A good walk

Boxing day was another quiet day, Number 1 son and his girlfriend disappeared remarkably early and left me at home with very little to do. The weather was no inspiring, one of those mixed days with a bit of rain , a bit of sun, a bit of cloud but an awful lot of wind.

I was thinking about going for a ride today but the weather was just so off putting and I was going to ride on my own so I decided to can it. As my wife’ car was in the car park at work and I had eaten and drank too much over the past few days I decided to walk the 16.5 kms into work and get the car. I loaded up on mp3s and started to walk in. I did have a backup plan of catching a bus if I got too bored by the whole thing.

I was also keen to stop at the camera shop on the way, my expectation for it to actually being open on this public holiday was not high, and that expectation was met ! I was kinda disappointed as I was going to buy myself the “nifty fifty” Canon 50mm 1.8 lens as it is so cheap. There is always another day.

I made it all the way in to town OK, got a small blister on the top of one of my toes from not wearing socks, but apart from that I was felling good.

I spoke to my wife and son in Australia and had a quick word with my mother-in-law as well. She has taken a turn for the better again and has been eating and drinking well for the first time in 3 days. I am not sure how I feel about this as it is inevitable she is not going to come out of hospital, and she is having more bad days than good, but you do not wish the end on someone. The good news in this was the family over there were able to have Christmas together, even though it was day late.

After dinner I drove out to Piha to get some low light long exposure shots of the water and the rocks and maybe catch a decent sun set. It was really windy out there is as expected but I did find a reasonable sheltered spot and took a dozen or so shots before the rain started to seriously threaten and I went back to the car. There was no sunset to speak of.

When I got home I somehow stuffed up the copy of the files from my camera to my laptop and deleted the whole lot. Hopefully I can recover with some file recovery software that someone suggested to me today, otherwise I will have to head back out there again tonight.

So no photo today !

A quiet Christmas

Christmas day was very different this year, when I woke at 6.00 there was no one home but me, no children piling in wanting to open presents, no surly teenagers not wanting to be roused, no wife to make coffee for and wish happy Christmas with a kiss. Just (not so) little ol' me.

I got up early and had a coffee and surfed the net for a while before breakfast, more coffee and some quality time with the new William Gibson novel “spook country” that I have loaned from the library. This is a damn fine book, and worth the, never ending, wait for a new Gibson.

My two eldest and I had plans to head up to Mangawhai to join my sisters family and my mother for lunch. They arrived on time and we had a small exchanging of gifts, saving the bulk of the gift giving to when my wife and youngest child return from Australia.

The drive to Mangawhai was worse than I expected, Christmas day is supposed to be quiet on the roads, at more than one point we were stopped on the motorway and the run through Orewa was as slow as any summers day. It was a quiet time at the caravan, we ate, we exchanged gifts, we huddled under gazebo to avoid the semi-constant rain. A reasonable typical Christmas day in Auckland. The kids and I went up to the surf beach but the surf was awful and not worth the effort of getting wet for.

After an early dinner we left for home and at a toilet stop in Orewa I took a couple of pictures of the Norfolk pines, I am trying to get am in camera blur action going but have not had much success yet, though today’s efforts were an improvement. The picture below, which I happen to really like was blurred in Photoshop.



I am thinking of getting this printed large for the lounge as I really like it, though it would be interesting to see how well it comes out in a large size, it may need to be lightened a touch.

Christmas Eve

Well, here I am, Christmas morning and I am sitting alone in bed with my computer on my lap typing up a blog entry listening to Diary of Dreams. My wife and youngest son are in Australia with her dying mother, my oldest son is staying the night at his girlfriends and my daughter is flatting. At least they will be coming here later this morning and we will all head up to Mangawhai to spend the afternoon with my sisters family and mum.

My love for photography and my belief in myself as a photographer go through a fairly regular up and down cycle. The ups ae ususally bought on by taking one or a set of pictures I really like and then downs by the lack if being able to see anything at all. One of my Flickr friends has just posted a small set of images taken from Murawai the other night. I look at her pictures and I wonder if we went to the same place, here is a link to one of her shots. Eva's photos always inspire me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/czakusia/2132295179/

What I find most frustrating is I walked past this scene on the way back to the car but was busy talking to someone and did not stop for a while, I even looked at the rocks and the sun and thought about stopping but did not. This is the key difference between being a good and a bad photographer. Taking those opportunities to stop and photograph the possibilites. Some days I could just kick myself.

