The month and year that was …

I headed out for a 25km trundle on the old bike before breakfast this morning, but am happy to report that I do have the road bike back complete with 44 shiny new silver spokes. So, here’s hoping that I’m good to go now and these won’t give me any trouble.

We drove out to Malmsbury today and took the dog for a nice walk around the botanic gardens then got some lunch from the Malmsbury bakery and took that back to the picnic tables in the gardens.

I’ve been looking around for a suitable something to take with me on Amy’s Ride to keep the energy up. Nearly all of the protein / carb / energy bars are chocolate coated – which does not seem suitable for a 5 hour bike ride with expected 30 degree temperatures. Well, I found these Cadel’s Mountain Mix bars in the local supermarket yesterday, and had one prior to my bike ride this morning to see how it went on the tummy. They are yummy and caused me no tummy issues. What could be more suitable than a bar with Cadel Evan’s name on it – they even have the Amy Gillett Foundation logo on them! Three of these, Endura electrolyte drink and lots of water and I think I’ll make it!

The month that was …

Another month gone, and a similar summary to last month – lots of riding, even less running and not much else.

Run: 12 km @ 5:50 min/km (YTD 862 km @ 5:19 min/km).
Cycle: 601 km @ 25.7 km/hr (YTD 4087 km @ 25.9 km/hr) – this is the first time I’ve cracked 600 km.
Swim: Didn’t get wet once.
Workout: Managed to avoid the gym again for the month, and no home workouts either.

The year that was …

Running: 772 km (or 72 hours) less running than last year.
Cycling: 1346 km (or 49 hours) more cycling than last year.
Swimming: 11 less visits (but only 4 hours) less swimming than last year.
Strength training: My gym are getting very easy money out of me (only 2 visits for the whole year), but I did increase the amount of time spent doing home workouts over last year (by 16 hours).
Overall: 285 hours of exercise logged in the training journal compared to 307 hours last year. I have lifted the intensity though with a slightly increased average of 619 kCal/hr, compared to 614 kCal/hr last year.

I’ve just updated my goals page, and I missed a few, but overall am fairly happy with the exercise year. It does highlight a few areas of focus for next year though (well one in particular – strength training). The key for me next year, which will shape 2009 as an exercise year, will be when I see what needs to be done about my knee.

I hope to have my 2009 exercise goals posted tomorrow. My one New Years resolution is to get my knee seen by a sports doctor and to follow through on a couple of other medical issues I’ve been procrastinating over.

Happy New Year everyone!

Lunch and drinks …

Just a quick post today … been a busy day.

We went down to Geelong and had lunch with my Mum and Dad and Adrienne’s mum. I had a nice marlin steak with salad.

Tonight I had some drinks with people from work, for the people whose last day is tomorrow. For the first time ever I tried one of those breath testers to make sure I was fine to drive home. I had had three (light) beers, and then a coke which I procrastinated on for nearly an hour. I blew .000, so was happy to drive home. I can’t say the same for a table of four young men who took turns to use the device to decide which one of them was going to drive home. The lowest one blew .189! So what did they do? Returned to their table for a few more rounds! Hopefully they got a taxi home!

Fingers crossed …

I took the bike into the LBS this morning first thing. The guy I spoke to on Saturday wasn’t there, and the guy today scared me at first. He said he’d have to order the spokes, and that places would be shut over Christmas …. oh no, I thought. Then I realised he was talking about black spokes (which my bike has). I’d already had this conversation on Saturday and said I don’t mind having silver spokes (I have two on each wheel already). So, he changed his story to “We should be able to get it done by Saturday, leave it with us and we’ll ring you.”. So please cross your fingers for me that they come through.

I went for a 24km ride this afternoon on the old mountain bike again, and I ain’t riding 120km on it, I can tell you that much for nothing.

Another lazy day today, a bit more shopping, a bit more cricket and another couple of hours of jigsaw. My only purchase today was spending some of my Christmas money on a newish book called Bike Bible. It’s an Australian book – it’s nice to find decent books that actually contain some local content.

The jigsaw we bought has 10 puzzles (5 x 500 piece, 3 x 750 piece and 2 x 1000 piece), all with wildlife themes. So, I decided to start on the 500 piece ones. The one I finished today was of some Scarlet Macaws (see below), and it was quite hard because of the large areas of red and green.

Shit spokes is right … wheel rebuild here I come!

Well it would appear that the LBS guys diagnosis that my Shimano wheels have shit spokes was right, because guess what happened this morning! 5km into my planned 3 hour ride (which I’d gotten up at 6:30am to go on), another spoke broke in my front wheel.

So, first job tomorrow is to take the bike in to the LBS (again) – I hope they are open – and see if they can do the wheel rebuild in the next couple of days. If not, I guess I am out of Amys Ride

Another hour or so in the garden this morning – the back yard is actually starting to look reasonably tidy!

Then we braved Highpoint. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, but I’m glad we got there when we did, when we left they were fighting over car parks.

I’ve spent the last few hours doing a jigsaw we bought – I’d forgotten how much I liked doing jigsaws.

A visit to the LBS and the vet …

First job for today was to get Jackie into the vet. On Christmas Eve she’d developed a funny little lump on her head. We rang first thing and got a midday appointment. Fortunately after examining it the vet thinks it is just a bump – the way Jackie tears around the back yard this is not surprising. Anyway, we’re to go back if it hasn’t gone down in two weeks – fingers crossed. The other nice thing was the vet didn’t even charge us.

