Well Autumn has well and truly arrived. I took advantage of the clocks going forward to get up early, setting my alarm for 6am on the grounds that my body still reckons it’s 7am so it will be easier to get up (and it was). Rode in to work and had to wear the winter bike gear (tights & arm-warmers) for the first time. Felt pretty sluggish going up the hill on Old South Head Road which was probably a combination of a legacy of all the MTBing from last week, the couple of beers I had yesterday and the fact that I was lugging my laptop, attendant cabling and a change of clothes around. Did a couple of laps around Centennial Park as well, though cut it short as the weight of my backpack was starting to annoy my lower back.

Entries to the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon opened this morning, so when I got in to work, I bit the bullet and actually entered. There’s no going back now!

B: 21.3km

That was another good week in Canberra. Myself and Tom went back up to Majura for another two hour ride on Wednesday night with Paul. I took Thursday off exercise to give my legs a break, and went out to watch V for Vendetta instead. Good movie, very political, really drilled home the “fight for your rights before they’re gone” theme. Followed that up with some Belgian beers in Debacle.

Friday morning saw me out for a 7.5km (45mins) run before checking out of the hotel. John offered to put us up on Friday night, so we headed over to his place after work to drag him out for his first proper MTB ride. Tom had him worried with tales of going over the handlebars, but I explained that that was a skill Tom and Kev were nurturing, whereas myself and Niall preferred not to fall off.

Majura was the logical place to take John for his first outing, both because it was close to home and because it’s bloody good, so off we went around 5pm. John was a bit worried that his bike wouldn’t be up to scratch but we assured him it would be fine, and sure enough, once we got to the trails he had a great time. It was pretty easy to tell, since about half way through the evening’s riding he was talking about getting “a good bike” and giving his current one to Sarah! Time will tell. Made it home around 7.30, then did the take-out and DVD thing.

Our plan for Saturday morning was to get up early and head out to ride the MONT 24hr course at Kowen Forest. We finally got going at 10.30, not really as early as planned, but the weather was a bit iffy anyway. It had all cleared up by the time we got there, to be greeted by a bloody big climb to start the 6km ride to even get to the trail. It was soon apparent that we were almost the only people out there, and also that the course doesn’t get a whole lot of use, since there was very little signposting. We soon regretted our laziness in not printing off a trail map as we couldn’t find it anywhere, and after an hour of riding around (still having fun though) we decided to call it a day.

So, we managed to get around 8hrs of MTBing in over the week which was pretty good. The clocks went forward as we went out of daylight savings this morning, so the next time we’re in Canberra the early sunsets will rob us of decent riding time… unless I shell out $500 for a set of HID lights to turn night into day!

B: 95.2km – R: 18km

Turns out that religious people are wasting their time praying for sick people. Research in the U.S. followed 1,800 heart patients at six different medical centres. Patients were split in to three groups of 600 and Christian groups did the praying. One group was prayed for, and told they were being prayed for, another was prayed for, but only told that they might be being prayed for, and the final group wasn’t prayed for at all, but was told it was a possibility. The group who was being prayed for, and knew it, fared the worst, with more complications within 30 days than either of the other two groups.

I’m down in Canberra again this week, and have had a good start to the week. Got up for a run on Tuesday morning. Canberra’s a bit cooler than Sydney in the mornings, but not so cold that I had to rug up (yet), so it was nice to get out and not be dripping sweat like an evening run. Cruised around for ~5.5km in 33mins.

Last night, myself and Tom headed up to Majura Pines for two hours of quality MTBing, getting home just before dark, then it was up again this morning for another run. Felt a bit more tired today after the MTBing, but took a different route for a total of ~5km in 29mins. More MTBing to come tonight as well. ;-)

B: 24.8km – R: 10.5km

Arthur C. Clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic. This video features a guy juggling to music. It’s not technology, but he’s so bloody advanced it certainly is indistinguishable from magic.

Have a look.

Managed to cycle home last night without any pucture issues. Every time I stopped at lights, I was paying close attention to the back wheel, as I’d used a CO₂ cannister to pump it up, and I’ve heard that the CO₂ slowly leaks out and you should pump it up with air at the earliest opportunity. The roads were still full of crap washed out by the recent rains, but I made it home without another puncture.

