

Actually, it's been an informative period of relative inactivity.  To go from so much training to so little has made me realise just how 'tuned' my body is to the training regimen.  My muscles, bones and indeed everything that makes up my body's modus operandi is tuned in to a frequency that involved huge amounts of cardio vascular exercise.  To suddenly stop results in a 'sag' of muscle and bone that can lead to injury.  I've certainly noticed that my posture has changed, as has my general demeanour.   Neither for the better.  So I'll slowly be increasing the training to a comfortable level to maintain levels of fitness and mental fulfilment. 

On Saturday I'm taking a trip up to the Vit to watch Tom, Helen, Robert Quantrell, Colin Bradley and all the Tri Talkers taking part.  I'm not regretting my decision to withdraw and am looking forward to a good morning with my mate Graham Mackie including a stint on one of his mountain bikes which will be my introduction to ... well, not surprisingly, to mountain biking.

Oh.. where would we be without the opportunity to keep spending money on bikes?!

It's been an enormously busy week or two which accounts for the tardiness of the blog.  I shot my commercials on Tuesday and Wednesday last and have been editing them over the past few days.  There are meetings on grading, music composition, sound and final edits today with all these events scheduled over the next couple of weeks.  Each commercial utilises almost fifty technicians - all employed on a freelance basis by my production company and we rent all the enormously expensive equipment on an 'as needed' basis.  

I could tell who the ads were for and who they featured but I'd have to kill you... which, as those of you who have been reading the blog since its inception some two years ago will remember, is a paraphrased quote from TOP GUN.

Which in turn brings us neatly to this week's quote.  Nobody had any ideas on:

"Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, no job is too big, no fee is too big!"

The quote was from one of the greatest New York Stories... GHOSTBUSTERS and was spoken by Bill Murray as DR PETER VENKMAN.

Couple of quick stories about GHOSTBUSTERS.  To this day I still maintain that the most exciting moment I've had in a cinema (leaving aside schoolboy incidents) was in 1984 when Ghostbusters opened in London and Fiona and I went to see it at THE ODEON LEICESTER SQUARE.  A screen the size of five football pitches and thousands of people packed into the enormous auditorium, witnessing the (then) very latest in cinematic entertainment.  Fantastic.

And also... when we were wandering around New York recently, we happened across a familiar fire station.  That's right... the very one used in the movie.  The firemen were very pleased to have us there, nodding understandingly when I seemed more intent on recognising their environment for being in a 24 year old movie than their recent heroism in saving lives.  

As the theme of today's blog seems to be 'goodbye'... how about this quote:

"No, I'm through with everything here. I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

Great, great movie.  Who said it?

So... Ironman UK is almost upon us.  Good luck to (in no particular order) Boothy, Sean, James, Kevin, Andy, Martin, Lee, Ollie and all the others from Team MK doing the race.  Good luck also to the Vitruvianers... have fun and race strong.  To my mate Gabriel who is labouring with an injury... get well soon and, to all of you... until next time...

goodbye...