Packing - or the Whiskas Lifestyle, yet again

For some particular reason, the act of packing (for some distante destination) motivates me to write. In between disassembling the bike, folding clothes and uniforms and arranging my bike-case, I browsed some of this blog's posts from almost two years ago; a wave of nostalgia soon took over.

But I write not to divagate on the past. Not, at least, such distant past. Rather, the main drive lies in the past few weeks - which have fascinatingly reminded me of all that the Whiskas Lifestyle can comprise. If the off-season was mostly quiet and appropriately deemed to rest - both physical and mental - then as soon as the preparations for 2010 started, so did everything else. The latest paper rush has kept me busy at the Institute since I got back from Brazil in mid-January. Ideas have matured, discussions were improved, and now I can really say I believe it's about as ready as it can get before it is submitted. Coupled to that, my desire to train longer, harder and *smarter* for the upcoming season led to interesting training-eating-resting-working schedules - a vicious routine I have already noted before. Nonwithstanding, I was also involved in a quest to find the WhiskasMobile, which involved checking a number of websites, calling to inquire details, and rushing to a certain dealer - most of the times, only to find the car was already gone (only in some cases were the cars turned down by me or Jan, my friendly auto mechanic advisor). The search finally came to an end last week, as a former cyclist from my team put his 2002 Golf for sale - we settled the deal and I drove the WhiskasWagen 1.0 home this weekend. In between all this, there was still a trip to Recklinghausen for the christening of my cousin's son, my father's visit to Erlangen, and another trip to Hannover, where I presented some intermediate results in the German Physical Society's anual conference.

I am now wrapping up and shall embark - tomorrow, hopefully - on to South America; Porto Alegre for the weekend, and then Artigas in North Uruguay, where, if not to repeat my prologue win of 2008, I hope at least to have a convincing performance to seal the preparations for the upcoming European season. The form is good, the morale is even better; it should be a lot of fun.

"E lá vamos nós
Seguindo a frente fria
Pampa a dentro e através..."
(Vitor Ramil, "Indo ao Pampa")