Yesterday was an OK day at work, averagely busy though there was a real sense of disinterest through out the office. Fortunately we all got to leave early and I walked around to some friends house for a drink and some food. Had a pleasant evening talking shit and they offered to drive me home.

I had a couple of “where are you, and when are you coming home texts” from number 1 son and he told me he was going to wait at home till I got there and then disappear to his girlfriends for the night as he wanted to give me his Christmas present.

All I could really say was wow ! He had made us a coffee table at work. It has been beautifully constructed from hard wood, with a top of inlayed wood. It really is a magnificent piece of work and I was so proud of what he had done. Like his late grandad he is a real craftsman.

Here is a quick shot of it I took last night.

A Big Sunday

Yesterday afternoon I gave the single speed some love and attention, well I oiled the chain at least and today I took it out for its first Woodhill spin in a while. The bike behaved Ok, though I did have to adjust the chain tension once to stop the wheel rubbing on the chain stay. I must get that wheel straightened (or replaced).

The day started out beautifully and I planned on getting along to the waterfront later in the day for a light run and a quick swim, but as usual it all turned to custard late morning with a nice down pour at Woodhill while we were sucking down post ride coffees. Fortunately that was it for rain but the day was not conducive to the first swim of the summer.

We had a good ride, there was three of us in the group and we maintained a reasonable pace, I was the pace setter so I thought it was reasonable anyway. We rode Back road, Upland, Lightening, Haggis, Link and back to the car park, In was really happy with the ride up Upland and the length of Haggis, I kept a reasonably even pace, not terribly slow and managed to ride the whole thing quite comfortably, which did surprise me. I expected to struggle a bit more than I did. Though it was not a huge ride or a fast ride I was really pleased with the outcome as I was not trashed at the end. Back Road is riding nicely, I did quite a bit of work on that trail before I got sick and am quite keen to go back and change a couple of sections at some stage.

I was planning on doing very little until late afternoon and then attempting a 10k run followed by a swim at high tide. Some of the Flickr folk decided to head up to Murawai for some sun set shots so I took an early 9km run from Lopdell House to the end of Exhibition drive and back. The idea was test my fitness after a ride and a run the day before. I just managed to get back to the car, it was really hot and it was a slow run, but at least I proved to myself I am getting fitter.

Shot up to Murawai for some sun set photography but the sun and cloud were not coming to the party so there was not a lot of sunset action happening. I did get a couple of shots of the gannets and this was the best effort.


I have also downloaded a bootleg of the recent Led Zeppelin reunion gig. It is not too bad so far.

I had a chat with my wife in Australia tonight, her mum seems to have improved slightly from this morning, however the prognosis is not that good for her lasting much past Christmas. We are all just waiting for the end to come now.

All up it was a pretty busy day and I was quite glad to go to bed in the end. Oh yes - I have the new William Gibson - Spook Country - from the library, another good reason to get to bed early.

Food glorious food

The fourth day of the steps was hard work, I struggled to the top, if I had been walking with some one else and they suggested a break I would have taken it!.

I am reasonably pleased with how things have gone, I have done the steps every day this week, I have run and ridden and that is a whole lot more than I have been doing for the past three to four months.

We had our team Christmas lunch on Thursday and then drinks on Friday. I missed the Friday steps and ate far too much over those 2 days. I got some very nice chocolates from the secret santa so have been pigging out on those as well. With my entire family away from home at the moment there is not a lot else to do in the evenings after a couple of drinks at work 

Saturday was a quiet day, Number 1 son did not appear home from his girlfriends place so I did the house work, picked up a gift for my aunty as she is having a Christmas BBQ this afternoon.

I did get out for a run, Exhibition drive yet again. I run this stretch of road as it is quiet and familiar, I know every bend in the road and can monitor my fitness accordingly. I took a slow start and maintained the slow pace for the first half, but it felt good, the best I have felt since the surgery. My ankle was stiff for only a short time and I finally got into a good breathing rhythm and stayed there for the whole 3.25km. The return leg I moved the pace up a bit and again ran well for the whole leg, and knocked almost 2 minutes off of the first leg time. I was really pleased with the run and was not too knackered afterwards.

