Relief x2

Relief No 1: We don’t have termites. We found some suspicious looking insect activity in one of the wooden posts of our pergola on the weekend where we had cut back a bushy plant, and thought we might have termite infestation. After seeing many “horror stories” of collapsing houses from termites we were obviously worried. So today we paid handsomely for a full check over of the house, and the good news is not a termite in sight. The pergola post was some normal wood rot with some small ants thrown in. Phew x 1.

Relief No 2. My new supervisor checked in at work today (for those who are catching up, I recently got a promotion and have been waiting since June for my replacement to start). She is really lovely, and seems like she is really competent too. So, with a little bit of handover I think I will be able to shift back to just doing one job now. Phew x2.

A really windy ride tonight. I seriously nearly got blown off a couple of times tonight, but I shouldn’t complain at least I got out on the bike and it wasn’t raining. So, just over 23km at just under 24 km/hr – a bit slower than normal, but riding into those headwinds is pretty tough, and you have to slow down with those cross-winds too !

Failed Day 2 of Week 5 of the One Hundred Push-Ups Challenge tonight. It required 17 / 17 / 16 / 16 / 14 / 14 / 12 / max (at least 35), with 45 second breaks between sets. I managed the first 7 sets okay, but could only push out 21 in the last “max” set. I may have been pushing it doing it two nights in a row I guess. Anyway, looks like “Day 2″ will also get repeated a few times.

Louise sent me some information about the Street Orienteering she does. Look here. It looks seriously interesting (and fun) to me. I think I might give it a try when the nights start to get a bit lighter later in the year. What do you reckon – anyone else interested?

Monthly Summary

The month of July was a pretty slack one exercise wise. Work committments, including some travel and bad weather limited opportunities somewhat, and some knee niggles early in the month kept me off the running track. That said though, a fair few k’s on the bike and I did manage to keep the weight in check despite the lack of running. Still no value being obtained from the gym membership, and I didn’t get to the pool once for the month either. The push-ups challenge four days a week, and a couple of workouts at home were the only strength training for the month.

Running: 38 km @ 5:09 min/km (YTD 560 km @ 5:11 min/km)
Cycling: 338 km @ 26.1 km/hr (YTD 1890 km @ 26.4 km/hr)

Week 5, Day 1 – success at last !

Yesterday was a trip down to Burnie. When we were approaching Wynyard Airport, the pilot told us it was -1 in Burnie, and it certainly was cold. Frost everywhere. Brrrr! A shorter day in the office than I could have done with, beacuse the last flight back was 4:40pm, but at least I wasn’t as late getting home. No exercise for the day though.

Looking out of my office window tonight at about 4:15pm, it looked lovely, so I decided to knock off early and head home for a hopefully slightly longer bike ride than normal. However by the time I got home (and work is only 10km from home) it had turned into a miserable, grey, cold, rainy evening. So, I just decided to do a home workout and some time on the exercise bike instead.

The first thing I did was my push-ups. Well, it’s taken me a while, but finally today I managed to complete Day 1 of Week 5 of the One Hundred Push-Ups Challenge. It required 35/28/25/22/max (at least 35), with 60 second breaks between sets. I only managed the 35 in the last “max” set, and every one of the 5 sets hurt, I’m still a little sore. That’s 145 push-ups, but I still feel so far away from being able to do 100 in a row. So, I’ll move onto Day 2 & 3 now, and they change slightly here to 8 sets, but with the first 7 being lower numbers. Yay!

A while ago I saw the ClustrMaps add-in on Louise’s blog and decided to add it to mine. If you scroll down to the bottom of my widgets at the right, you’ll see it’s a little map that shows where in the world your blog visitors are coming from, the more visitors, the larger the red dot. I find it fascinating – why not add it to yours!

Normal sleep patterns can now resume …

It is going to be great to be able to actually get back to 8 hours sleep a night again now that I won’t be staying up all night watching lycra-clad supermen race through the French countryside! I might begin to feel human again!

I got new office furniture today, all the “managers offices” are being “done up” too as a part of the office refurb. What I’ve got is worse than what I had before, both in form and function. I’ve lost deskspace, filing space and a coat cupboard. What I had before was nice solid, wooden, polished furniture, the new stuff makes me feel like I just got back from Ikea. Oh well, I’ve demanded some more file storage space, but can’t be bothered fighting any more.

A nice ride again tonight, a 23km ride around the suburbs. I’ve decided that the most dangerous combinations around my suburb are teenage boys in Commodores and 40+ females in 4WDs – I’m very careful around them

A day trip down to Burnie again tomorrow.

Andrew E. and Bill – for some reason neither of your blogs will let me comment. I am reading though.

