I plan to add running to the fitness programme this week. I’m starting off nice and easy: 5mins walk, 5mins run, twice and over the next 10 weeks or so I’ll gradually run longer and walk less. The goal is to be able to run 30mins three times a week without any stress on my legs. Hopefully by starting easily I will give my bones & joints enough time to adapt, thereby avoiding injury. We’ll see how it goes.

Niall had suggested I do the City 2 Surf in August, which sounded like a great idea. It’s a bit of a Sydney institution, so it would have been a nice goal to have, but I just realised this morning that I’ll be snowboarding in New Zealand at the time.

87.6kg this morning.

Well after a heatwave hit the east coast of Australia over the last few weeks, hitting mid-40s Celcius in some places, we’ve had a solid 24hrs of rain. It’s still blowing a gale outside with a bit of rain as well. Hopefully it’s raining in the right areas so that the dam levels rise.

I didn’t cycle home yesterday and waited 45mins for a bus home this evening before giving up and deciding to cycle home instead. Got soaked, but it was fun!

B: 20km

Down to 87.8kg this morning. That’s 1.6kg since Jan. 1.

Bloody hell, I’m exhausted. I cycled in and out of work today, the first time I’ve done so. That’s 10km each way, including two decent hills. As if that wasn’t enough I decided to do a couple of laps of Centennnial Park with Niall which wasn’t as easy as yesterday, probably due to the wind having picked up a bit. Just to annoy me, it was also in my face for the climb up the hill to home. My legs are totally exhausted now. At least I’ve two days off now.

B: 71km

Fixed up the puncture and trued the rear wheel, as it was a little buckled. Stopped off for a few laps of Centennial Park on the way home, with Tom & Niall. It’s an easy 3.8km lap, and the Park looks really nice, with plenty of cyclists around. Once I get used to cycling in and out, I’ll probably incorporate a couple of laps into my cycle home, the same way Niall does, the plan being to cycle over 100km each week. I’d love to blast around it on a road bike too, just to feel the difference between that and an MTB.

Also, did a body fat check when I got home, and I’m now down to 18.3%. Progress, progress.

B: 48km

The cycling is going fine. I can’t accelerate too hard, or hit potholes sitting down as my ribs are still a little sore, but apart from that all is well. Did the full cycle in to work this morning, rather than getting the ferry. Apart from the hill on Old South Head Road the rest was fairly easy. I was looking forward to cycling home, but I’ve just looked across at my bike and the back tyre is flat. I’ve got a replacement tube, but no pump. Looks like it will have to wait until tomorrow then.

Have been looking around for a back-pack too. Have decided to get the Deuter Cross Air, a 22L pack with a 3L hydration system. It’s got a cool webbed back, keeping the pack off your back, so air can circulate and you don’t sweat like a b’stard. Should have enough room for swimming gear once I get back into that too. It’s $100 US, which given the exchange rate, still works out about $60 Aussie cheaper than I can get it here.

B: 25km

Went to the bike shop today and got myself a new helmet, to replace the one I crashed in. I’ll hit the roads again tomorrow, not literally, with the morning cruise down to the Rose Bay ferry. Hopefully, it won’t be sore on my ribs.

Also, I’ve just signed up for my first triathlon on March 28th. It’s only a 300m swim, 8km bike and 3km run. Running is very much the weak spot, so I’ll have to get into that.

Weight is holding constant at 88.3kg this morning. I was sure it was going to go back on, given that I’m shuffling around like an old man, and am enduring an enforced layoff from exercise. I guess the fact that it’s literally a pain to get up off the couch for a bit of food is cancelling out the lack of exercise ;-)

Had an eventful day yesterday. Myself, Niall and Kev headed down to Kangaroo Valley for another downhill run on the bikes. Tom stayed at home as he hurt his back playing squash with Billy. We had a much more streamlined operation than the last time, and planned to do the run twice. First one was great fun and uneventful, apart from me hitting a top speed of 68.7kmh on the tarmac run back to the car. Kev also made it to the top of the long hill without putting a foot down. None of the rest of us have managed it yet.

