I finished my week’s training with a 4.5km run after work yeaterday, followed by a long bike ride this morning. I’d intended riding to La Perouse and back, with a few laps of the park on the way, but when I got to the park it was starting to drizzle, so I figured I’d be more sensible to stay off the roads and just do laps of the park. It also meant I could stay on the aerobars for longer and have the added bonus of not having to worry about avoiding potholes while on them, which might be an issue since I’ve only ridden on them once before.

I decided to do one hot lap on the bars, then one easy lap, then repeat, managing 9.5 laps in total before heading home. The hot laps were pretty good, with my fastest one being 6:16.5 (3.8km), which is an average of 36.5km/h, or about 4km/h faster than my previous best. The great thing about it was that I wasn’t killing myself, so it all augurs well for a faster bike split at the next Kurnell.

S: 5200m – B: 120.3km – R: 17.5km

I usually use PithHelmet, an ad-blocking plug-in for Safari as I hate bloody ads distracting me as I’m reading stuff on the web.

However, evrey time Safari gets updated, as it did yesterday with the 10.4.4 update, PithHelmet gets disabled foe a couple of days until its developer has a chance to release a new version. I’m in the middle of that couple of days at the moment, and it’s a pain in the arse – I’d forgotten just how many bloody ads there are on the net these days, and most of them are flashing at you trying to grab your attention. Piss off! :-(

Yesterday was finally almost a proper bike day, free of interruptions. I had cycled in to work although early rain meant I hadn’t done the laps of Centennial that I had planned to do. I cycled home last night and made up for it, incorporating 4 laps of the park into my commute.

This was the first time I got to use my new Profile Design Carbon Stryke aerobars, which I’d had fitted just before Christmas. The general idea is that you get rest your elbows on them, and get your overall bike position changed around to allow this. You end up with more of your weight over the front wheel, which takes a little bit of time to get used to, and far more aerodynamic, meaning you can go faster for the same amount of effort. In my case, I was 3km/h faster around a lap of the park with no extra effort which is a pretty good investment as far as I’m concerned. Time will tell.

Today’s lunchtime swim was pretty good. Lots of 200s which was a nice change from the usual fare of 100s. Felt pretty good and relaxed. The swim sessions are recovery sessions as far as I’m concerned, and are far less important than run or bike sessions, so I just use them to loosen out and stretch a bit.

800 as: 
    200 FS
    2 * {100 Catch/100 BC}
    200 FS
3 * {
    25K / 175 FS on 3:30 (2:55)
    200 Pull on 3:30 (3:00)}
2 * {
    100IM on 2:00 (1:30)
    100BC on 2:00 (1:40)
    100 8FS/8BC on 2:00 (1:42) }
Total: 2600m

S: 5200m – B: 67.3km – R: 12.5km

Collected my MTB from the bike shop and rode home last night, then headed out for my long run. Normally I do all my running on grass, but this time I decided to hit the roads/streets and see how it went. Wanting to run on grass restricts me to my local park, and doing laps of there gets a bit boring after a while. It’s fine for my short (5km) runs on Monday and Friday, but longer runs there would do my head in.

The aim was to run for around 45mins, so I started from the top of my street, then down to Rose Bay North, one lap of the golf course and then back up towards my road, finishing at the BP garage half-way up the hill to suck down a can of Solo! Felt pretty good throughout the run, though my knees were starting to tighten up towards the end of it. Did a bit of stretching afterwards and they feel fine this morning. Tried to keep the pulse in the low 160s, on the flat bits anyway. Once I got to the gradual hill up to the garage at the end it slowly crept up to a high of 177. Total time was 42:45 with an estimated distance of 7.5km.

I was supposed to go for a bike ride before work this morning, but when I woke up around 6 it was soaking wet outside so I went back to bed for a while. Got up at 7.30 and the roads were almost dry, so I cycled in via Centennial Park, but didn’t do any laps as I was later than I’d intended. Will have to do a few on the way home instead.

S: 2600m – B: 39.5km – R: 12.5km

Bought my MTB in to City Bike Depot last night for one of their ‘learn to service your own bike’ sessions and it was excellent. The basic deal is that you pay for a normal service, and then pay an extra $50 for you to take part in that service, one on one. You get shown how to do everything and you’re made to do stuff to ensure you understood it properly. In my case I learned how to:

- recable front & rear derailleurs, including a couple of tips on cable routing, cable type etc.

