Twaddle at a loss with day off

Here's the thing. You've worked your butt off for several years and achieved your dream.
World champion rower _ sounds pretty cool.
You'd think, if you could be Nathan Twaddle for a day, that you could be afforded a week or two off over Christmas, time to unwind with family and friends back home in Ohope.
Feet up and with a few beers lined up to toast a momentous year.
Luckily you're not Twaddle, who has no intention of living the lazy life. Been there, done that, had the hangover. And besides, chugging beer doesn't win world titles.
"We've been given a day off training on New Year's Day _ I've never had New Year's Day off, not in the last few years anyway, and I don't have much of an idea what to do with myself," Twaddle said.
"There was a time five or six years ago when I was at Otago University that I was partial to the occasional drop [of alcohol] but I haven't really had a big New Year's Eve since I got serious about rowing."
The Whakatane-raised 29-year-old was one of six world champions in action at Tauranga's 500m sprint regatta on Tauranga harbour on Saturday, grabbing a rare chance to jump out of the small boat he shares with George Bridgewater.
The men's pair joined with women's pair Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles, sculling twins Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell and men's four duo Carl Meyer and Eric Murray to win the open mixed eight.
While thrilled to have been part of the greatest hour ever in New Zealand sport in Gifu, Japan, back in August, Twaddle said gold at the world championships was now a distant memory.
The bigger challenge was plotting their push towards the Beijing Olympics in 2008, with Twaddle hell-bent on dominating the men's pair right through next year.
"It would have been easy to sit back for a few months and take it easy before starting to build up [for Beijing] midway through next year, but I'm not really into that.
"I had a bit of a break a month ago when I got married but, for me, it's all about keeping my fitness up and dominating our event, trying to win every race we're in."
Twaddle's life changed the second he and Bridgewater won the final in Gifu, leading from start to finish and banishing the memory of being pipped for bronze at the Athens Olympics by 0.84sec.
"As soon as we crossed that line we were world champions but I'm still the same guy I was even before I lined up in that race. Life goes on.
"What we achieved as a team and the reception we received when we got home adds some value and is great. But I've still got to pay the bills and my car broke down on the way home from the airport so I'm not super-human!"
It's been a big year for Whakatane boys, with Twaddle's gold and Wests Tigers league sensation Benji Marshall carrying his team to the NRL title. Although a decade older, Twaddle watched the young Eastern Bay standoff's achievements with pride.
"I saw him on TV saying he'd bought his Mum a house with some of the money he's earning and thought ``geez, I'm struggling to get myself by and he's buying his family houses''.
``Talk about a Whakatane boy made good!''
Twaddle watched with interest from the dock last week as a storm raged around New Zealand's world champion rowing crews and whether they would all be finalists in team of the year for the Halberg Awards.
All three teams have been nominated, along with single sculler Mahe Drysdale, but it's debatable whether they make the final cut against the higher profile All Blacks, Kiwis and Silver Ferns.
Twaddle, for one, doesn't see how the judging panel could differentiate between the rowers and what they achieved.
"I'm still in favour of selecting the [rowing] team as a team, which doesn't look like it'll happen, but if one of us has to miss out then don't ask me which crew it should be.
"I've heard people say Georgina and Caroline should be the ones [to miss out] but for the rest of us they're still the benchmark of what successful rowing is about and what we need to do to dominate our sport.
"At the end of the day though, my view is that while the Halbergs is a nice aside to what I do, it isn't why I do it."