I got on to ProBikeKit yesterday and ordered myself some commuter tyres. They’re slower and more durable than my current race ones, and they’re supposed to be good in wet weather as well. $110 to buy two tyres and two tubes, and have them shipped from the UK to Australia. The two tyres on their own would probably cost me $160 in a shop here! They should arrive next week while I’m in Canberra, ready to go on the bike the week after that.

B: 41.2km – R: 7.3km

Make sure you keep this in the back of your head the next time you fly…

It seems like every time someone tests airport security, airport security fails. In tests between November 2001 and February 2002, screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns and 60 percent of (fake) bombs. And recently, testers were able to smuggle bomb-making parts through airport security in 21 of 21 attempts. It makes you wonder why we’re all putting our laptops in a separate bin and taking off our shoes.

From: Bruce Schneier

Rode home last night, which was pretty straightforward, then went out for a run. Took things easy again, and just ran for 16min (~3km) to play it safe. All went well again, so I think I’ll stick to the easy stufff for the time being.

Rode in to work this morning and it was wet again. It’s been like this for the last week which is a bit unusual. Managed to get a puncture too, so I think it’s time to buy some new tyres. The ones I have on the bike are lightweight race tyres I bought for the triathlon back in January, so are not really suitable for day-to-day commuting. I’ll need something a little more puncture resistant, and maybe with a little bit of tread, as these are full slicks and have shag all grip in the rain!

B: 30.9km – R: 7.5km

Had a chat about my running woes with Niall at lunch yesterday and he mentioned that he used to have a similar problem and was recommended some foot specific stretches. I gave it a shot when I got home, doing the stretches and generally warming my feet up before heading out for the run.

I also decided to take it easy, running with a HR around 140, rather than the usual 155, and all seemed to go well. I ran for 26mins (~4.5km) and didn’t have any problems with my foot at all. I think I’ll keep doing short, slow runs for a week or two before getting back into the longer stuff, and hopefully that will settle things down. It plays havoc with the half-marathon plans, but my time goal was a luxury anyway – nice to have, but not really necessary for my first attempt – so I won’t miss it.

I rode in to work this morning as well, and it was wet/damp again. It’s starting to get dark in the mornings too, so I’m soon going to need a good set of lights. I can probably postpone any purchase for a couple of weeks once daylight savings kicks in in April.

B: 11km – R: 4.5km

A very interesting Salon interview with E.O. Wilson, the legendary Harvard biologist, on the nature of religion and its relationship to science, particularly evolution. The whole article is worth a read, but what caught my eye was his observation on the nature of heaven:

EOW: Would I be happy if I discovered that I could go to heaven forever? And the answer is no. Consider this argument. Think about what is forever. And think about the fact that the human mind, the entire human being, is built to last a certain period of time. Our programmed hormonal systems, the way we learn, the way we settle upon beliefs, and the way we love are all temporary. Because we go through a life’s cycle. Now, if we were to be plucked out at the age of 12 or 56 or whenever, and taken up and told, now you will continue your existence as you are. We’re not going to blot out your memories. We’re not going to diminish your desires. You will exist in a state of bliss — whatever that is — forever. And those who didn’t make it are going to be consigned to darkness or hell. Now think, a trillion times a trillion years. Enough time for universes like this one to be born, explode, form countless star systems and planets, then fade away to entropy. You will sit there watching this happen millions and millions of times and that will just be the beginning of the eternity that you’ve been consigned to bliss in this existence.

S: This heaven would be your hell.

EOW: Yes. If we were able to evolve into something else, then maybe not. But we are not something else.

It would be so incredibly boring! Think about it. You take up a new pursuit, golf, mountain biking, whatever. The first few times, as you learn your way, it’s all new, shiny and exciting. After a while, the improvements get harder to come by. It’s still enjoyable, but not as enjoyable as it was. Later, you gradually lose interest as you’ve got as far as you’re capable of going and you move on to something else. This whole process might take a few months, or a few decades, who knows.

