Since we all had Monday off work, myself, Kev, Niall and Tom decided to head down to Kangaroo Valley for some MTBing. Watches were syncronised the night before and rendevous was arranged for Tom’s house at 0745hrs at the latest. I got there with time to spare, which was used for some last minute bike maintenance. Kev was late, though he redeemed himself by bringing coffee for everyone and as he pointed out he still had to sit and watch Tom & Niall make sandwiches for another 10mins. We finally left Bondi some time after 8am for an uneventful drive south to Kangaroo Valley.

Once there we had to do the car shuffle, so we’d have one waiting for us at the bottom of the run, which gave me time to do some more bike maintenance, and also to fall over while still clipped into my pedals. I feel it’s best to get these things over and done with early in the day. We hit the trail and immediately stopped for some photos. Tom wasn’t feeling too good already, admitting that he may have eaten too many Easter eggs on Saturday. He figured things would settle down once we got going.

The whole route consists of various fire trails and 4WD tracks. The first section is quite flat and winds through farm country, before taking a turn into Morton National Park. We briefly debated adding an extra loop which was marked on the map, but decided against it. Shortly after entering the park, my front tube exploded. Niall and Kevin almost ducked for cover as they thought an irate farmer might be out with the shotgun! Ten minutes into the ride and we were already stopping for repairs! I threw in a spare tube and off we went again.

We found a nice bit of singletrack and did some exploring but it all proved a little too much. Tom cleared a log, then promptly fell over while trying to cycle on. Kevin’s front wheel slid out from under him and he ended up flat on his back off the trail. Myself and Niall escaped from the singletrack unharmed, but Niall decided to go back in for some reason, whereupon he promptly fell off as well. As mentioned earlier, I find it’s better to get all the falling over out of the way early on. The lads felt it was better to do it without the sort of audience you find in a car park. We wisely decided to leave further exploring for another day and continued down the trail to our lunch stop at a quiet lookout, with a spectacular view across Kangaroo Valley laid out before us as we ate.

Niall broke out the gourmet sandwiches which had taken so long to make earlier in the morning, along with his cup of tea. Myself and Kev had shop bought pasta salads and Tom only managed a couple of grapes. By this stage we were a little worried, as you know there is something seriously wrong when Tom refuses food!

After lunch we continued on our way and the lads got to do a few jumps. I decided to skip the jumps given my impressive performance the last time I tried jumping in Kangaroo Valley, ie: I crashed badly! Soon after that I had another flat, though not in as spectacular style as the first. I’d used my spare tube, so I had to borrow one from Tom. Five minutes later Kevin also flatted, only to find that his tubes felt like they were Teflon coated. The patch wouldn’t stick, so he had to get a tube off Niall. That was our last tube, so we had to hope we wouldn’t have any more tube issues. Lesson for the day: don’t buy tubes made in Thailand, or Teflon coated ones made anywhere at all!

After another couple of kays, we made it to the creek crossing. I waded through with my shoes still on, figuring it wouldn’t take them long to dry out. The lads stopped to take theirs off and I think they had the right idea. As I write this (the following morning) my shoes are still outside on the balcony at home drying out. We were now at the worst part of the ride: a 3km serious hill climb. Tom was in no fit state to make the climb, so he decided to walk. The rest of us were determined to give it a go. Niall and Kev made it to the top without stopping, but I wasn’t able for it. I reckon I cycled about 60% of it, though split into three cycle/walks.

Once up the hill it was a straight-forward on-road 10km back to the car for 37km total riding for the day. Niall took the car back to pick up Tom who was really suffering by this stage. Not being able to eat anything all day meant that he had zero energy left. We thought we’d get stuck in holiday traffic on the drive back to Sydney, though we got lucky and it was plain sailing, apart from the moron we saw reversing through 3 lanes of traffic near the airport!

So, all in all it was a good day. I’d been itching to do that route for a while, so it was good to finally have the chance. I’ll need to work on the fitness for that hill as Kev & Niall can get to the top & Tom managed all but 400m of it ona previous visit. I’ll have another chance in two weeks as we’re supposed to meet the guys from Canberra for another MTB trip, so we’ll see how I go on that one!

Photos are here.

87.1kg this morning.

Went for a bit of a swim today… yeah, right. I actually went for a snorkel with Kevin & Niall, down in Clovelly. Water was warm (22C), it was nice and sunny and therewas plenty of fish around. I hadn’t been snorkelling in about a year and a half and this time was much better than the last. I’ll have to go a bit more often now, especially as this is the best time of the year to go. I’ll being the camera next time.

Another slack exercise week, though my weight is staying fairly constant. We’re off to Kangaroo Valley again on Monday for a long ride, so that can be my reintroduction to the bike etc.

Way back in time (2002) I went on a trip to South Africa for a friend’s weddding. I finally got around to putting the pictures online today. Click the camera on the top-right, or go straight there.

I’ve just added the photos from the party at the weekend. Click the camera icon at the top right, or just go straight there.

Getting a little lazy at the moment. Don’t really have the same enthusiasm for going out running in the dark. I’ll ahve to get my shit together and at least do something this week!

