It’s been a busy week in the Best Me world.  We had planned to do our Spartan Simulation retest on Sunday, however our location was busy in use all day with school soccer, so the retest was rescheduled to Monday.  Last week I was feeling great physically – not only great energy levels but the integrity of my movement was feeling the best it has in years – which was just as well as it was a high intensity training week.  I made some great achievements, with a really fun, hilly 4km trail run in Belmont park and the time taken to do my daily 50 burpees (on top of our training sessions) improved markedly over the week. With a bit of a stressful weekend and a couple of nights of poor sleep however, I felt a bit inflammatory by Monday, which was our last chance to do the retest, so we did it, but as Carl will explain, it has resulted in some inflammation which we’ve had to carefully manage during the week to ensure we’re still fit for race day on Saturday.

 

 

We landed in Sydney and, after a few real-foodie stop offs,  headed to my Super Naturopath friend’s (Jarrah Eddy) clinic on the Central Coast where we both had Haemaview tests completed, which confirmed we both had increased oxidation, inflammation, and dehydration (not surprising considering out high intensity training period, our lack of sleep and our air travel) as well as some iron intake or absorption issues to improve.  So we’ve bumped up our anti-inflammatories – a swim in the ocean, an afternoon nap, walking barefoot on grass, some Metagenics Inflavonoid Intensive Care, lots of ridiculously delicious “Tumercash” from The Suveran and BU Organics, fresh cold pressed veggies juices in the morning and raw unfiltered Bragg’s apple cider vinegar in water.

I don’t miss the traffic in Sydney, but there are a number of things I do really love bout being back in this bustling city.  One of those things is food.  When we arrived we headed to The Suveran to fuel up for the day – Carl with emu “pizza” while I had lamb “pizza”.  Suveran is grain free, sugar free, dairy free, soy free real food with a focus on local, sustainable, fermented, soaked, sprouted and aboriginal traditional foods. Next stop was About Life and BU Organics to stock up on some fresh veg and Tumercash, which I admit I have an addiction to.  Next it was over to GRUB in Vaucluse (who deliver all around and a fair way beyond Sydney) to pick up some pastured pork belly and to introduce Carl to the wonderful Dominic, the owner.  Carl’s excitement to be there was so palpable that Dominic gave us a tour out back where we learned more about the sources and preparation of the meat.

 

The next day we had some great home cooked meals with my foodie friends after a swim at the beach, then headed to MUMU grill for Carl’s birthday dinner –  divine meal enjoyed by all! Today, Friday, we’ve arrived in Heaven at Appin Homestay B&B run by the very inspirational Sue and Kevin – kindred spirits!  They have a beautiful property, a beautiful house, and fantastic herb and veggie gardens and plenty of fruit trees (figs, apples, peaches, lemons, oranges, limes and more) and berries.

We’ve spent the afternoon having a tour of the gardens and the kitchen with them.  They’re passionate about sustainable living and real food.  They have ducks, geese, 4 Jersey cows providing their milk, hens for eggs, and Sue makes her own fetta cheese, fermented veggies, garlic aoli from scratch (simply using egg yolks form the hens, olive oil and garlic) and, in the cooler months, her own butter from the cows milk too.  As I started to write this enjoyed a cup of loose leaf tea with milk straight from the cow.  In about 10 minutes I’ll be jumping in the lap pool to do a few lengths to keep in condition for tomorrow.  This afternoon, life is pretty sweet!