- ensure smooth shifting & what all those tiny screw adjustments actually do

- bleed hydro disc brakes & replace calipers

- remove, grease & replace bottom bracket

- remove, grease & replace rear cassette

- regrease & settle wheel hubs

- true wheels

I also got general tips on what needs greasing and what doesn’t, what types of grease to use on what components and things to check on a regular basis, and things which are more ‘set & forget’. They’ll also answer any other bike-related questions you want answers for. I learned shitloads and would be quite happy doing 90% of my own servicing from now on, so it’ll save me that $50 in no time.

Oh yeah, they also do it for road/tri bikes as well, not just MTBs. It just so happened that it was my MTB needing a service.

I was supposed to cycle in and out of work yesterday, with a few bonus laps around the park to total 50-60km but circumstances got in the way again. I was also supposed to go to the Open-Air Cinema with Jacqui, but I had to can that too. I’d forgotten that I’d book my MTB in for a service, and paid the extra to be shown how to service my own bike. Given that I’d been supposed to do this in November, except I’d forgotten about it then too and had never shown up, I figured I’d better go along this time. Just as well I’d set a reminder in my phone!

Anyway, what that meant was that I had to bring the MTB in to work, and since it had no front brake pads, cycling wasn’t a smart option. To compensate for missing out on the road cycle, I jumped on the indoor trainer in the morning for 30min session before going to work.

10mins cycle

5 * 20secs Single Leg Drills

5 mins cycle

Total: ~15km

S: 2600m – B: 15km – R: 5km

A bit of catching up to do here. Last Friday night I went for a 5km run:

Lap, AvHR
4:24.0, 139
4:33.0, 150
4:35.0, 155
4:39.8, 158
4:38.9, 160
4:33.8, 163
1min: 125</pre></blockquote><p/><p/>I skipped my bike ride on Saturday morning as I wasn't feeling it up to it. Hit the pool today at lunchtime and felt pretty good, then went for a run this evening. <p/><p/><blockquote class="session"><pre>400 FS<p/>3 * {<p/>    100 K on 2:00  (1:47)<p/>    200 FS on 3:20 (2:46)<p/>    100 BC on 2:00 (1:40) }<p/>2 * {<p/>    4 * 75H/25E on 1:40<p/>    100 IM on 2:00 }<p/>Total: 2600m</pre></blockquote><p/><p/><blockquote class="session"><pre>Lap, AvHR<p/>4:35.2, 142<p/>4:39.1, 153<p/>4:38.5, 157<p/>4:40.9, 159<p/>4:39.0, 162<p/>4:35.8, 164<p/>1min: 127

S: 2600m – R: 5km

Woke up this morning for my first ride of 2006. Shit weather, recently rained, internal argument ensued:

Get up you lazy bastard, you said you’d train consistently this year…

Weather’s crap, I’ll just stay in bed and ride on Saturday…

You need time on the new aerobars!

But it’s wet…

Nope, the ground’s dry…

Oh, OK then, I’ll go the long way in to work, but I’m skipping the laps around CP…

OK.

Hit the road, get down to Bondi and notice that I’ve got my first puncture since I got my bike over a year ago. Oh well, better change the tube and keep going. Get the wheel off, the tyre off and the tube out. Open up the tool bag only to see that I’ve a 650C tube for some reason, whereas I need a 700C one?? I’ve no pump, only CO2 canisters, so I can’t pump up the old tube and patch the puncture. Oh well, that’s the end of that then.

Ring Jacqui to get her to pick me up on her way in to work, then retire to the Tratt across the road for a coffee and some buttermilk pancakes! Every cloud has a silver lining ;-)

I’ve been doing a bit of reading up on training theories after the Kurnell race, with a view to figuring out what I need to do in preparation for longer distances. The secret is that the most important sessions are one long run and one long ride per week. Up to now I’ve been doing a few shorter sessions and probably not scheduling sessions very well either, so I’ve a new rough outline for a training week:

M: Swim (Lunch), Short Run (Eve)
T: Bike in & out via CP
W: Long Run (Eve)
T: Bike in & out via CP
F: Swim (Lunch), Short Run (Eve)
S: Long Bike (AM)

So, with than in mind, I got back into the swing of things this evening and went out for a 5K run. Felt pretty good and was running a bit quicker than normal, but that was probably due to the fact that it was a bit cooler than usual. Either way it was a good start to the year.

