Sunday Dec 30 |
 | Road Bike (River) 2:50:00 [3]73.5 km (2:19 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel |
| Got up what felt like way too early and rode in with Jen to meet Boltboi at the Narrows. Legs felt very ordinary after yesterday's MTB ride. Was struggling to stay with them on the hills except when I made a concerted attempt to go from couldn't-care-less mode to win-hillsprint mode. Boltboi got the first, Jen the next, me the third, jen the 4th, me the big one up from Meads, Jen the next, Boltboi the next, me other by a millimeter after a huge momentum assisted effort from off the back and that was about it until Boltboi suddenly got more weary. Saw Wayne Eliot out riding - he made the comment he'd done 600km this week. Silly misguided lad looked way too fresh. Very very glad to get home |
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| Was going to paddle from Freo to Floreat this evening, got both boats on the car, arranged for Dad to drop us off but when we had a final check on the ocean it was just too windy. The swell was moderate but the wind was blowing across that at about a million knots and it would not have been much fun watching the ski rolling away across the surface of the water! Will postpone it to Friday arvo maybe... betcha it ends up being 40 degrees and no sea breeze and we'll have to postpone again. |
Saturday Dec 29 |
| MTB (Gungin) 2:40:00 [3]40 km (4:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida |
| Definitely more tired than last time but we had a steadier paced ride this time with Wil riding a bit better for the first 2/3 and no Pete to smash the pace upwards. Almost made it up the big hill, again several rear wheel spins on the loose gravel put paid to the first 25m. After that was just doable. 4-3 to the not making it side now. Thoroughly enjoyable ride and a nice bakery stop with Fletch, Duncan, Jen and Boltboi afterwards. |
| Running (Trigg) 20:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones |
| Drew up the Trigg MetrO course this arvo and then drove over there to check control sites and look for map changes. Not much has changed fortunately since the 2004 version of the map which I was given as the "master", a few new play equipments and so forth, a new? alleyway but other than that just minor stuff. Daylight was getting away from me as I checked the trails in the bushland so I had to start running. Had the dog with me so he was cool with the 80min walk. Luckily could visit 2/3 of the controls by car so pretty painless. |
Friday Dec 28 |
| Road Bike (Commute) 35:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Bike, Gary Fisher mtb |
| Easy ride to work. Was a bit tired this morning as was up late chatting to ex-Prez Nick and then at 3am got woken up to hear the cat making "look what I've got" noises. I investigated and spent 5mins playing cat and mouse with Molly in the lounge room to get her out. Meanwhile she was playing cat and rat with her young rat she'd brought in. I got them out, closed the cat flap and went back to bed. In the morning, some 4 hours later the silly cat was still playing with the healthy but tired rat and so I got a shovel and finished it. The rat that is, I moved the cat out of the way. The rats are getting smaller, soon I can't imagine there will be any left as she seems to get one every 3 weeks or so. |
| Road Bike (Commute) 37:00 [3]11 km (3:22 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Gary Fisher mtb |
| Quite a blustery headwind for the ride home, rode solidly and didn;t have any roadies to draft off. Pity really as I was wearing the baggies and a t-shirt on an old MTB and with hairy legs. Got to be worth a lot of passing points if only someone was there to humble. |
| Core Stability/Stretching (Beach session) 30:00 [4] | |
| shoes: Barefoot |
| The usual exercises but increased the number of reps of a few exercises. It was frigging windy, enough that our footsteps from each run were but faint traces in the sand between efforts. Wil, Rhys(!), Dawn, Jen and I tonight. And about 7 kitesurfers off shore. |
| Running (Beach session) 20:00 [4] | |
| shoes: Barefoot |
| Ran harder than I thought I normally do, mainly as Rhys was here and was faster than me so provided some incentive. He had to bail to a birthday party so the "cardio" frantic blast at the end was just Jen and I. Wil was lying on his back dizzy from the previous set. Handicap was Jen off 40s in front and I managed to not quite catch her on the finish line, heart rate hit 180 which is the highest I've seen in a couple of years, but I don't often go from hopping to burpees to a flat out 200m run on soft-sand chasing someone down!