I intend on running again tomorrow after the bike ride.

I went to Aunty Lyn’s for the Christmas BBQ, it was an Ok evening, I am not big on family events, and I was driving so was not able to drink, which was probably good for my fitness, but I ate too much instead. I got home early and spent a quiet Saturday night in bed reading and eating nice chocolate.

I have not taken any photos for a week, my inspiration goes when there is no sun.

First Wednesday evening ride

With Deana and youngest son away in Australia I am at liberty to pretty much do what I like when I like. It is not that I have any restrictions on my time but I do get a wee bit guilty every now and then when I go straight from the office to the mountain bike park.

When I left work I had a guilt free and loud trip up the motorway to the forest. The traffic was amazingly light and I ended up at the end of the motorway at least 20 minutes earlier than I expected. I could have gone up to the park and had a warm up ride before my riding buddies arrived, but, oh no, I chose to go to McDonalds for 2 chicken cheese burgers. Ok they are small and cheap and nice, but I really did not need them and I am not so sure I really enjoyed them either, but they did kill the spare time. Though half the riding crew turned up late so we didn’t get away until 6.45.

I was riding with an old riding friend but one I rarely ride with these days as we are in to different styles of riding. I have definitely trended to the longer cross country ride and he has moved into the short ride with lots of time spent sessioning the jumps and other stunts that litter Woodhill forest.

I took the Cindercone out again, though I had planned on riding the single speed. I am down to one comfortable seat and did not get a chance to swap it over before I left. The Cindercone has been riding OK , but the front hub has been on the way out for a while and was making some seriously bad noises by the end of the ride. It is time to retire that bike until I can spend some cash on it. To spend some cash I need to sell the AC first.

The ride was Ok, we rode at a reasonable pace between jumps but did have to stop for a session at each of the various structures. It was good to get some pace going again but in the end I did get frustrated with all the mucking around and left the boys after just over an hour and rode back to the car – which was round about the time my hub made loud clunking noises so I am glad I rode no further.

I definitely going to ride the single speed next time, I think I am strong enough, but it will be slow and painful to start with. I cannot wait to get back to the longer rides.

I took this photo on Sunday. I spent a fruitless hour or so wandering up to and around the domain looking for some tree photos and really found nothing that inspired me. I was early for dinner with friends so took a cruise along the waterfront and stopped for these boat sheds. I like the symmetery in the roofs.

Stairs

Yesterday I started back on the once a day stair climb, though I am on the 18th floor there are only 14 flights of stairs from the main building foyer. I have done this twice now, both times I was puffing like a train at the top of the stairs but I made it in a reasonable time without stopping. My concerns about my loss of fitness are probably not entirely founded. I am in slightly better condition than I thought.

Hopefully I can keep the stair thing going for a while, but I do have a habit of failing to commit to the long term…

I had my second visit to the physio this morning, my ankle seems to be recovering a lot quicker than 3 month ago, the stretching and exercise I am doing seems to be benefiting. It will be great if this rate of progress can be maintained, by the end of January I should be back to full movement.



At the weekend I took a walk up to the Kitikiti Falls out at Piha with the aim of getting a couple of photos. Here is the best of them, I was lucky that the sun was coming through the clouds as I passed this palm

I was going to join the gym

When I finally arrived back in New Zealand after my 7 day hospital stay in Hong Kong I was down to 75kg. This is the lightest I have been for what seems like forever. Even after 5 months of marathon training I only just broke the 80kg barrier around the time of the marathon. With almost 3 months off of any real aerobic exercise I had got back up to 83kg before I was sick. Sadly most or the weight loss was in my legs and glutes, though some body fat did go as well.

Once the cause of the infection was found and the correct anti-biotics given I stopped losing the weight and over the next few weeks started to recover what I had lost in mass, unfortunately it all appears to be gathering around my waist.

I am back into some light exercise again but with Christmas around the corner my diet is not the best either so I will be aiming to manage my weight and fitness until the new year.

