Training Log Archive: Mess Engineer

Note to Self. Despite your desire to restore your fitness ... when it is raining you can skip one day on the bike .... it is not worth getting that wet and cold again.

C • yep 1

Blue skies on the way home compared to the morning.

Third trip to Newcastle.

Another days labouring on 25 acres from 8 am to 3 pm. Cutting up very large fallen trees with chainsaw and filling up several truck trays worth of branches where we cut off anything hanging below about 2.5 metres which could tangle up in the roll bar of the tractor.

Movie in evening at Glendale. It was raining heavily so I didn’t visit the Wooters doing relay for life at the sports stadium.

No bike ride as exhausted and left early to drive to Newcastle for weekend

First time riding at 5 am.
The lights along the M7 cycleway were so bright, and frequently spaced, that I didn't even need the $130 lights I bought for the bike last week!

And to answer tinytoes question .... there were 5 other cyclists coming the other way .... and 1 other cyclist who overtook me heading to Eastern Creek. And zero pedestrians. But wouldn't expect much usage between 5 am and 6 am in the morning.

C • Ta 1

C • Lights 2

Trying out a running club 2.5 km from townhouse.
Lesson is don’t ride 37 km and then try to run 5 km yet! Very tired!

No bike rides on Wednesday as need the time to drive direct from work to whatever event location required.

Marked out my route and fully completed it today but lots of wasted time. 450 points.

Route Start-7-27-28-29-21-22-23-2-3-14-3-12-24-17-25-30-26-18-19-20-Finish

Lots of errors today. Legs were feeling the 75 km of bike riding for the week.

After control 28 I started to head off to 21 (having forgotten 29) so had to back track 50 metres.

After an "in and back" to control 2 passed control 3, not having seen it, until I hit control 14 so then had to backtrack 200 m x 2 again to find 3.

At control 14 (the 2nd time) I climbed the hill up to the street only to look at map again and realise to get to control 12 I had to return to the bush track and move on to the next street along.

Pushed harder to include 18-19-20 at the end.

With the wasted time I could have done an "in and out" from 12 to include 15.

But found my backup thumb compass (in my top pocket) had fallen out somewhere in the first 5 km (or I had left it on the boulder I stood to mark out my route at the beginning .... not sure) .... so NOT happy Jan!
When back at the finish asked at the desk to no avail and did a short lap around my first 2 controls with no success. That's $80 or so wasted.

But considering someone elses actions today saved me over $800 in cost I had a good day overall.

Still haven't sparked up any conversations with other participants as the hour drive afterwards always seems to beckon me back so I can get home to cook dinner.

Struggled more today so coasted more sections after Hills.

Very satisfying after working back later .... to ride past in 6 minutes the 1.5 km traffic jam waiting to escape the one exit from the industrial estate ..... which can take 45 minutes to drive through. That alone made the remainder of the pleasant ride worth it .... in addition to the 16 traffic lights I completely avoid on the M7 cycle way.

C • ? 2