Koinkydinks
Thursday, 6 December 2012
So, last year I rode the 100k Otway Odyssey and took 6:30:50 (on a mountain bike). This year I ran the 64k Bruny Island Ultra in 6:31:03. Pretty close times - just 13 seconds difference. But the funny thing is, last year I started the Otway Odyssey with John Whittington and we both did our own thing, riding at our own pace, stopping, walking, bombing along on our own before ending up crossing the line together. And this year I started the Bruny Island Ultra with Tom Hawthorne and again, we did our own thing running ahead, stopping when we felt like it before, yep, crossing the line together...
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Still Addicted, Just Not to My Blog
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Zali, Jett and I spending some 'quality time' together...
I'm having a great time with this body step, yoga and body pump DVD collection. The beauty is that I can do a workout even when I'm looking after the kids... a run is not going to happen in that situation. The other fun thing is that you notice your improvements more. I guess it's cos I'm doing the same exercises every time. And because I started from a VERY low base.
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Body Step Addict
Thursday, 28 January 2010
I'm doing a double workout session tonight - I must be an addict. But it is great because the pay off is that I'm way more bouncy around work. Who'd have thought that "use it or lose it" applied to everyone..?
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What a fantastic bike race
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
The Blue Dragon was fantastic fun this year. After the first day, the painful memories of last year faded into the background, outshone by the fun memories from this time around - the single track was awesome and the descents were great. Luckily, the training paid off, so even the second day was manageable and the descents from the Blue Tier (one SE, one SW) were a high speed adventure (the GPS says 84 kmh). No big spills and no broken bits (bike or body). Wooohoo!
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Cracked it
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Not the mystery of life. No, it turns out I've cracked my rear wheel. It wasn't just slightly out of alignment; it was all that and cracked in a number of places. Looks like dodgy engineering to me. Oh well, I guess I'll see what the bike shop says tomorrow...
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And on the sixth day there were none
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Two blog entries on the 5th and then none on the 6th. It didn't take long for this little resolution to go sour... As punishment, I am forcing myself to upload (gasp) ... a picture. 
This is Jubilee Drive in Belair National Park. The Queen drove along here as part of her jubilee tour where she travelled around the Commonwealth in 80 days. I think she'd be horrified to see her pristine bitumen road has reverted to this cart track. But it's a beautiful place to ride.
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Mixed Assortments
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Just to let you know that I consider a tech blog to be just as valid as some verbose personal rambling. So if you reckon I've missed a day then you'll just have to go hunting somewhere else for the post. Or not.
In other news, ... I may have hit bloggers block. The lack of sugar flowing thru my veins sure doesn't help. Actually tonight I went to the supery and it was very exciting; I got to buy up on carbo-loading items, eg pretzels, pasta, fruit juice and the like. Something wouldn't let me buy chocolate though - what's wrong with me!? What's that I hear... ah, it's cathE calling me for another pump session in front of the teev. One more cruisey mtb ride tomorrow then I'm off training.
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Carbo loading here I come
Monday, 4 January 2010
I've been reading up on carbo-loading. The AIS have an enjoyable looking diet worked out for you. Apparently some mob from WA worked out a successful 1 day approach
where the day before your big race you do roughly 2.5 minutes of
hardcore exercise (130% of VO2max) followed by 30s flat out. Then you
carbo-load with ~12g carbohydrate per kg of lean body weight (~9.6g per
kg body weight for me). Then they described a similar protocol where you go hardcore on high-GI foods for 1 day without the exercise.
That sounds simpler than the old school
method of doing a mega exercise session (2hrs+) followed by days of
carbohydrate depletion and then carbo loading for 3-4 days. Interestingly,
all the side-effects reported by athletes following the carbohydrate
depletion step are pretty much how my first two weeks of dieting went...
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Wobbly Jobbly
Monday, 12 May 2008
Now that was fun. I've heard about the Four Peaks race for years and years. Bernard even took me up a couple of them about 18 years ago... But yesterday I finally got my chance to take them on in the new, full flavour Five Peaks race with 25% more hill power. I had not much idea what the route was but I did have a map, a bunch of people to follow and all sorts of warnings and hints about routes to avoid or follow... The Five Peaks race is a fantastic barrel around five hills near Risdon Brook dam. The views were fantastic, the sky was blue, the air was clear and crisp and fog lifted slowly out of the Derwent Valley revealing more and more of our surroundings as we circled our route.
That's the good part. The last half hour or so just hurts a lot. But then you get to the finish, the endorphins take over and it's all smiles. Until the endorphins run out and the wobbly legs kick in.
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Swimming drills to do
Sunday, 19 March 2006
- Kick on your side: remember, crown of your head down.
- Kick on your side with zippers.
- Kick on front, roll to side, then zippers.
- Move pull-buoy down towards ankles progressively... ie as the weeks/months go by.
- breathing - 3 strokes, then 7 strokes,
then when that's easy push it out more. - Finger trails (remember to enter the water flat handed)
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Swimming Lesson
Saturday, 18 March 2006
Hot tips from my swimming lesson today: - Kick while you breathe,
- glide,
- accelerate pull underwater,
- flat handed entry into the water,
- crown of your head down, and
- finish breathing before your hand comes in front of your shoulder (think zippers).
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