I was given an option for another 2 weeks free at the local gym. I dropped in after work last night but it looks like it was going to be too much effort to get signed up after previously having a free fortnight a couple of years back. Given that I had semi-major surgery not that long ago and would be unable to use a lot of the equipment I decided to just stick with light running and riding until I am able to apply some pressure to my trunk.

I went for a light run along Exhibition Drive last night, 6.5 km of unsealed road. It is a nice flat run with no cars and great for getting back into things. I was really humid and warm and I suffered for the first kilometre until my ankle warmed up and I could get into a shuffling rhythm. I had a small amount of pain from my surgery but it was not unbearable and soon went away once I got my breathing sorted. The second half of the run was much easier than the first and I managed a couple of kilometres with a reasonable amount of fluidity. A slow run, but I believe I am getting better each time.

Ressurection ?

I have been considering whether there is any value in resurrecting this blog after a substantial time off. The core purpose again will be to record my training progress in more detail than the spreadsheet, but I will also upload photos if I like them enough.

The last 10 months have been really busy, though I recall there were times I had these monumental periods of boredom when they was just nothing to do or I was too tired to it, from memory these often occurred while I was at work.

So, lets do a quick bullet point wrap up since Feb 27 2007.

• As planned I ran the Rotorua Marathon, I finished on my target time of 4:30 and I was less broken than I expected.

• I took up some off road running with a group of like minded folk and I managed a couple of great runs in the Waitakere Ranges before slipping on a wet rock and spraining my ankle quite badly. This happened in June and 12 weeks of physiotherapy later it was still stiff and often sore.

• I stopped going to physio when the physiotherapist went on leave for a 2 weeks and then I was on leave and then away from work for a week. The plan was to get back to gentle running and riding and coupled with some stretches see if the ankle recovered.

• I had been feeling really flat and lifeless so I took a couple of weeks off of work in September to kick things back off again. The plan was to do some gentle running, so riding, some photography and some mountain bike trail digging up at Woodhill Forest. The holiday started Ok but I ended up getting quite tired and the weather was not that friendly either. I did get half a track built but just ran out of puff.

• My first week back at work in October was to attend a conference in Hong Kong. I was really looking forward to this as I had never travelled to Asia before. I was still feeling flat when I went but ended up feeling really unwell when I got there and 3 doctors later was admitted to hospital with what turned out to be a liver abscess. I spent 7 days in hospital in Hong Kong before being well enough for the 10 hour flight back to NZ.

• After a week back in Auckland I had the abscess removed and was in hospital for a few days. The abscess was 5.5 cm in diameter. I spent about 2 weeks recovering before going back to work for part days and have an 8 inch scar to show for it.

• Going back to work was not too bad, I had a big pile of work to catch up on so kept myself quite busy and attentive. Work were great while I was off, very supportive, let me take the whole month as paid sick leave and flew my wife up to Hong Kong for 2 days which was great (insurance paid for the flights, but that was not the point !)

• I was about to start back working full time when my father got quite sick. What started out as a tooth ache ended up within 10 days as a fatal infection. My father had always been a fit man and had not had blood tests for decades. It turned out he had a blood disease (not leukaemia) and his body was not making while blood cells, or very good red cells either. The infection that had spread from his tooth to his throat was too much for his body to cope with and he passed away at 3:35 AM on Tuesday 13 November. I do, and will, miss him greatly.

• To add to the family dramas my mother in law is also ill with cancer. My wife and youngest son have gone over to Australia’s Gold Coast where she lives to be with her, probably until the end.

• I have started back into some gentle exercise. I lost 8kgs when I was sick, but it was mainly muscle, though some fat fell off. I have mostly recovered the weight but it is all around my waist… My fitness is well down on this period last year and with Christmas coming up I really do not expect to see major improvements until the new year, though I will try and be sensible.

• I started back at physio again last week, my ankle seized up again while I was sick and I have far less movement in it than 2 months ago. The physiotherapist is going to give it until the end of January before deciding on any long term options.

I have taken quite a few photos in tha past 12 months, well over 3,000, some of them I have even liked and kept. I was going to be part of a small local exhibition which was to have taken place last weekend but fortunately it was postponed while my father was sick, which was a great relief as I was starting to stress about it a bit.