At least I think it's a good thing that it can still go that high. |
Thursday Dec 27 |
| Road Bike (River) 1:53:00 [3]53 km (2:08 / km) | |
| shoes: Bike, Kestrel |
| A mostly easy ride this morning with Jen and Boltboi. Jen's definitely getting faster on the bike, Boltboi said he was a bit tired. 26 degrees at 6am when we started and no wind so just about perfect! I felt really strong, probably as I've actually given my legs a break for a while for a change, it was actually fun riding. |
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| C • Gee thanks... 3 |
| Paddling (Ocean) 50:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 |
| Left work a bit early because I could. Decided that a paddle would probably be fun but since the sea breeze had been in all day I was a bit doubtful about what the shorebreak would be like. Eventually I headed down to the beach, peered over the dunes and it looked doable, although very windy and lots of whitecaps everywhere. Not too many big waves but as a precaution I left the sunnies in the car, usually a guarantee of getting smashed if you elect to wear them.
I got out first go, but took plenty of whitewater in the chest, grounded the rudder twice on the beach and filled the cockpit totally but once I had my legs in it was just a matter of time - and luck. So much harder to get out through the shorebreak in this boat as it's not possible to do the quick jump start that I could do on my old surf ski. I did 3 out and backs as it was just too windy and rough to paddle any longer into it. 10mins into it, 4mins back!!! Had a few near misses with some kite surfers who were operating at 90 degrees to me perfectly across the wind at about a million miles an hour while I was straight as an arrow plodding my way into it and zipping back. Had a few scary moments way out when a couple of swells broke, didn't really want to have to swim back to shore chasing my ski from that far out! Found on the way in a couple of times that the sheer nose of the ski isn't quite as easy to steer as the surf ski either as once you bury it the nose becomes the rudder unlike the rounded front of a surf ski. No falls though, not really any near misses but it was rugged!
Beached the ski at the end of the session, temporarily stuffed, to find I'd disembarked right in the middle of a bevy of bikini-clad bathing beauties. Glad I stayed on my ski on the way in and didn't make too much of a fool of myself! It was a near thing though as the waves were sucking dry close to the beach and I had to do a massive feet over the edge back paddling manoeuvre to avoid hitting solid sand at speed. |
| Orienteering race (Warnbro MetrO) 44:57 [5]9.05 km (4:58 / km) | |
| shoes: Pearl Izumi meshy ones |
| My first MetrO series event for a couple of summers I think. Tried to avoid them last year as running through the streets when you are relatively slow, and pretty sore is just no fun. Today I was not fast but not sore and I gave it pretty much a 90%+ effort. At the start I had predetermined to run to the NW corner of the map, only some 500m or so away. After getting the first control I realised that that had cost me some distance already! D'oh. After that I just ran down the coastal strip where the controls were really tightly clustered figuring when I got to the bottom of the map I'd pick a nice straight line on the way back through the streets. Trouble was I already had enough controls to have to miss a few on the way back and it felt inefficient. In retrospect it wasn't so bad, bar two controls I did exactly what Robbie J did but he just did it 5mins faster on his "easy" effort. Ricky was next but by God he started fast, I just can't do that unwarmed up! |
Wednesday Dec 26 |
| Paddling (Ocean) 1:00:00 [2]9.5 km (6:19 / km) | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 |
| After a stupidly hot day of 44 point something degrees the obvious choice for exercise was to head down to the beach with the ski and go for a paddle. The sea-breeze was in but very weakly. It was an easterly in the car-park, but 60m later on the beach sand it was calm, and 50m later out on the water it was a faint but welcome sou-wester. The beach was packed so I parked in the surf-club car-park to save walking miles with the skis. Cruised down to almost Swanbourne and back with Jen. The ocean was not quite flat so there was the opportunity to chase a few skates on the way back. |
Tuesday Dec 25 |
| Paddling (River) 1:23:00 [3] | |
| shoes: Ski, Mako 6 |
| Met Boltboi (Plastic), Pete (Plastic) and Jen (XT) for an early paddle on the river. With a 40 degree Christmas day forecast it was a great way to spend the morning. Had some fast spurts and spent a bit of time on the way back on the others plastic boats as they tried out the XT and Mako. Needless to say they couldn't reach the pedals on the Mako... |
Monday Dec 24 |
| MTB (Gungin) 1:02:00 [4] | |
| shoes: Bike, Merida |
| Went riding anti-clockwise from Farrell Grove with Jen, Pete another guy called Pete and a fellow called Gerard. They had much better skills but weren't quite as fit as Pete or I on the uphills. On the downhills they made us look exactly the gumbies we are. Was a fun ride though as we got to smash the uphills, hammer the flats and hang on grimly on the downhills! Being MTBers the other two seemed to want to spend more time stopped and talking than actually riding. It's hard to undo the habit of 15 years or so of all sorts of training and convince myself to just stop and wait and treat it nice 'n social! Was great fun, and nice to ride in the evening for a change. |