Day 115: Things I Need to Unlearn

Now that I'm no longer in Australia, here are some things I need to unlearn now that I'm back in the good ole U.S. of A:

• Swimming, cycling, and driving on the left-hand side.

• Stop greeting people with "G'day", saying goodbye with "Cheers", and calling my friends "mates". This type of talk is way too eccentric for the U.S.

• Expecting all the pools to be 50 meters in length.

• Being as comfortable as I've been in a speedo on the beach and in the city (need I say I'm joking about the city part?).

• Expecting pumpkin to be in my salad, my sandwiches, and basically in all of my foods.

• Thinking that bus and train rides will be full of sane, middle class, white people.

• Not tipping or tipping very little at restaurants, and ordering food with capsicum and rocket.

• Hang drying my clothes...no wait, I won't unlearn this.

There's more but I am tired after only getting 2.5 hours of sleep last night. I stayed up all day and denied myself a nap in order to acclimate to the time change and get myself to sleep tonight.

Today was an amazing start back to training and back to getting in shape. I woke up early to get to a 6:00 AM masters swim workout, and then it was immediately on the bike for a 38 mile ride with 10 X 2 minute hard efforts. It's so easy to get out the door and train when you have to spend no mental energy to overcome cold and rainy weather. It really is paradise here when it comes to training. On the books for tomorrow is a 3-hour ride starting at 5:50 AM, a 50-minute brick run with some pick-ups, and a 6000 yard workout with the Kona Aquatics age-group team. Oh, and Bree got me to add another race to my schedule, the Kukio Challenge (0.5 mile swim, 3 mile run, 2 mile paddleboard) the day after Hawaii 70.3. 2-mile paddleboard?