I took the bike into the LBS (Rapido Cycles, Niddrie) this morning and they fixed my broken spoke while I waited. I asked what they thought the problem was and the official diagnosis is that they are just “shit spokes”. Now it is a Shimano wheel so this is disappointing, but I can, if I want, get them all replaced for about $80 per wheel. I think I will do this if I break another one. After getting home I still had enough time before the vet’s visit to fit in a ride, so I went for a slow and windy 24.5km ride up Mickleham Rd and round the “country roads” around Oaklands Junction. One thing that has nearly caught me out a few times recently is the shadows from roadside trees. It is really easy to miss seeing obstacles in the alternating sun & shadows, and it nearly cost me today as I narrowly missed a largish pothole.

This afternoon we went down and checked out the local Dirt Cheap Books outlet. Not much there that I would buy and didn’t already have, so came away empty handed. After that I spent a few hours in the garden, mowing. edging and weeding.

Now, I’ve just woken up from a little nanna nap on the couch, and am about to head back there!

A lazy Boxing Day …

A lazy boxing day started off with a sleep-in, and included quite a few hours watching the Australia – South Africa test match.

I spent an hour or so cleaning my bike and then went out for a ride mid afternoon. About 5km into the ride another %^$# spoke broke on my front tyre, I rode slowly home, so this ride turned into a slow 10km. When I got home I decided to pump up the tyres on my 20+ year old mountain bike and take it for a short spin. I haven’t ridden it for a while so the tyres were dead flat, but fortunately once pumped up they held air okay. So, I did another 11km on the mountain bike. Boy, what a difference, talk about clunky, slow and heavy – but at least it was some exercise.

As Sara commented on Facebook, I’m beginning to think that I’m doing something wrong as this is the fourth sp0ke I’ve broken in about a year (two on the rear, two on the front). If any of you experienced bikers out there can offer any advice or explanation, I’d appreciate it.

Merry Christmas

Dear readers, wherever in the world you are

Merry Christmas
Feliz Navidad
Sretan Bozic
Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Glædelig Jul
Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
Zalig Kerstfeast
Gajan Kristnaskon
Hyvaa joulua
Joyeux Noel
Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr!
Froehliche Weihnachten
Kala Christouyenna!
Mele Kalikimaka
Mo’adim Lesimkha. Chena tova
Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket
Gledileg Jol
Selamat Hari Natal
Nollaig Shona Dhuit or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat
Buone Feste Natalizie
Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!
Sreken Bozhik
Maligayan Pasko!
Feliz Natal
Sretan Bozic
Vesele vianoce
God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År
Sawadee Pee Mai
Nadolig Llawen
Cestitamo Bozic

Edit: I was up early for an easy 20km on the bike before breakfast, then we went over to my brother’s place for a family Christmas lunch.

A sad day

Today was another quiet day at work, and in one way a sad one. As I’m on leave now through Jan 4th, and some of my team are leaving us on 31st December, today was the last day I’ll see them at work.

There is one young girl in particular whom we will all miss like mad, she has been with us for a couple of years and in that time has become a huge part of our team. As well as being a great worker and very capable, she is such a beautiful person, one of those people who gives energy to those around her, is always thinking of others before thinking of herself and willing to help however she can. Today she gave everyone in the team a yoyo – to make sure we’d all still have fun when she’s gone! Wow!

She also gave me a lovely bottle of shiraz and a card which said “You have been an amazing leader, mentor & most importantly, friend! I’ll miss you on so many levels. Thank you, stay safe, look after yourself and your family. We will keep in touch“.  Today was the second time this big he-man shed a tear at work in the last couple of weeks.

An early finish meant I had time to get home and help a bit and still have time for a decent ride on the bike. The same route as yesterday except I went a bit further down the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail, making it down to Essendon and back. So just over 40km in just under an hour and a half, so slightly faster than yesterday (27.2 km/hr).

We had some friends over tonight for drinks and desserts, which was fun – so many desserts at this time of year isn’t there! We also had a great cheese and dips plate with olives, sundried tomatoes and my favourite – smoked salmon.

Getting organised …

As it was another quiet day at work, I spent most of it organising myself for 2009. Putting all the public holidays in my calendar, scheduling all my team meetings and staff 1-on-1 meetings for the year, putting reminders in my calendar for staff performance reviews and stuff like that. Then cleaning out my email, cleaning up my computer desktop (I store so much stuff there and it really is a bad habit), organising my paper files – just so organised!

Today was also the Christmas lunch at work (put on by the company canteen). It was an okay meal, the sweets again were the best part, but I was good and only had one serve of dessert. Retirees are also invited back in to the Christmas lunch, so it is always great to see some “oldies”.

A very pleasant ride after tea tonight from Greenvale down to Strathmore North and back – just over 30km, but not as fast as last night (26.5 km/hr).

30@30 for the third time …

Today was a fairly relaxing day at work – not too many meetings, no disasters and time to catch up a bit and get organised.

The quads felt pretty good today, compared to yesterday, nothing more than a little bit of DOMS.

I headed out for a ride just after I got home. It was very warm and windy. About 3km into the ride I actually felt the wind change. All of a sudden it turned from a hot wind to a gusty cold wind – it was weird. Made me think about the old saying about not pulling faces, just in case the wind changes! I had decided just to ride a few laps of my usual 6km running route. After the first lap I noticed my average speed was up over 30km/hr, and thought about my 30 @ 30 goal I’d set for this year. Could I keep up the 30 km/hr for another 4 laps?

I have managed to acheive my 2008 goal of riding 30km+ at over 30km/hr twice so far, once in January and once in March, and was really happy to do it again tonight. Tonights ride was 30.05 km in 59:10, so 30.47 km/hr, the fastest one yet. To keep up the sustained effort for nearly an hour, with slightly achy quads, gave me a very satisfied feeling. Average heart rate was just over 80%, same as it normally is for a run.