Now imagine you’ve been in heaven for a million years. You’ve long ago tried every sport & pastime, read every book, etc. What do you do now? Tedious doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Here’s a list of the Top Ten Catastrophes of the Third Year of American Iraq. No.4 is particularly instructive:

4. The US military used Kurdish and Shiite troops to attack the northern Turkmen city of Talafar in August. Kurdish troops, drawn from the Peshmerga militia, were allowed to paint lasers on targets in the city, which were then destroyed by the US air force. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed, and much of the population was displaced for some time. Shiite troops and local Shiite Turkmen informants were used to identify and interrogate alleged Sunni insurgents. Turkey was furious at the attack on ethnically related Turkmen and threatened to halt its cooperation with the US. Although the attack was allegedly undertaken to capture foreign forces allegedly based in the city, only 50 were announced apprehended. The entire operation ended up looking like a joint Kurdish-Shiite attack on Sunni Turkmen, backed by the US military. Turkmen and Kurds do not generally get along, and Turkmen accuse Kurds of wanting to ethnically clense them from Kirkuk. The entire operation was politically the worst possible public relations for the US in northern Iraq, and seems unlikely to have put a signficant dent in the guerrillas’ capabilities.

Now, the U.S. military would have to be either incredibly malicious, or have a pretty retarded set of experts on the region to allow that to happen, wouldn’t they?

Oh yeah, the ex-Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has said that the country is in the middle of a civil war. Freedom, democracy, etc.

Myself, Niall, Kev and Tom drove out to the base of the Blue Mountains on Sunday morning to do some mountain biking around the Yarramundi Working Week Series (WWS) race track in Yellowmundi Regional Park. It was raining as we left the house, so we were prepared for the worst, but by the time we go to the track it was a lovely sunny day.

We had a couple of issues locating the track, but once on it we had a great time swooping around banked turns, in between trees and bushes and across creeks. The first loop was around 3km, after which there was a bit more searching for the other half of the lap. That turned out to be more technical, with some rocky descents requiring decent bike control. There was also a nice, steep downhill section onto a bridge over a creek which was tough, though myself and Niall backtracked to give it a second go and managed to complete it without having to put a foot down. After a little more rocky stuff we were back to banked turns through tall grass and a last little bit through the trees to finish the lap.

After a bit of a rest we decided to head out on another lap, and since we knew where to go this time, and everyone knew what to expect, we wouldn’t be stopping all the time comparing notes on the various sections. Everything seemed easier this time, particularly the rocky section, though I took three attempts to do the downhill/stream section properly, as I came in on the wrong line the first time, then couldn’t my shoes clipped in soon enough the second time. We still had one or two regroups stops, and managed to see a White-bellied Sea Eagle sitting in a tree watching us go by. I presume it must have have been hunting along the Hawkesbury river.

We were all pretty tired by the end of the second lap, and running out of water in the 30C+ heat, so we called it a day and headed home. It was an enjoyable course, with its own unique character and quite different from Sparrow Hill or Penrose. We now have to organise trips to Newcastle and Lithgow to ride the other two WWS courses. The lads are coming down to Canberra again in two weeks for another MTB extravaganza, so this time I’ll be sure to bring the video camera and get some footage.

B: 62.1km – R: 5.7km

I picked my bike up from Kevin’s place on Monday night and started commuting by bike again on Wednesday and Thursday. No laps of the park, just straight in and out of work. I’m also going to take the aerobars off tomorrow, and revert to normal roadie positioning, as I don’t have any races for the forseeable future.

Got home last night and went out for what was supposed to be a 6km run only to have the same shit flare up from Monday. I stopped a couple of times to try out different lacing patterns in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort but none worked, so I abandoned after about 2km. I’m not going to run for the rest of the week and just rest and stretch and start again on Monday. Hopefully that will be enough to solve the problem. If it’s not, then the whole half marathon plan could be out the window ;-(

B: 45km – R: 5.3km

Headed off for a 5km run this evening but had to cut it short because my right foot was hurting. I’m not sure what was causing it, but any time I’ve had it before it was just my laces being too tight, but that was certainly not the case this time. Decided it was better to be safe than sorry, so will do a lot of stretching before my next scheduled run on Wednesday.

R: 3.2km

I submitted my application for Skills Assessment to the Australian Computer Society today, the first stage in the process of applying for residency. They say to expect a decision within 8 to 10 weeks, so fingers crossed ;-)

I got a good long run in on Friday. We were going to Macmasters Beach for the weekend with Jacqui’s family, so I decided to move my long run forward from Saturday to make sure I got it done.

Ran from the top of my road, down to the golf course, then did almost two laps of that, for a total running time of 55mins. The plan called for a 9.6km run, and I’d done 50mins last week, so I figured 55mins should be sufficient. My HR was pretty high at the end of it (around 170) but I think that was mainly because I was pretty dehydrated by then. I’ll have to start bringing some water with me on the long runs.