After a bit of food we got the car shuffle underway and were all ready at the top of the second run around 2pm. Niall led the way and got a puncture almost immediately. Luckily we had tubes this time, so we just swapped a new one in and kept going. Kev made it over the big hill without stopping again, and I took over the lead for the second half. Toward the end of the run there were a few jumps in a row. First was good, the second was much better, but I landed the thrid one all wrong and I came off the bike at around 30kmh.

I bounced and rolled a bit and once I stopped I couldn’t breathe at all for about 10secs. I faded out a bit and heard the two guys telling me to stay down. I remember thinking to myself “oh yeah, I’ve crashed my bike”, so there must have been a period before that when I had no idea what was going on. Kev said that I was shaking, and was ghost white, then green for a bit. I was going to stay where I was for a bit and get my breath back, as I was seriously winded, but I was lying in amongst a load of bull ants, so I had to move. The colour returned to my cheeks a minute or two later, and after a while I was able to get back on the bike and take the rest of the ride very easy. Kev and Niall did a great job making sure I was OK and taking my bike apart for the ride back to Sydney.

I took this morning off work to get my ribs checked as they were really sore. I had an x-ray and all is ok, so I’ll just have to put up wiht the pain for a couple of days until it heals up a little. I’ll also have to cut back on the extreme mountain biking for a bit ;-)

B: 35km – R: 3.2km – W: 2 sessions – Row: 1km

Regular readers (that’s probably just me ;-) will notice that there’s very little exercise being done this week, so let me explain. I’m working in Canberra this week, and since the office is a 10min walk from my hotel, there’s little opportunity to get a big cycle in. Secondly, I’m following a fairly simple training principle: give your body time to adapt. The principle is: do 3 weeks of training, then ease back for a week to let your body consolidate the gains made in those 3 weeks. That’s the best way to avoid injuries & overtraining.

Another injury-free tip is to increase your distance OR your speed by 10% per week, but not your distance AND your speed. So far I haven’t been sticking to this very well:

Jan 12-18: 32km

Jan 19-25: 60km

Jan 16- Feb 1: 85km

R: 3.2km – W: 2 sessions – Row: 1km

I’ve decided to swap resolutions #4 and #1. After all, I don’t really care what weight I am, as long as I lose the gut ;-)

I’ve never set down fitness resolutions for this year, so here they are:

1. Get back to my normal weight of approx. 80kg
2. Complete a sprint distance triathlon (or longer)
3. Complete a 2km+ ocean swim
4. Get my body fat under 14%

I’m aiming at No.1 first, for the simple reason that it will make all the others easier. In fact, I expect that meeting #1 will also take care of #4. As for #2, a sprint triathlon is a 750m swim, a 20km bike and a 5km run, but I’d really prefer to Have accomplished an Olympic distance one (1.5/40/10km) but I don’t think there is one in the second half of the year. I’ll have to work a lot on running for that though.

So, there you have it. It’s officially ‘on paper’ so I can look back on it next year and castigate or congratulate myself accordingly.

Had a long day yesterday! 6 hours and about 30km of off-road cycling. Myself, Tom, Kev and Niall headed up to the Blue Mountains to have a go at The Oaks Trail. Left Bondi just before 9am, drove to Glenbrook, parked the cars and hopped onto the 10.02 train to Woodford.

After a bit of faffing, we hit the trail. It started off with short downhills followed by short uphills for a few kilometres. The new shocks were working perfectly and it was a lot easier to go fast and maintain control. Tom was the first casualty of the day, going over the handlebars on one downhill. Kevin had already fallen off his bike, but that happens so often it’s no longer regarded as exceptional. A third of the way through the trail we found the helipad area. There was a couple of bits of tree trunks lying about, which provided the perfect opportunity for everyone to practice their bunny-hops.

