Dads Trip

In the past few weeks i have been a little bit on the go, resuming racing, visitors from aus, and enjoying sometime in italy. I resumed racing after the giro at the tour of austria. Was great to get back in the bunch and also my dad made the trip across to catch up and see me in action. I must point out how impressive it was dad even made it, on his day of departure he took part in his first marathon at age 55 and recorded a huge effort of 3hrs 4min. Only 6hrs later he was on the plane for europe so i was very greatful for the effort he put in to come watch me race. For me the race went ok, it was nice to finally be more toward the front of a field than the back again and enjoyed the benefits of the giro but not feeling as tired as usual. I just performed my usual role for the team by assisting our two leaders for race, Leo and Luis, with Leo taking a very impressive victory in stage 3. Following the race i headed home to monaco for one to give dad a quick tour of where i live, it was quick as my appartment only measures 50square meters! anyway he enjoyed having a good look around, being a big fan of nice cars and boats his one day here certainly kept him very busy taking in all he could. So after merely 36hrs here i bundled him into the car and we headed to my other european base in gavirate (40km north of milan). Dad was not complaining however as he has been hearing abput gavirate for the past 6 years from my rowing days so was excited to see the place also. The reason however for this trip was to perform my biannual round of testing with my coach aldo sassi at the mapei centre.


I always feel very much at home in gavirate, i been visiting for the past 6 years and the surrounding area is inhabited by many aussies so thats always good. Infact it has become such a aussie hub that they are building a mini Australian Institute of Sport right on the lake in gavirate. This will become the base for all traveling olympic sports teams from aus who can use the are for there training. Two sports certain to use it most are cycling and rowing so i am very excited about its completion in the new year. It will be equiped with all the bells and whistles of the ais in canberra, physio, massage, physical testing laboratories, doctor and of course accommodation, just a smaller version and also i dont remember seeing the world best pizza and gelato joints within 1km of the centre in canberra. Sorry Belconnon by the typical european town of gavirate provides the perfect town setting for our countries athletes to prepare for the olympic, world and other major events on there calendar. Also being the first aussie athlete to actually call gavirate home i am touched that the government decided bring the centre to me rather than me having to move, nah just kidding, alot of planning has gone into it an i will post some pictures in a future blog. Basically i can see it becoming a point of reference for all aussie athletes living and competing in europe which will be great.

Back to our trip to gavirate, so we arrive and first port of call is to take dad to a traditional italian restaurant for me tea. I have my little favourit by the lake and the chef marco and restaurant owner roberto never let me down. They opened my eyes to what real italian food is and how jolly good it tastes. Yes most places are jolly good in italy but this is by far the best i have experienced. Marco and Roberto have been big contributers to my fussy eating habits where i refuse to settle for a meal i wont enjoy greatly, remember if it aint worth burning the calories, dont eat it. Simple economics really, the satifaction you get from having an extra unit of somthing must outweight what you give up to have. Guess my Economics finance degree has helped me out afterall! So after a delightfull feed of real italian carbonara ( and yes it is very different to what you get in the rest of the world, one hint, no cream) a perfect steak and potatos, and gelato to wash it all down, Dad was satisfied after having the best meal of his life and he said it certainly justified him flying 20000km to come and enjoy it, and i was ready to rock and role for my day at centro mapei for physically laboratory testing.

Anytime i go to mapei i need to put asside the day, and this was no exception. The morning would be taken up with meeting my nutritionist doctor luca mondazzi for a fat mass test and some race nutrition strategy stuff and the afternoon was filled with my lab test and medical checks. So first with dott mondazzi and all was good, weight was down 1kg from the giro to 71kg and fatt mass down 1% also so he was happy. We set a race nutrition strategy so i am looking forward to implementing it in the final part of the season. Next up was the dreaded VO2 max laboratory test. Following a warm up the test starts at 100watts and increases by 25watts every minute untill you cant go anymore or you cadence drops below 96rpm. For me this time his occured 25seconds into 575watts so again good as was my best lab test to date. 550 step seems ok but talk about the straw that breaks the camels back when you hit 575, man it is just broke me so i am determined to finish it i hope in the near future. VO2 normal at 80 and all other sub treshold and threshold numbers were also up by 3-5% so professor sassi was happy with my progress post giro and post glangelor from last year and confident now that these health issues are behind me which is very reassuring. The afternoon medical checks again backed this up so i walked out of the mapei centre, dad in tow of course, he had had a great day watching me get put through the riggers of aldo, with a big spring in my step and looking forward to what lies ahead this year.

That night we went to what i regard as the best piazza joint in the world, followed of course by my number one gelato joint and our dads time in italy was almost up. The next morning we quickly threw down a cappa before hauling backside back to monaco intime for dad to make his flight out of nice back to aus. Pretty much i think form the time dad woke at 4am on the morning of the marathon to the tiem he walked in his front door in queensland at 3am 10days later he had not stoped for even 5 seconds to scratch himself, no surprizes that he has slepted pretty well for the past couple of weeks! So that was my time with my dad

cameron james wurf