Weighed in at 87.6kg yesterday, though body fat is down to 17.6%. Still heading in the right direction, though a little slower after the last week sitting on my arse in Canberra. It’s getting dark so bloody early now. Obviously an hour of that is as a result of gaining an hour, but it seems like it’s getting darker almost 2 hours earlier. 3 weeks ago it was dusk around 19:45. Now it’s 18:00. I can’t ride my bike now until I get some lights. I was going to get some heavy-duty liights which would do duty off-road as well, but I reckon I’ll stick with the brightest flashers I can find for the moment.

Well I’m down in Canberra this week and training is out the window. It’s dark a LOT earlier down here, so that rules out cycling after work as I haven’t gotten around to buying a set of lights for the bike. I decided I’d get up this morning and go for a cycle. Set the alarm for 6.40, dressed, hopped on the bike and set of down the street. Second problem: it was bloody freezing! Here’s me dressed for usual daytime weather of 20C plus and it was less than 10C. A quick about turn and back into bed. I’m going for a run in the gym tonight which will have to do.

Weigh-in on Monday: 87.2kg

No training at all this weekend. Kirsten’s birthday on Friday, boat party on Saturday afternoon, Graham’s birthday drinks after the boat party, then white-water rafting at Penrith for Nick’s birthday. The rafting was good fun. Not as hard as the Zambezi obviously, as it’s a man-made course, but fun nonetheless.

Up bright and early for a swim this morning. Went pretty well. Quite slow compared to what I’m used to, but that’s only to be expected at this stage of the game. Left the bike at home as I’m off to the movies after work. It will give my legs a break as well.

200 FS easy
20 * 50 FS on 60 (avg: 41, stroke count: 34)
200 FS easy

B: 20km – R: 3.3km – S: 1400m

Just another exercise day today. I’ve just finished my run and it felt pretty good. My calves were a little sore at the start and I was tempted to stop just in case I was going to aggravate them, but I continued on. I ceased trying a Pose-type style, which is known to strain the calves initially, and reverted to a shuffle style and all went well. I’ll have to take my bike out and use the bike computer to measure out some of the run route so I’ve a rough idea how far I’m going.

B: 40km – R: 6.6km

Back on the bike today for the commute. A bit windy this morning, but my legs felt fine after last night’s run, so it wasn’t too bad. Cycling home was quite good. I was trying to practise pedalling correctly, applying power all the way around the stroke, rather than just pressing down. It felt easier for a while, then my hamstrings got sore, probably because they’re not used to doing much work on the bike.

B: 20km – R: 3.3km

I wanted to figure out how quickly I could burn a kilo of fat by doing various amounts of exercise. I found a site which gave a lot of figures for the caloric cost of various forms of activity. So, I messed around in Excel a bit and did up a spreadsheet which allows you to enter how many hours a day of each activity you do, and it will tell you how many weeks it will take you to burn off a kilo of fat, assuming that you stick to the schedule and that you don’t eat more to compensate for increased activity. It also points out that having too great a defecit between the amount you eat and the amount you burn off is also not healthy.

Anyway, if you want to use it you can download it from here. Naturally, you will need Excel to use it.

No cycling today, mainly because it was blowing up a storm when I was supposed to leave the house and I hate cycling in big winds. Got the bus instead. Went for a run when I got home which was fun since it was still very windy. Upped the run to 5W/5R * 3 and it felt pretty good. Legs were tired by the end of it though. Now that I’ve got 3 sections to the run I’ll gradually start increasing the middle section as the weeks go by. The first can stay at 5mins and serve as a warm-up and the final 5mins can be a warm-down. Lots of stretching should mean that I’ll remain injury-free.

R: 3.3km

My legs are still tired this morning after all the work from last week. I plan on concentrating on my swimming and running for a couple of weeks now. I’ll still be cycling, though not as much as last week.

Since I was a swimmer as a kid, I never played football or rugby, so my legs aren’t very well suited to the additional stresses placed on them while running. I used to get shin splints after running 200m for the bus! I want to learn to run properly, so I’ve ordered a book on Pose Running which was recommended to me by the guy at The Runner’s Shop in Clovelly, where I bought my shoes.

Obviously everyone can run. It’s just something you learn at a very early age. What I want to learn is proper running technique, and more importantly how to run while putting as little stress as possible on my legs. That should lead to nice, efficient and injury-free running.

Weigh-in: 87.6kg

The aquarium has finally finished cycling (cycling is the process of building up a beneficial bacteria colony) so I was at last able to add more fish. I had three Platies, two males and one female. The problem is twofold:
a) I should have 2 females for each male to keep everyone happy, and
b) they breed quite quickly.

As I want to fill my tank close to capcacity with a range of fish, I can’t afford to have them breeding all over the place, so I decided to give the female to the LFS (local fish shop) and get 4 more males. I dropped them in yesterday and they’re all settled in now and seem to be happy enough.

I now have to wait for the tank to go through another mini-cycle as the bacteria colony grows to handle the larger fish load before I can add any more fish. It’s a very gradual process.

Struggled out of bed this morning. Was not looking forward to cycling anywhere, but forced myself to do it. I’ve finally cracked the 100km in a week barrier. Tried doing a swim before work as well, but gave up after 400m as I was drained.

B: 102km – R: 4.4km – S: 1400m

Did three laps of Centennial Park with Greg and then another run along the cliffs. Am almost at 100km for the week.

B: 92km – R: 4.4km – S: 1000m

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone. Enjoy a Guinness for me!

Did another couple of laps of the park with Niall on the way home. Tired now ;-)

B: 62km – R: 2.2km – S: 1000m