The weekends disappear too quickly …

Saturday

• Vic Market trip as normal first thing.
• 8km run in the late afternoon, freezing cold, misty rain, just over 5 min/km.
• Dinner at the RACV City Club bistro with some friends we haven’t seen for a while, then a game of snooker afterwards.
• Stayed up to watch a very brave effort from Cadel Evans in the Tour de France. Second two years in a row is an awesome effort.

Sunday

• A lazy sleep in until 10am, followed by a lazy breakfast and cuppa watching Friends and Will & Grace on Arena – decadent heh
• Quick shopping trip in the arvo – bought that Sight Training game for the Nintendo DS – my eyesight is failing!
• Popped in next door to visit the neighbours and Alyssa has decided to do the 10km at the Melbourne Marathon with me. It will be her first “fun run” – should be good!
• A home workout, my usual exercise routine but with 2 minutes on the exercise bike and 20 push-ups in between each exercise – was tough, especially when the exercise was an upper body one, the pushups made then hard.

I am still pushing on with the 100 Pushups Challenge. I failed Week 5 Day 1 three times last week, so will keep trying Mon, Wed & Fri this week.

Comfortably Numb

That’s how I feel after the couple of glasses of red I just had listening to Geelong narrowly scrape home against Hawthorn. “Listening” because the bloody free-to-air TV won’t play the games live – really gives me the you know whats.

Speaking of Comfortably Numb, it is also one of my favourite songs, and contains what I think is possibly one of the best guitar solos of all time. Here’s one of my favourite live versions, from the David Gilmour Live At The Albert Hall DVD, featuring David Bowie. If you’re not a Pink Floyd fan, or if you are, have a listen! Check out the guy in the audience dancing at about the 6:48 mark of the video – that would be me for sure if I was there!

Tonight another bike ride, just over 27km, slightly slower than the last couple of nights at just over 26 km/hr, due I think to it being a bit windier.

A great ride

Wow … another inspiring night of effort from the peloton, a wonderful effort by Carlos Sastre up L’Alpe-D’Huez. He was wonderfully supported by his amazingly strong CSC team, including Aussie Stuart O’Grady – this is going to be the difference if Sastre beats Cadel Evans, as Cadel has really been on his own, his team members have really not lasted long in the mountains.

I did sort of cheat last night, watched the first hour or so, went to bed, then got up and watched the last hour or so.

Sastre’s effort last night now sees him 1:34 ahead of Cadel Evans, which hopefully Cadel can make up in the final time trial. As an indication, Cadel gained 1:16 over Sastre in the first 29.5km time trial this year, and made up 2:33 in the final time trial over Sastre last year over 55.5km. The final time trial on Saturday night is 53km, so it is definitely do-able, but it is amazing the difference wearing the Yellow Jersey can make to a rider, so we should expect a big effort from Sastre.

I have my fingers crossed for you Cadel!

Another great ride tonight, from which I arrived home feeling fully fatigued but refreshed – if that makes sense. It was a different route to last night, but amazingly the same distance (to within 0.01km), the same time (to within 10 secs) and the same heart rate max/average (to within 2 bpm) – weird huh. It was just under 26 km at just over 27 km/hr.

Official times are up for the Sri Chinmoy race last Sunday, my official time was 24:03, 3 seconds faster than my watch time. The age categories in the results are different to those advertised on the website, and different to those for which they awarded the medals. I got the 2nd place medal for 40-49 year old males, but the results have 18-49 year olds all lumped together – so not sure what they’re doing.

Some serious mountains …

I love the Tour de France … I know you know that, but I had to say it again.

Last nights 16th stage was enthralling from start to finish. The ride up the two climbs looked agonising, the descent just plain dangerous – I seriously don’t know how those guys do it. Tonights 17th stage, will, in my opinion decide the overall winner. If Cadel Evans can be in a similar position after tonights stage as he is now, he is a very, very strong chance to wear the yellow jersey on the podium in Paris.

If last nights stage was tough, tonights looks even tougher, with three (count them) “hors categorie” climbs.

Mountain climbs are rated from Category 4 (easiest) to Category 1 (hardest). Those that are deemed too tough to categorise are “hors categorie” or “beyond classification”, and as I said above there are three of them in tonights stage, including the infamous windy, hairpins galore ascent to the finish at Alpe-D’Huez. Obviously, there is also two serious descents as well – hopefully we won’t have any riders plunging of the road like last night! At 210.5km, tonights stage is 53km longer than last night, and the riders will have been in the saddle for around 6 hours when they start the final punishing climb. It should sort them out.

So, it looks like another late night tonight.

