Community

I grew up in a community. I knew my neighbours, and my neighbours neighbours and my ... well you get it, we all knew each other.

Every Tuesday my mother played tennis with the neighbourhood women and every Tuesday Mrs Cadger would bring out her home backed gingernut cookies and I'd go to town on them. The kids would keep ourselves amused by chasing the stray balls, or climbing on those really high umpires chairs.

Holidays were a special time in our neighbourhood. Every Queens birthday long weekend we'd have the whole neighbourhood around to our place for firecracker night and and Jenni-Marie Sprat and I would write our names with sparklers while the older boys threw bungers at each other. Every Easter Jenny-Marie Sprat and I would see who could eek out their Easter eggs the longest. Every Christmas day the whole neighbourhood would meet between sunrise and church to compare presents.

Now, it's not the same. We have no idea who our neighbours are (we call one side 'the bears' and the other 'bad garden') all we know is that if they are home, they're taking up a parking spot we could use.

But, I still have a community. In fact, I have two communities.

I am lucky enough to be part of an online group of fellow fitness fanatics and have had the pleasure of being 'with' them as they gone through good and bad times. They've supported me and I've supported them as we've taken on our challenges.

I also have my triathlon community, my club, and a smaller group from that club, who have been an unbelievable support to me. Introduced me to long rides, educated me on nutrition, and showed me what it really means to give 100%.

I think the world has changed a lot since I was a kid but I still love and need community and community is still there. It's just that they're no longer the people that live down the road.