Go hard BRICK and GM

Back Friday from another work trip! did no exercise whilst away so thought I would make it up in a single day.  So Saturday, Gussy, Jonesy and I attended the 7am swim session.  I thought it was a good hard session to find out, Jonesy had drafted and hence thought it was EASY!  Well missy, I was dying at the front, so consider that your last cruise and I will make sure I draft off you from now on!!

Then Gussy and I jumped on our bikes for a quick ride to Swanson and back, a couple of hills and undulations :), seems everyone is getting cheeky, Gussy zoomed past and whispered "is that all you got!".  I love it!  of course it meant I had to pick up the pace.

Back at base (Birkenhead pool) we transitioned into running shoes, Gussy drove down to the gym
and I ran (yes Im felling very virtuous).  We did our strength session, normally reserved for Mondays but we are both traveling next week.  Cricky almost killed us, we are weak as *^%!!!.

Glenn Miller Bank concert, it was awesome!

After the session I got a text from Liza to say her and mates were at the local cafe, so I ran down, OK some of the way! Gussy had dropped me off as she raced to the hairdresser.  But up until today (Gussy big mouth) everyone thought I was awesome cos I ran all the way.  But hey don't forget we had already trained for 5 hours so don't let a little 110m car ride diminish my efforts! Please :)

Saturday date night, I had brought us tickets to the Glenn Miller Band, but seems All Blacks vs France at Eden Park was on the same night!.  Buggar, oh not really I wanted to go to GM so it was a good job Liza stopped trying to give away our GM tickets, her dog box was getting bigger and bigger.  Hey and we both had a great time, right Liza my beautiful wife!  Better say yes ....

Im off tomorrow for another week, determined to do some running......back on Saturday ....

Sunday Ride

Ya wanna what?! Someone, not me, thought it would be a good idea to go for a 5hour ride round the hills.  Gussy and I slugged it out for 3 hours but happily left Camp Mother to do the full slog!.
We all looked very cool in our matching NZ Cyclist kit.  Check out my photo, Liza insisted to take it this morning. 

Hat off to CM, she took a leaf from my book! After we had raced up a series of hills, and I had pushed in the final stage to just beat her over the brow.  Yeah GO ME!.  When I was telling Gussy who was the winner, as calm as daisy's, CM says, "oh were we racing? I was just riding my new normal speed, were you racing?".  NICE, completely something I would say !!!

But you were so racing!, too bad I can only manage short burst eh !

Nice work all ....

Learning to Ride

Camp Mother and Jonesy (Learner!)

Since you live with us, it was always going to be inevitable .... get the bug and wanna learn to ride .....  And reminder ... you agreed without any input from me to get lessons from Camp Mother.  After all we already told you about the imaginary Dog!!

Borrowed bike (Cheers Gussy), helmet, shoes, shorts and tops (Cheers CM).  All set to go for training 101 with an awesome coach, Camp Mother!.

The first incident caused by slamming on the brakes, then thinking about removing feet from the pedals, buggar, splat! but no blood so all good. The second incident caused by removal on one foot from pedal, but fall the other direction, double buggar! this time blood oops :).  Don't give up, everyone does this at least once, it just means you already did the dum dum so all good from now ....

Night Runs

Gussy and Jonesy, someone looking a little nervous ??

Wednesday night, 6.30pm (so its dark!) and me, Jonesy, Gussy and Coach have entered a night run, tonight it is at Birkenhead Domain.  Thank goodness you get a free head lamp with a series entry, cos that's all the light you get!

We started out slow, expected given it is a single track, so you go as fast as the dude in front.  One lap is 6k so you can do 6k or 12k, but max time is 2hours.  Coach ditched us within seconds!, but we decided to hang together, after all we had done a test run on the Saturday and managed to get lost in the blinkin daylight, no one wanted to get lost in the dark.....

Jonesy and Me

Gussy, totally dedicated team mate took the lead! Awesome, unfortunately it meant when we hit the whole she feel in it first, so Jonesy and I managed to avoid it.  Nice work !!! great way to take one for the team.  I was next to go, following too close I couldn't see the track so instead of jumping the tree root, I fell straight over it and face planted into the track.  Only Jonesy to go ..... but no .... she was not doing the team thing at all !

We made it, and LOVED IT!

We absolutely LOVED IT and can't wait until the next race :)

Cycle for Life

Returned from Bangkok on Saturday morning, jumped on a plane to meet Liza and Gussy in Rotorua so we could go check out prospective holiday homes in Taupo.  We drove back the same night so we could race on Sunday in the 'Cycle for Life'.

Camp Mother and I headed away early as we were registered for the 107k race, Gussy and Liza would follow as they entered the 45k race.  Got to Clevedon, with only minutes to spare we got our bikes and raced down the muddy road to registration.  As we sat on the start line waiting for the gun we noticed wheels, brakes and gearing was all coated in thick mud gathered from the short ride from the car. I was relieved to hear CM suggest pulling out of the 107k and doing the 45k.  Im pretty sure things would have gone bad if I had raced around up and down the hills with failing brakes and gearing and she was thinking the same.

Winner ! our special prize giving

Take 2 - CM, Liza, Gussy and myself all at the start line for the 45k. We started out slow and not long before the first hill.  CM and I raced ahead, although that didn't last long, CM soon zoomed by on the down hill whilst I had a little girly freak out !!! Wet, slippery and no brakes, not loving this !!!!!!!!!!!!  The next time I saw CM she was heading back whilst I was still slugging out to the turn around.  Unfortunately I didn't realize it was a tail wind until I turned round and hit the blinkin head wind.  I played it cool when Gussy and Dean biked past, they had visions of catching up hehe, wait until they hit the head wind :)

Go CM, she caned it! 2nd woman over the line and first in her age group !!!!  Too bad it was a
charity ride, despite sticking around for prize giving, the was no mention of placings except for the overall winner.  So buggar that we had our own prize giving!

Poor Liza ... as we were bout to jump back on our bikes to go support Liza on her final leg, I got a call from a random number ... it was Liza who had borrowed another competitors phone.  She got a puncture at the 30k mark, yes she managed to change the tube as I had taught her, but unfortunately ended up with a suck tube with a short valve and her and many other passer bys were not able to blow the damn thing up.

My brother thinks I totally suck, the first race I got Liza into was 90k and now the second race was super hilly and she got another flat .... Im sorry my beautiful xxx

The Travelling Wanderer

A380

So for the first time in 3 years my work travel has suddenly taken a fast track, fantastic in that I may not drop as far as 'Jade' (Air NZ Status) and will even revert back to 'Gold' where I have enjoyed the luxury of Koru for some time.

Despite the business class and 6 star hotels, I swear it is work, work, work from the time I land to the time I leave.  So what did I see, well the airport, the hotel, and a couple of restaurants!

Me and a couple of colleagues

And yes, Liza and I are still in the honeymoon period so this was the first time we have been apart for so long (a entire week!)  Despite talking daily it was hard, although easier for me as I was consumed by work.

This trip was to Bangkok, where I have been before and it seems somewhere I may have a few more trips.

Local Food Store

concrete pills

Yeahup - maybe Carron has a point in this mornings email:

Tuned in for my Thursday update ..... oh thats right - You didn't ride !!!!!
Concrete pills are on their way by courier as I type.  

Kind regards
Carron

Sadly a late night at work, followed by a 5am text from Chris who had just got back to the hotel after a night out in Bangkok with her work colleagues, and I needed more than concrete pills to effect some "harden up" mentality today.

CM - promise to pedal my little heart out on Sunday when we complete the ride for life.