Tonight I did manage to get out on my bike too, not quite the Alpe-D’Huez, but I did add a few hills to my normal route, riding an enjoyable 25.8km at an average of just over 27 km/hr.

On a rather ickier topic, what is it with people that can’t aim when using a toilet. I’m not talking about the usual “male” liquid version of this problem, but the rather yuckier solid version. The hole in the bowl is pretty big – how hard is it to sit down and not shit on the seat? WTF is going on here? Three of four stalls were “soiled” at work today. Some feel it could be a cultural issue, and to do with the evacuation method deployed by some other cultures, but please people, keep your shit in the bowl – it really shouldn’t be that difficult.

Rest week?

Well, no exercise again today, I think this cold weather really has stolen my mojo. The 5km run on Sunday at Princes Park has been my only exercise in 6 days – maybe I’ll just call it a “rest week”. I think I did read somewhere once that it is a good idea to have them every now and then?

Kate had the hard disk replaced in her laptop tonight. A little man from Dell came and did it and reinstalled Vista and everything. Not bad service I thought.

In an attempt to get the running mojo back, I have entered two more races tonight. The 10km at the Melbourne Marathon on October 12th, and the Burnie 10 on October 19th. Adrienne and I are planning a week in Tasmania leading up to the Burnie 10, so that should be a nice break. Now I think I’d better start and search out a decent 10km training program!

Go Simon Gerrans!

Congratulations to local boy Simon Gerrans for a fantastic win in last nights 15th stage of the Tour de France!

Not much to report today, a rotten day at work that didn’t get much better after either. Spent most of today doing budgets – need I say any more.

No exercise, felt like crap when I got home, and the weather was cold and wet. I did try Week 5 Day 1 of the push-ups challenge again, after redoing Week 4 last week. Failed again – I am going to keep repeating this day until I can do it – what year that will be is anyones guess!

Here are some photos that Rugers took yesterday.

My running bud Jo (RunJaneRun) and I showing off our medals.

Ausrunners RunningSweetlee (Lee), RunJaneRun(Jo), Hobbles(Sue), me, Rugers and SassyCil after the race.

Sri Chinmoy 5km – Princes Park – bling!

I had the alarm on for 6am, and got up and had breafast as soon as it went off. That was my biggest mistake for the day (having breakfast that is). It was raining quite heavily during the night and for the drive to the race, but by the time I got to the venue, it had pretty much stopped and didn’t rain during the run, so that worked out okay.

Met up with Jo, Jaykay, Michelle, Sue (Hobbles) & family and Tony (Tiger Boy), and a little later Lee. Jo and I went and did a 10 minute warm-up jog (about five times as much warm-up as I’d normally do), and on the way back we met Rugers, and then Blueboy. Soon after the warm-up it was time to head to the start line, not long to wait and the race started.

Jo and I headed out and did the first couple of kms at pretty close to 4:30 min/km pace, and it felt okay. During the third kilometre my tummy started to feel suspect and I started to get that horrible bile taste in the mouth. I made it to about the 3.5km mark and had to tell Jo to run on as I was sure I was going to throw up. I stopped for a short break and after a few deep breaths felt a bit better and pressed on. I needed a similar break just before the 4km marker, but after that ran it out, but there was no sprint finish. Official times not available yet, my watch time was 24:06 (average pace therefore 4:49 min/km). I was surprised to be told at the finish line that I had finished 2nd in my age group – all of the good runners must have been doing the longer distances!

Jo was waiting on the finish line and she had won her age group – well done girl! Sue’s son Connor also came second in his age group, and Blueboy won his age group! Jo and I went for a bit of a cool down run (isn’t she a good influence – normally I wouldn’t do that) and got back just in time for the medal presentation – my first bling ever (other than participation medals) so I enjoyed that! After the medal presentation we also met another new Ausrunner, Sassycil!

Needless to say I didn’t feel like any pancakes!

Sue and Lee both had great runs, finishing well ahead of their predicted handicap times, so one of them is my tip to take out the Ausrun handicap. Rugers also had a great run, finishing almost dead on her predicted time.

Adrienne and I headed up to Shepparton for a visit to the Ardmona-SPC factory outlet and stocked up on cheap canned fruit, tomatoes, baked beans etc. and had a nice lunch in their little restaurant, then had coffee and cake in Nagambie on the way back.

I have always been a big fan of Dame Helen Mirren, she is a truly wonderful actress. Prime Suspect, in which she plays Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, is one of my favourite British police shows. She has shocked the British Press by appearing in a red bikini (at the age of 62), but seriously with a beautiful body like this why wouldn’t you! She certainly has kept in shape and if you’ve got it – flaunt it I say. I hope I look this good when I’m 62 !