It’s been a pretty lazy last few days. I think I did a bit too much last week and I think my body is encouraging my mind to make excuses to skip sessions this week. I’m not that tired, it’s just that I have no interest. Well, no interest at 7am which is when I make the decision to cycle into work or not. About 9, when I’m fully awake, then I regret taking the easy way out. Oh well. Will power never was my strong suit. Tried to go for a run last night, but just as I was about to leave the apartment, a massive lightning storm kicked off, so I took the hint.

Hopped into the pool for an easy session this afternoon.

3 * {
    200 Hypoxic 4/6, 10s rest
    25 K/25 FS, 10s rest
    25 4L4R/ 25 FS}
3 * {
    200 Bands on 3:40 (3:05)
    150 Build on 2:40 (2:05)
    100 IM on 2:00 (1:30)
    50 Easy (39) } 1min rest
100 easy
Total: 2500m

S: 5300m – R: 2.8km

    

We’ve been sailing for John’s birthday and mountain biking for the hell of it recently, and on both occasions I’ve forgotten to bring my camera. Tom remembered his thankfully, so click above for some photos from the days out. I’m sur eyou can figure out which is which…

I finally got my arse in gear today and did my driver’s knowledge test, so I am now the proud holder of a learner licence…. at 32 years of age ;-) Given the way that the system works here I will finally get a full licence in 3.5 years time. I’ll be taking Jacqui’s car out to do a few donuts this evening!

Looks like my plan of doing another big week of training is rapidly going out the window. I have to stay at home tomorrow as the plumber is coming around to do some repairs, so that means missing my lunch-time swim session. It’s Dave’s birthday on Friday, so that’s drinks after work, scuppering my run and also the big ride on Saturday morning, then Micky is having his engagement party on Saturday afternoon meaning I can’t do the ocean swim race I had planned.

Got the usual run in last night, this time with the HR working perfectly. Got run into by a growling dog, though I think it was only protecting its elderly lady owner as once I stopped it became very friendly and docile. She was teaching it to fetch a ball and was very apologetic. It was some sort of sheepdog-type breed, so it was fairly obvious that it wasn’t dangerous. Other than that the run was uneventful and fairly easy.

S: 2800m – R: 2.8km

200 FS
3 * {
    50 Drag/ 50FS,
    75 Fist/ 25 FS,
    100 4/6 Hypoxic } on 1:50
6 * 25 FS K Sprint on 60
3 * {
    200 FS Effort on 3:45 (2:36)
    300 Paddles (4:01) }
50 FS
Total: 2800m

S: 2800m

Now I’m officially exhausted. Just got back from the Blue Mountains after going mountain biking with Kevin, Tom & Niall. We did the Narrowneck Ride near Katoomba. It’s 27km out and back fire trail, with the best scenery of any ride we’ve done so far. There’s a pretty steep hill straight after the start of the ride which myself and Tom got off and walked up. He got a bit dizzy, which he thought might have been altitude sickness, since we were over 1000m above sea level. This was the first MTB ride we’d done in about 6 months and was easily the highest – the other ones in the Blue Mountains were in the lower ranges – and with the hard hill sending all the blood rushing to the legs, dizziness is not that surprising. We took things a bit easy for a while, which suited me down to the ground after yesterday’s ride.

At the end of the ithmus were the most amazing views: 270 degrees of wilderness with the Warragamba Dam (Sydney’s main water supply) off in the distance. A real feeling of being in the middle of nowhere, spoilt slightly by the high-voltage power lines running through the valley! We sat around for a little while, soaking up the “at one with nature” feeling ;-) before getting back on the bikes for the homeward leg.

There are a couple of REALLY steep hills on this ride, so I ended up walking a few times though I’m not sure that made it any easier! Still, for every uphill there’s a downhill and we made the most of those. One long final climb back to the car park and we were done, then it was off to Leura for some lunch and a pit stop in the best sweet shop in Australia (as far as I’m concerned anyway). I definitely want to do that ride again and the next time I’m bringing my video camera as the views are too big to capture properly in a still frame. Tom got a few shots, so I’ll get a few from him and stick them up here.

Tom’s bike computer read 26.99km at the end of the ride, so I managed to just top 200km of riding for the week. I also managed my goal of 200+ aerobic points so I’m pretty pleased with that. Early to bed tonight as I have (want) to do a similar amount of work next week too.

S: 8300m – B: 200.5km – R: 8.4km

Crawled out of bed at 5:45 on Saturday morning to go on the Cheeky Monkey ride to Kurnell and back. Made it down to the shop at about 6:25, just before they left. The pacee was quite a bit quicker than the beginners’ ride I’d been doing, which was hardl surprising as two of the girls had just got back from Hawaii Ironman and a couple of others had been doing the half-Ironman at Forster last weekend. I’d left my HR monitor strap at home and for some reason that meant the watch wouldn’t show speed, but it would show cadence? Not sure why that is, but I reckon we were averaging 35kmh or so.

The ride itself wasn’t too hard, but I was looking forward to the stop at Kurnell so I could stretch a bit. Ate a few jellies too, which is apparently a great way of getting some fast energy on the bike, before hitting the road for the return journey. It seemed to go a lot quicker on teh way back, probably because I knew what was coming up next. I did my turn at the front and didn’t slow anyone down, which was a bit of a relief, then finished up at the shop for a total of 76km. Add 12.3 to that for getting to/from home and some messing about in Centennial Park and it was a grand total of 88.3km. I was pretty exhausted when I got home!