I am now looking at my event options for 2008 and have to toss up between mountain biking and running again. I was going to dedicate 1 year to running, but have a bit of a bug and only managed to 6 months before injury and sickness prevented me from carrying on. I will decide in January when I have had a good idea of what my ankle is likely to do, but I have had this idea seeded in my mind.

http://www.keplerchallenge.co.nz/

Personally I think it is a stupid idea, but possibly a goal to strive for. I thought 42k on the road was long enough !

So this could be a new training log for 2008, or this could be the last post…

Cathay Pacific Half Marathon

As I was unsure of the start times, number of runners and walkers and the process for registering the Cathay Pacific half marathon I was up at 5.00 AM for my usual pre-run breakfast of two slices of toast and an instant coffee. I was out the door by 5:30 and on site at the start line at Okahu Bay by 6.00, thirty minutes before the late registration office opened.

Once I had bought myself a coffee from an all night café and got my self registered it seemed I had been over cautious! But I did get a park by the finish line which was great as I could have ended up an easy kilometer away later on.

The event is informal with no results taken, plus the start time for the 2 hour half marathoners was officially 8.30 and I was not going to hang around for 2 hour. As it is such an informal event you can pretty much start when you like, so I watched a couple of runners go off with the walkers at the official event start time of 7.00 and elected to run at 7.30 which was what I was guessing would have been the start time for the runners anyway.

I had a good start, as always faster than I wanted, though I was felling good for the first 8Km’s and played tag with another couple of runners which kept the motivation going. I was running a few seconds faster than my planned pace and I think that did not server me well later on, though I was reasonably cautious. By local standards this is quite a hilly half and I was feeling good up the first few climbs taking advantage of the water stops with a brief walk while I drank the water down. The morning was quite warm even at that time of day and by the time we hit the waterfront again at Kohi I was soaked and suffering a bit from chafing. The last 4kms were tough, even though it was dead flat with a mild tail wind I struggled to finish. Normally I can put in a fast last kilometer but I just had nothing left for this one. The lack of sleep, the amount of training in the past week and the complete lack of carbo loading finally caught up with me in the run. I finished in 2:01 which is 1 minute out of my target time. I was disappointed yet happy with the time given the bad build up to the race.

There is one more half to do before the full and I hope to complete that run a lot quicker than this one.

There are some big training weeks coming up over the next month so diet and sleep are going to be essential, I am a bit concerned with the chaffing issue as well as I am using an ant-chafe cream.

Sunday afternoon I went out to a free concert in Huia, I saw Tahuna breaks and a bit of Ddub. Both reggae/blues style. It was a great show and I took a couple of shots.

Tahuna Breaks


Ddub




I Reloaded the MP3 player today with a broad mix of pop and a small smattering of punk and metal ready for the next long run. I plan to run home from work on Wednesday night, 17kms. It is going to be tough as I am not great straight after work.

Back into the training

On Monday night youngest had a kayaking and BBQ evening with scouts out at Cornwallis Wharf. I decided to run out there from home after work as a penance for not training for a while and to kick my training back off again.

The run is only 15km but there are a couple of quite tasty climbs with a very steep climb in the middle to contend with. Naturally the evening was warm! One of the girls at work had recently leant me one of those running belt thingies with 4 small water bottles on it, so I filled a couple of those with tap water and left home. I struggled to begin with but soon got into a rhythm up Titirangi Rd and through Exhibition drive. I kept the pace right down due to the heat and my lack of running though I was soon sweating like mad, I kept up a low fluid intake from about 30 minutes of running and I do think that made a difference. I managed to jog all the way up the ‘hill’ which pleased me as it is damn steep and is 10km into a hilly run. The rest of the way is not too bad, one other climb which is easy compared to the ‘hill’ and the last two kms are pretty much down hill. The run took 1:40 which I was happy with considering my two weeks off and this was the hilliest run I have done and even better I was not utterly broken at the end.

I was looking forward to jumping in the sea for a cool down swim when I arrived but the tied was miles out and I did not fancy a 100 metres slog through the mud to get me knees wet, so a disappointing end to a decent run.