Lap,    AvHR
4:28.6, 136
4:34.5, 149
4:35.0, 153
4:43.9, 156
4:36.8, 158
4:37.4, 161
@1min: 116

Now I’ve just got to stick to the program ;-)

R: 5km

Douglas Adams provides one of the best explanations for the origin of god(s) that I’ve seen:

Where does the idea of God come from? Well, I think we have a very skewed point of view on an awful lot of things, but let’s try and see where our point of view comes from. Imagine early man. Early man is, like everything else, an evolved creature and he finds himself in a world that he’s begun to take a little charge of; he’s begun to be a tool-maker, a changer of his environment with the tools that he’s made and he makes tools, when he does, in order to make changes in his environment.

To give an example of the way man operates compared to other animals, consider speciation, which, as we know, tends to occur when a small group of animals gets separated from the rest of the herd by some geological upheaval, population pressure, food shortage or whatever and finds itself in a new environment with maybe something different going on. Take a very simple example; maybe a bunch of animals suddenly finds itself in a place where the weather is rather colder. We know that in a few generations those genes which favour a thicker coat will have come to the fore and we’ll come and we’ll find that the animals have now got thicker coats. Early man, who’s a tool maker, doesn’t have to do this: he can inhabit an extraordinarily wide range of habitats on earth, from tundra to the Gobi Desert—he even manages to live in New York for heaven’s sake—and the reason is that when he arrives in a new environment he doesn’t have to wait for several generations; if he arrives in a colder environment and sees an animal that has those genes which favour a thicker coat, he says “I’ll have it off him”. Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and to do things to create a world that fits us better.

Now imagine an early man surveying his surroundings at the end of a happy day’s tool making. He looks around and he sees a world which pleases him mightily: behind him are mountains with caves in—mountains are great because you can go and hide in the caves and you are out of the rain and the bears can’t get you; in front of him there’s the forest—it’s got nuts and berries and delicious food; there’s a stream going by, which is full of water—water’s delicious to drink, you can float your boats in it and do all sorts of stuff with it; here’s cousin Ug and he’s caught a mammoth—mammoth’s are great, you can eat them, you can wear their coats, you can use their bones to create weapons to catch other mammoths. I mean this is a great world, it’s fantastic. But our early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, ‘well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in’ and then he asks himself a very treacherous question, a question which is totally meaningless and fallacious, but only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way.

Man the maker looks at his world and says ‘So who made this then?’ Who made this? — you can see why it’s a treacherous question. Early man thinks, ‘Well, because there’s only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he’s probably male’. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , ‘If he made it, what did he make it for?’ Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, ‘This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely’ and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

From a speech given in 1998 to the Digital Biota 2 conference.

I never thought I’d see the day when a Murdoch-owned paper hailed the installation of a pro-Iran government in Iraq as “a good thing”!

The resulting coalition government will be good news since it will put the strongest group, the cleric-backed pro-Iranian Sciri, or Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, in effective power.

Even more worrying, you know things are really bad when a paper like the Times, which can’t really be described as a bastion of pinko, commie-loving lefties, describes the situation in Iraq as follows:

On December 22 Tony Blair paid his Christmas call on British troops in Basra to tell them how much things were improving. This time he said security was “completely changed” from last year. What he meant was unclear. It was as if Gladstone had visited Gordon during the siege of Khartoum. Did it not seem strange to Blair that he could not move outside his walled fortress, could not drive anywhere or talk to any Iraqis? Did he wonder why British troops have withdrawn from two anarchic provinces? Was he really told that security is transformed for the better? If so he is horribly deceived.

Reliable reporting from Iraq is now so dangerous that the level of insecurity can be gleaned only from circumstantial evidence. Baghdad outside the American green zone is now all “red zone”, off limits to any but the most reckless foreigner. The death rate and the number of explosions are rising. While some rural areas are relatively safe there is no such thing as national security. Iraq’s borders are porous. Crime is uncontrolled. The concept of an “occupying power” is near meaningless.

The Americans cannot even protect the lawyers at Saddam’s trial, two of whom have been killed. Iraqis are meeting violent death in greater numbers probably than at any time since the Shi’ite massacres of 1991. Professionals are being driven into exile, children are kidnapped, women are forced indoors or shot for being improperly dressed. Those Britons who preen themselves for “bringing democracy to Iraq” would not dare visit the place. They have brought three elections, but elections without security do not equal democracy.

Happy New Year everyone. I’m off up the coast now for three days of relaxing by day and partying by night ;-)

Since I’ve always been a bit apprehensive about my running, I decided after Kurnell that over the Christmas period I’d head up to Centennial Park and try to run as far as I could. The plan was to run at a reasonably relaxed pace, and to stop when my legs were struggling.