Shortly afterwards we hit the main downhill section and we took off. I nailed a maximum speed of 53kmh down one section, an indication of how well the shocks were working. Myself and Kevin stopped half way down to wait for Niall and Tom. When they still hadn’t arrrived 15mins later we figured something must be wrong, so we started cycling back up the hill. Rounded the previous corner to see the lads watching someone fix Niall’s puncture. We’d seen the guy having a rest and a drink as we flew past. Niall had gotten a puncture somewhere up the trail and since the repair kits were with myself and Kev, he’d stopped to ask this guy if he had a patch. The poor man volunteered to fix the puncture, only to find that there turned out to be four punctures in the tube! Got all that sorted out, then took off again. At the end of the downhill run, we hopped the National Park gate and headed off on the singletrack part of the trail. We’d covered about 1km when Niall got another two punctures, in the same tyre, so we stopped to fix that. We decided that in future we’d all bring two tubes so we wouldn’t have to deal with punctures again!

The rest of the singletrack changed between nice wooded sections through the trees to more technical, rocky downhill sections and a couple of kms later we ended up in a car park. We weren’t sure where to go from there, so we followed the tar road, splashed through the creek and stopped. We were faced with a very steep hill, which we were hoping to avoid having to climb, but a couple of passing bikers told us that the hill was the way out. Just what we needed to finish the day: a bloody long, steep hill. Thankfully it wasn’t as long as we thought it was going to be, and 6 hours after we’d started the trail, we reached the top, with lots of needed drinking water available from the fountain.

A quick cycle back to the cars, a change of clothes and we headed into Glenbrook for a perve at all the cool bike gear in Cycle Fantasy. There was a lovely Ellsworth frame for $3250!! A couple of Coopers later and we were on the road back to Sydney.

All in all it was a bloody long day, and everyone was exhausted. We’d cycled around 35km, 30 of which was the trail itself, and it had turned out to be a fair bit hillier that we’d expected. We’d also learned to have a couple of tubes with us in future!

B: 80km

Weighed in at 88.0kg this morning. That’s one kilo lost in two weeks which is a fairly respectable rate.

Went to Woolys yesterday to get my new shocks. Thought I wouldn’t have them in time to do the Oaks Trail today, but the guys said they’d see what they could do. Went for some breakfast with Jacqui, and as we were walking back to the car, I got a call to say my bike was ready. Picked it up only to see that they’d thrown in a free pump, replaced a broken brake for free, and dropped about $40 off the total price! Now that’s service for you.

Have decided not to get a new bike, but will get a new shock put on my existing bike. I’ve had the Rock Shox Duke SC Air recommented to me, so I’ve gone with that and I’ve also asked them to put clip-in pedals on the vike too. I’ll drop the bike in tomorrow and hopefully it will be ready on Sunday. There’s a vague plan to do the Oak Trail on Sunday, so if the bike is ready in time it will be a perfect opportunity to try out the fork.

B: 45km

Now that the cycle computer is working, it tracks the distance for me. I reset it last night, and it’s now showing 15.9km. Up until now I’d thought that I was cycling 12km a day, whereas it turns out that I’m actually cycling closer to 16km. I’ll call it a nice round 15km.

Body Fat today is 18.6%, down 0.6% from last week. Though I still have a bit of a gut, I’m no longer considered medically overweight. I’m now ‘Healthy’.

B: 30km

Weighed in at 88.3kg this morning.

Dropped the bike in to Clarence St. Cyclery for a service this morning. I described the issues I had with my shocks at the weekend and asked what were the minimum shocks they would recommend as replacements. He suggested the Rock Shox Duke SL for $590! Screw that, I’m not putting $600 forks on an $800 bike! I’ll have to do a bit of research into a new bike.

Picked up the bike in the afternoon and it felt great. Gears changed smoothly, and the computer worked properly. Tried it out on the way home:

Distance: 11.1km

Avg. Speed: 19.8kmh (including sitting at traffic lights)

Top Speed: 55.2kmh (down Old South Head Rd.)

B: 13km