S: 8300m – B: 173.5km – R: 8.4km

Got another good run in this evening. Figured out the issues with my HR monitor, so it’s working almost perfectly now. The runs are feelign nice and easy which is good, with no muscle soreness the following day. I plan on doing the same again next week, then up it to 4 run/walk reps from the week after that if all is still going well.

Weather forecast lookks good for the rest of the weekend, so it looks like I’ll be riding to Kurnell tomorrow and then mountain biking on Sunday after all.

S: 8300m – B: 85.2km – R: 8.4km

Good session in the pool at lunch. Felt pretty good considering I’d been out for a few beers last night and wasn’t feelign great this morning.

500 as 50 FS, 50 (4L,4R,8Full)
3 * {
    200 Pull on 3:40 (2:50)
    2 * 50 Sprint on 60 (33)
    300 as 25easy/25hard } 60s rest
400 as 75 easy/25 hard
200 easy
Total: 2900m

S: 8300m – B: 85.2km – R: 5.6km

Front page of the Daily Mirror, November 4th, 2004.

Source: Daily Mirror

Got a few laps of the park in on the way into and the way home from work yesterday. Nice and relaxed, just working on aerobic base. Grand total of 48.8km.

It’s booting down rain today and the forecast isn’t looking too good for the weekend which is a pain in the arse. I’m planning on doing a big ride (80km or so) tomorrow morning, and there was talk of a bit of mountain biking on Sunday, both of which would have allowed me to top 200km for the week. If the rain keeps up all of that is probably out the window.

S: 5400m – B: 85.2km – R: 5.6km

Went for a run again this evening and attempted to get the HR monitor to behave. You can tell it the HR range you want to stay in, and it will beep at you when you go outside this range, either above or below. I was doing 5min run, 1min walk and had switched the HR range off, so it shouldn’t have beeped at all. No chance! I’d do the 5min run, then slow down to walking pace whereupon the watch would stop as my HR was now too high for the recovery portion. I’d get it going again, then at the end of the walk I’d start the next run segment. Sure enough, the watch would stop because my HR was now too low for the run. I’ve just read the manual and it would seem that I’ve set everything up correctly, so a bit more research is needed methinks.

S: 5400m – B: 36.4km – R: 5.6km

Good swim this afternoon. The fast 200s were pretty good and I was happy with swimming around 2:30, especially as I wasn’t trying too hard. The 150s were on too fast a time; I was the only one who made the fast ones, but I didn’t bother trying to make the easy 150 time, I just gave myself 10s rest.

200 Form
200 FS
3 * {
    100 Paddles (1:12),
    50 FS K/ 50 BC K,
    100 FS (1:15) } 15s rest /100
2 * {
    200 FS Hard on 3:15 (2:30/2:33)
    200 Easy on 3:30 (2:55/2:58) }
2 * {
    150 Form on 2:20
    150 FS Hard (1:58) }
300 Easy
Total: 3000m

B: 36.4km – S: 5400m – R: 2.8km

Got up a bit late this morning, so missed out on the planned laps around the park on the way into work. It was funny watching my HR change as I climbed the hills; cruising HR was around 135, but by the time I made it up the hill on Old South Head Road it was up to 170! It dropped back to 140 or so pretty quickly which is a good sign. Did a few laps on the way home. Kept the HR around 140 on the flat, rising up to just over 150 on the slight uphills.

B: 36.4km – S: 2400m – R: 2.8km

My new Polar 720i heart rate monitor arrived today. It comes with a speed sensor for the bike, and I ordered the optional cadence sensor as well and I can also download everything to my laptop for post-exercise/race analysis ;-) Overkill? You betcha!

I took it out for a run this evening and it kept beeping at me. About half the beeps were expected. Not sure what the other ones were about, but I’ll have to spend quite a bit of time reading the manual for once. I’ve just finished fitting all the bits to the bike and lights are flashing where they’re supposed to flash, so I’ll be checking it out on tomorrow morning’s ride to make sure it’s all working properly. Fingers crossed.

The run was the standard 5min Run, 1min Walk, three times. The local park is the perfect size in that it takes me about 5mins to run one lap. Finally I found a suitable place to run that isn’t a road or footpath. I used to run past this park all the time, but I always assumed that it would be too small to run around. I’ll be doing quite a bit of running up there from now on. Knees are feeling good too.

S: 2400m – R: 2.8km

OK, Fat Club has been going for two months, so here’s the progress:

Back in the pool after the week off. Felt a little sluggish and the lungs weren’t in great shape. I could feel the effects of going out partying last weekend and smoking again. WIll have to stop doing that. It was a pretty easy session, with only 2400m in total. We finished a little early too, so could probably have got another 400 or so in. I’m going to have to start doing 4 sessions/week to make sure I get over 10km done.

2 * {
    50 FS, 40sec
    50 BC/ 50 BS, 40sec
    50 BS/ 50 BC/ 50 BS, 40sec
    200 FS }, 60sec
2 * {
    4 * 50 FS Hard/Easy on 60
    2 * 100 Build on 2:10
} 60 sec
6 * 100 FS Easy
Total: 2400

S: 2400m

This is the first of two big weeks hopefully. My weight loss has stagnated a bit, so I’m going to step up the training load for the next two weeks and see how I react. I want to get over 200 aerobic points this week and next which will be the first time I’ve managed it. My biggest week so far has been about 183, so it shouldn’t be too har dto top 200. I had hoped to be down to 84kg by Dec. 1, so that gives me one month to lose 3kg. We’ll see how things are going after the two big weeks.

Went for another run on the treadmill last night. Same as yesterday. Legs felt OK, but they’re a little sore this morning. Well, tired rather than sore.

Also went to see Resident Evil: Apocalypse – don’t bother!

R: 5.6km – S: 400m