Hill training 101

Yes Im still smiling!

Go wifey !  Im super impressed with your hill training efforts today, and look you even got a smile at the end.  Perhaps we should have made you do a few more hills on the way back to the coffee shop.

CM, Liza and myself headed out along Tamaki cruising along at a steady 29k.  And although Liza was drafting we were super impressed she was sticking with us, nice one!. At the end by St Heilers and up we go on the first hill, a lot of huffing and puffing but to be honest I think it was a put on, as you seemed to be fresh as a daisy when we finished and headed back to the cafe.

Anyway remember hills are great, they make you strong and tone your butt so you gotta love them! bring on more hills :)

Welcome Turbo Jnr

Hello I'm TURBO Jnr

Meet Camp Mothers new addition, Turbo Jnr.  He is a cute and playful bundle of fluff .. yes you heard it here I am a softy :)

Look whos a techno whizz

Look at me with my techno thingy! :)

The weather is so horrible, decided to ditch biking with KV and went for a run with Gussy.  Actually been for a few runs with her, including one day where my program said run 2hrs with Gussy, problem was I was only running cos I thought Gussy had a long run in her program.  But turns out they had changed it around, so approx 1 hr into our run I found out she only needed to do a short run. Buggar! I suggested we headed directly home, but unfortunately it was still a good 1.5hr run. Oh man!!!.  Coach you need to find a way to link our programs so when you tweak one the other updates!

On this run Gussy was excited to use her 'map my run' function, all good to keep track of speed and ks, however when you get back and find you were short a few ks. Someone (not me) decided to turn around and go for another run to round it up. In these situations the nifty techno suks!

Lizas blog

Covered in road grit and muck from riders in front

Let me set the scene, cold, wet, early morning so still a little dark and we are out riding our bikes, Camp Mother and I with VB and Liza on her own. Then to really show how crap it was take a look at my photo, that dirty stuff on my jacket is the grit and dirt off the road.

A series of texts were received:

6:36 ":( I have a puncture"
6:37 "Rear wheel. I am going to gas up my wheel and head back to the car"
6:38 "I cant change a flatty in the pissing rain"
6:41 "OK that was fruitless. Flat again already I will bike home I guess"

Followed by:

"Got on my bike to go for my ride along Tamaki Drive.

Started to rain.

Not a good start.

Got to Ngapipi Road and thought “what is that funny noise coming from the back of my bike?”

Stopped and sure enough had a puncture.

It’s now persisting with rain.

Swore a few times.

Put myself under a tree and thought hmm, how do I fix this.

I have no idea – never taken a back wheel off, and never actually changed a tube.

It’s still pissing with rain.

I am getting very wet and cold.

I am getting pissy with the rain, the cold, the bike, and the stupid traffic that keeps driving in the puddles and splashing water around.

In fact I am pissy with everyone and everything!!!

It’s still pissing with rain.

So I thought, well maybe it was a slow leak. I’ll gas it up and see if I can get back to the car.

Found out that Chris has thrown away my nice little black caps I had on my valves.

Pissy again – I liked them, they looked neat and tidy.

Bah humbug!

Used the magic gas canister.

Could her the Phsssst of the air coming out faster than it was going in.

<insert expletive here>

Got angry at the wind, the rain, the trees,  the leaves, and the stone in my shoe.

Put my gas thingy away. Sent Chris some texts but figured she was way too busy riding hills.

Walked back to the car parked in Tyler Street.

It pissed with rain the whole way.

Took me 35 minutes to get back and walking in cycling shoes makes you look like you have some sort of affliction.

Figured new cleats are cheaper than a new wheel hence I refrained from my temptation to ride down hill

Just as I was putting everything back in the car to pack up, Chris arrived looking bedraggled and muddy

Its stopped raining.

Damn you weather god.

So at least all was not lost – I had coffee and breaky with Chris, Carron, Clint and Andrew.

Stupid *&^%$ing puncture.

Stupid bike

Went to work, had a shower, warmed up and had another coffee.

Life is feeling not so bad now!!!

So there endeth my story.  Have a great day everyone!!!"

A new day

Sorry it has been a few days since my last post, the prior post had been in draft for sometime as I contemplated on whether to post it or not.

Liza and I had a great weekend in Raglan to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary Yay!, it was also an opportunity to review a budget.  Now last time we set a budget we blew it within 30mins by going out for dinner.  But this time WE are determined to stick with it.

Within our budgeting decisions, despite Liza already finding a way to pay for one of the operations, I decided that the personal benefits were insignificant to the other things we wanted to do in life and Im cool with that :) I mean its not like the excess skins inhibits anything I want to achieve!!!

And so begins a new day ... 

Got a spare 80,000 thousand?

Monday was NOT a great day for me!  For a while now I have been thinking bout whether to see a surgeon for removal of the additional skin left over from the old Chris.  Thank goodness for Nana nickers which cover from your bum to your boobs, I have no doubt these have prevented horrific injuries form flying body parts (best not to picture it!)

On Monday Liza and I went to see such a surgeon, he had a operating and recovery suite at their offices, slightly creepy reminded me of Nip and Tuck TV show.  Anyhow all good until we heard the price (hope your sitting down!) a mere $40,000 per operation and I was to need one for the stomach area and another for the top of the legs.

Crikey! I bet Liza had no idea how 'expensive' I would be ah!.  Well when we got home, I had a cry (knowing this was well out of reach) and ran as fast as I could for an hour or so .... a good workout but must admit the legs were a bit sore after.

No KONA this year :(

Kona lottery draw today at 5am.  Unfortunately it did not include my name, Buggar!

Only one person from NZ in the legend lottery (completed at least 15 prior Ironmans), good luck Roger King of Auckland!! You are clearly deserving after 15 Ironmans! Enjoy it.

Now I just need to work on my run and try to qualify off my own back in March 2014.  All I gotta do is drop my run time by a few hours, easy! Yeah Right.