When I got home I fired up Google Earth and measured the run at 9.7km. It’s 2km from my house to the golf course, then each lap is 4.25km, and the I stopped 800m short of completing the the second lap.

I spent the weekend recovering as my quads and achilles were both reasonably tight. Lots of stretching and taking it easy.

R: 15km

I got a couple of runs in last week while in Canberra, culminating in a 50min run on Friday which went pretty well. My lower legs were pretty sore after it, and by the time I’d finished all the MTBing over the weekend my quads were pretty sore too, so I skipped my Monday run.

I ventured out last night and decided to take it easy for 30mins. The plan I’m following called for a 5km run, but I decided to keep my average HR around 150 and to see how far I could go inside the half hour. It turned out to be 5.3km this week, but the intention is to use this as kind of a test session as the weeks progress.

R: 5.3km

While U.S. troops are busy spreading Freedom & Democracyâ„¢ throughout Iraq, it turns out the very government espousing that Freedom & Democracyâ„¢ is happily censoring the web sites its soldiers are allowed to visit. Turns out that well known left-leaning sites are excluded, while right-wing commentators are de riguer.

When we all started going mountain biking together about two years ago, we used to head up to the Blue Mountains and ride the fire trails. It was good fun in a ‘great to be outdoors away from the city’ way, but it was fairly straightforward. After all, the trails are built so fire control vehicles can access forest fires, so other than being rough ground, they’re not exactly challenging on a bike.

Then myself and Tom started bringing our bikes down to Canberra on the weeks we were working there, we discovered singletrack and we haven’t looked back. Canberra is full of great singletrack through almost every forest in the region, built and maintained by the good folks at Canberra Off-Road Cyclists (CORC).

For those who’ve no idea what I’m on about, singletrack is like a one person wide path, weaving in and out amongst the trees, over logs & rocks, into and out of gullies, uphill, downhill, under branches and over jumps. In short, it’s great fun, requires constant attention and, depending on how fast you ride it, can be as difficult as you want to make it. It’s what MTBing is all about.

Myself and Tom have been going on about it to Kevin and Niall for months and months, telling them that they had to organise a weekend in Canberra. Well, last weekend it finally happened, and they joined myself and Tom for an MTB weekend in the capital. They arrived on Saturday morning, checked in to the hotel, got the bikes ready, then we all headed off to meet Paul for a ride around Majura Pines. We arrived back at the hotel 4.5 hours later exhilarated, thoroughly exhausted and with a couple of cuts and bruises spread throughout the group. After a shower and a short rest it was off to Debacle for some good food and quality Belgian beers. We were in bed shortly after 10 ;-)

Sunday morning saw us up early and off to Sparrow Hill, a 23km loop of twisting singletrack just outside Queanbeyan. We only managed to get half the loop done as we had to get back to the hotel in time to check out, but it certainly grabbed our attention and we’ll be heading back there asap to give the full lap a go.

We checked out of the hotel, grabbed some lunch and then headed back to Sydney, but not before Kev had locked his keys in the car! While waiting for the NRMA to rescue the keys, we checked out some bike porn at Mal Adjusted before finally getting on the road. Our last stop of the trip was Penrose State Forest just north of Marulan, about half-way between Canberra and Sydney. I’d seen the forest many a time on the way to Canberra and had wondered about riding around in it, but I thought it was just fire trails. It was only when Tom picked up a copy of Australian Mountain Bike mag which contained a trail map for the forest that we realised there was a lot more to it than met the eye.

It turns out that the forest hosts a round of the Working Week Series (five 8hr MTB races = 40hr week – geddit?), as does Sparrow Hill, so we decided to ride the competition trail. It was brilliant, and took us 1h15m, including a couple of regrouping stops and one or two detours where the trail was a bit ambiguous. By this time everyone’s legs were tired after almost 8 hours of MTBing spread over the two days, so it was time to call a halt to proceedings and head back to Sydney.

Needless to say, Kev & Niall are now total converts and there’ll be many more MTB trips in the future. Now all I need to do is convince them to enter an MTB enduro race as a team…

B: 114.7km – R: 19.5km

Great post from Bruce Schneier on the future of privacy.

In a sense, we’re living in a unique time in history. Identification checks are common, but they still require us to whip out our ID. Soon it’ll happen automatically, either through an RFID chip in our wallet or face-recognition from cameras. And those cameras, now visible, will shrink to the point where we won’t even see them.