Yesterday was the day and I managed 12km, but the last 3km was a struggle as my left knee was quite a bit sore. I had hoped to get to around 14km, but my knee just wasn’t up to it. Still, it’s 2km longer than I’ve ever run before, and 5km longer than I’ve ever run in training so it’s certainly progress. My knee was giving me trouble all day yesterday, especially going down stairs, but it’s fine today. My legs muscles are wrecked though!

R: 12km

Cliona & Dave have been here for the Christmas period, splitting their time between my place and Caoimhe & Dave’s. I’ve been showing then around and took them on the Bondi-Bronte walk (photos) last week with some sunbaking and swims at either end.

Jacqui headed up to Byron to be with her family for Christmas so we exchanged presents on Friday night. Her family got me a cool poker chip set which I had been eyeing up, so I’ll have to brush up on my poker skills now. She seemed pretty happy with the iPod Nano I got her too. Cliona & Dave took the two of us out for a delicious dinner as their Christmas present to us and then my family came up trumps with a fancy tripod & remote release cable for my camera. Now I can learn to do decent night shots and hopefully capture some lightning on camera.

Christmas morning saw myself, Cliona and Dave lounge around ringing the folks back home before heading off to Bondi for a Christmas sunbake, followed by a swim and some breakfast. Security was tight after the recent riots in Cronulla, with plenty of police around and bags being searched as you walked on to the sand. It was surprising but understandable, especially since they usually get 40,000 people on Bondi for Christmas Day. It wasn’t that busy when we were there but it was filling up fast, mainly with Irish wearing their county GAA jerseys!

After that it was off to Caoimhe & Dave’s for the official Christmas dinner (photos). We got stuck into the Pimms, lounged around the pool for a while then brought out the beer and nibbles. Once it had gotten dark we cranked up the barbie and had a veritable feast of meat and seafood. The only downside was that it was around 11 by the time we finished and everyone felt like the traditional Christmas nap! We managed to hang on for a bit longer, ringing the various families back home to wish them an official Happy Christmas.

Boxing Day in Australia, or St. Stephens’ Day if you’re Irish, means only two things; the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race and the Boxing Day cricket test. In our case, the Sydney-Hobart was what we were interested in. Caoimhe & Dave took us out on their boat, to join an estimated 3,000 other spectator boats watching the start of the race (photos). As you can imagine the harbour was packed. After we’d bounced around for about an hour, the gun went off and the yachts charged passed us. Wild Oats led the pack out of the Heads, closely followed by Alfa-Romeo, at which point we decided to make a break for Middle Cove, anchor and spend the afternoon swimming and sunbaking before cruising back into the city.

It’s been a pretty good Christmas this year ;-)

Well the trial is over and the verdict is in. A US Federal court has banned Intelligent Design from the biology classroom on the grounds that it violates the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom.

This is the same problem that Creationism ran up against in 1987 and resulted in it going underground to re-emerge as Intelligent Design. No doubt this will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and although Bush has tried stacking it with far right-wingers, you’d have to assume that common sense will prevail.

After a few stops and starts, today I toed the line wiht Kevin and Billy and completed my first triathlon in Kurnell. 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run. Had a fantastic day, stopping the clock in 1:12:59 (provisional) which was a hell of a lot better than the 1:20 I was aiming for.

I don’t own a wettie, and since the swim was so short I wasn’t that fussed anyway about not having one, especially since it took me about 5mins to get Chris’s one off after the team swim in Canberra last week. There was a bit of a breeze blowing this morning, so I was freezing my ass off while waiting 24 minutes for Wave 6 to get started and a wettie sure looked tempting. Having Froggo & Gizmo standing next to me telling me how lovely and warm they were didn’t help either! Once in the water it all changed and I was warm again. I took the swim really easy, figuring that there’s no point busting my arse on my good leg of the race only to suffer later, so when I was out in 10:25 (AvHR 146) I was sure the course was short.

T1 was slow, messing around putting on socks and bike shoes, and pinning my race number to me, all things which can be hugely streamlined in future races. Once past Mooze monitoring the mount line it was onto the bike and away. I put the vast amount of time spent on Transitions to good use by running a bit past the line before stopping to get on the bike so as not to hold anyone up The first half of the bike was in to the wind, but it wasn’t that strong, so I kept telling myself not to try and fight the wind, that it would be behind me on the way back and I could make good use of it then. Sure enough, after the turnaround I was flying, holding 40kmh+ for most of the way back. Still felt comfortable though, and knocked back a gel with 5km to go in preparation for the run. Off the bike at the dismount line, run in my bike shoes in to T2, and out on to the run. T1+Bike+T2 was 40:08 (AvHR 159).

