Closure

I had intended to celebrate completing the Alpe d’Huez triathlon with pizza, wine and friends. Instead I was rewarded with a medical emergency, surgery and a stay in a French hospital! While I am immensely grateful to be on the mend, this left me with some unfinished business. 

Pizza and wine aside, I hadn’t seen Matt and Chrissie since the race. There had been the usual stream of emails, discussing both the race and the ensuing drama. We wrote our respectively race analyses for 220, plus comments on the whole year. It was done and dusted! But it didn’t feel like that to me.

 

Done or done in?!

What a good excuse for a trip to Bristol 🙂 On bank holiday Monday, we met up at a favourite old-haunt for fizzy pop and a chinwag. I am not sure we covered any ground that hadn’t been discussed electronically, but in my head it helped put things to bed. The bottom lines seem to be these:

• We are all very pleased I dragged my ass round in something like reasonable shape 🙂
• We are all very pleased with my progress throughout the year, from extremely mediocre athlete to slightly more hardcore but still extremely mediocre athlete 😉 
• We don’t really understand why I ended up with hypontraemia afterwards, given excellent preparation and planning, but suspect a combination of factors including a pesky upset stomach.

And there you go, that is the K-team summary of the year. Ok ok, there are one or two more thoughts and opinions available in the online 220 article here 🙂

After a couple of hours’ natter and gossip, we moved venue to meet up with other halves and Our Kid for – you guessed it – PIZZA!! I finally had my celebration with a large fraction of my amazing support team. Lots more natter and plenty of banter with the very people who got me through the hardest race of my life, and hopefully the hardest aftermath I will ever experience. Here they are, hard at it:

 

In full voice!

  

Big smiles and purple pompoms

  

The Husb and Our Kid waiting for me in Huez

  

Ida getting in on the action

  

Big smelly hugs. Referring to myself of course!

 And now, I feel like it really is all over.  The final copy of 220 arrived yesterday, so I guess it’s official! Although I may still make the odd cameo appearance as I seem to be in their pile of stock photos. Obviously none of the good ones 😉

 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.

 
Last night, I went to coach Matt’s birthday party. Chrissie came too. Much fun was had, and another little piece of my heart stayed in Bristol when I departed. So now we carry on with our lives, some (all?) of us changed for ever and, I sincerely hope, part of each other’s lives forever. I’ve made it on Edwards’ picture wall in his kitchen so that bodes well, and if there was ever any chance or me forgetting Chrissie, I’ll surely be reminded every time I enter or leave Devon:

Nut butter and rice cakes this way!!

🙂 🙂 🙂

I doubt this is the last I’ll have to say on any of the matters discussed in the last 12 months, so stay tuned if you have enjoyed my blogging. Hopefully I will soon have a working shoulder, and thus relevant things to blog about! 

In the meantime, thanks so so much for your interest and support! Oh, and obviously it’s never too late to donate. £3658.64 to date – does £4000 seem tantalisingly close or is that greedy?!

A bientot.