The run had been announced a little short at 4.85km, which was a bonus, and the three lap format made it a bit easier to pace myself. I forced myself to settle down at the start as this was my weakest leg and the greatest unknown. Felt good initially, and decided to hold my HR around 170. Between Smitty at the swim exit, Mooze guarding the entrance to the finish chute, and a spectator who kept saying “Go Trannie” I had support spaced around the lap which was great. Thanks guys! Spent the first two laps running comfortably and then turned it up a bit for the last lap per Smitty’s instructions. Crossed the line with a HR of 186 and a time of 22:26 (AvHR 173) which I was amazed by. I’d been expecting 26-28mins, so 22 something was brilliant, and I still felt pretty good.

So, it’s all over. Had a great time, met a couple of new Trannies in Vernon & Blew, managed to beat Kev and Billy as well and convincingly beat my expected time, so it’s happy days at the moment. Thanks to all the crew from Transitions, Mooze, Smitty, Vernon, Blew, Froggo, Gizmo and Highwayman for words of encouragement and bring on the Olympic Distance in Canberra at the end of January!

Woo hoo!

Kev managed a 1:25 which he was pretty happy about. He had been aiming for 1:30 or so and has decided that training might help in future. Billy had a shocker. The swim was his weakest leg, and since it was pretty choppy he had a bit of trouble navigating around the course. Then, at the end of the bike leg, himself and another athlete took a wrong turn and were given wrong directions by two guys on bikes which resulted in them riding an extra 5km. He finished in 1:50, which he was a bit disappointed with given the circumstances, but he’s keen to have a go at another one.

S: 3750m – B: 50.2km – R: 10km

It used to be just the US that was turning Orwellian with its Patriot Act, but now Europe is to follow suit. The European Parliament has just passed the Data Retention Directive which requires phone and internet usage records to be kept for a specified period of time. The bill was originally aimed at providing data to help track/crack terrorism, and access to the data was supposed to be severly restricted. However, the final version has all those safeguards removed and even the fucking recording industry can get access to it to try and find illegal downloaders!

The average European citizen will be subject to constant tracking of everything he does electronically, including web browsing habits, travel patterns, phone calls placed and received, and emails and SMS messages sent and received. The logs won’t be required to keep the contents of messages and calls, but the invasion of privacy is blatant nonetheless, especially since log access can be requested for investigation of pretty much any crime with little prior evidence required. Combined with upcoming legislation that could newly make certain instances of copyright infringement a prosecutable criminal offense, it looks like civil rights should be put on the endangered species list back east.

Is it just me or does anyone else think things are getting a bit out of hand? Sure, 9/11 was a tragedy but Malaria kills 1.3 million people a year and 42,636 people died in US car accidents in 2004! We’re running around spending billions of dollars, spying on ourselves and curtailing long-held freedoms to fight a threat which kills less than 1,000 people per year! It’s about time we got our fucking priorities straight.

In preparation for the race at the weekend I decided to head out and do a comfortable 5km to see how it felt. Went pretty well, staying nice an easy for the first five laps, breathing on a 4-in/4-out pattern. I find if I can stick to that pattern I know I’m running well within myself. I switched to a 3/3 pattern for the last lap and wound the pace up and again it was no real problem. I reckon I could have sped up a lap earlier without killing myself for the finish, so if I’m feeling OK after the swim and bike on Sunday I’ll pick up the pace from about 2km out and see what happens.

Lap Time, Avg HR
4:43.6, 141
4:49.9, 151
4:51.5, 154
4:58.9, 154
4:47.0, 157
4:01.1, 166
HR @ 1min: 128

S: 3000m – B: 30.2km – R: 5km

Got a decent swim in today which was basically the same as the squad session from this morning which I wasn’t at. Once again, Kim’s too lazy to think up her own session. I didn’t mind too much, though it was a bit odd repeating the warm-up because she thought it was part of the main set??

300 FS
300 K
300 Pull
3 * {
    75 effort
    25 back
    300 FS, every second 50 as drill }, 45s rest
300 FS
300 K
300 Pull
Total: 3000m

S: 3000m – B: 30.2km

Cycled home from work last night, met up with Niall and did a few laps around the park. Hadn’t been on the bike for a couple of weeks, but it felt pretty good. I was also trying out my new saddle which has a bit more padding than my last one. It’s not too bad, but still a bit stiff, though I expect it will get a bit more comfortable as I wear it in.

B: 30.2km