I have decided to go back there one evening, my car ! when the tide is high and take some photos

I had Tuesday off and did a quick 8km block run on Wednesday night, I started off slow and then picked the pace up through the middle, I was feeling the effects of Monday night and the heat by the end though. When I got home and checked the time I saw that I had posted one of, if not the, fastest times for the Godley/Portage/Astley/Taupo loops.

I took the camera to work on Friday as I had seen a bit of street 'theatre' I wanted to shoot on Wednesday and I was it was still there. It was and here it is, I also liked these jandals !

My next run was on Friday night, again it was warm, I think warmer than Monday and I left fairly soon after work for a 13km loop from home up through Titirangi and Exhibition drive again, but this time I turned round at the end and ran home. I managed a good pace up the hill to Titirangi and was feeling pretty strong at the top so decided to keep the pace going and see if I could do a good time. I felt good all the way though to end with a slower patch in the middle to ‘save myself’ for the finish. I have not checked thoroughly back through my records but my time of 1:09 was the fastest I have found. I was utterly soaked in sweat by the time I got home as well which was rather unpleasant !

After the run on Friday night Deana and I watched “Thank you for smoking” – what a great film, found it so funny, especially as I am an ex-smoker. The best movie I have seen for a while.

Saturday I was up early (but not as bad as Friday when I was up at 6.00 to take number 1 son to work) and on the road to Tauranga where the office was moving locations, at least 100 metres up the road. The day went well, bit of down time in the middle of the day when I should have fed better than 2 bits of cold pizza (in hindsight !). I had all tasks done and was out of there for the drive home at 8.00 PM and home by 10:30 which was good. As I was home early enough I decided I would do the Cathay Pacific Half Marathon the following day. Wish I had eaten better…..

The weekend

With tapering for the first half marathon and then flying to Australia and spending 4 days lounging around eating and drinking and then coming home to 4 incredibly busy days I have not run for two weeks. This has really stuffed my training plan up completely. I seemed to have not gained much weight which is good, but I must have lost some of the fitness I was building. I hope to get out for a decent run tonight and back into a regular rhythm again this week. The two friends who were also planning on running the marathon have pulled out which is a real bummer as I was going to look to them as training partners once the KMs start to build over the next few weeks.

The weekend was really busy, I had planned on running on both days but it just did not happen. Saturday started with youngest’s softball match, straight to the supermarket on the way home, picked up my wife from the airport and then straight to a friends child’s 1 year birthday. Home from there to prepare food for a BBQ at our house with some friends to welcome my wife home after almost a month away.

Sunday morning I was up early and off to watch the senior and junior classes at the Auckland round of the National MTB XC champs at Riverhead, I could not stay for the pro-elite class sadly as I wanted to doing something with youngest. The racing was good, very warm and the people I knew who were racing did very well, two firsts and a second placing. After the racing I shot home and picked up youngest and a mate and took them snorkeling at Goat Island. The place was jam packed, I have never seen it so busy, the tide was way out as well so it was quite shallow. Plenty of marine life around though and the water was remarkably clear. The trip home was slow due to traffic so it was straight in and cooking dinner so that there was food on the table when my wife got home from work. Straight after dinner we were out for half an hour at a friend of our daughters 18th birthday BBQ. Home knackered….

Bought a Decendents CD on Friday – how the hell did I manage to miss them for so long… Been listening to a lot of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry as well lately, I am quite into that bass heavy post-punk/early goth sound at the moment.

Gold Coast trip

It has been an interesting two weeks since the last post.

The first few days I did not do much that was post worthy, was really busy at work, did a couple of light training runs in preparation for the Pukekohe half marathon and didn't go out taking photos. Youngest did start his first year at high school, he seemed to enjoy it and is in a class with one of his good mates which is cool.

On the Friday morning I had the call from my wife that I had been waiting on, that my father in law had passed away peacefully in his sleep and the funeral was on Tuesday. I spent most of Friday arranging flights and places for youngest son to stay and booked myself a trip to the Gold Coast for Sunday morning returning on Wednesday night. Sunday was going to be my first half marathon of the season and a part of my training program, but as always, family comes first. The following Saturday was manic with youngest’s softball, shopping and work.

Sunday morning I was the airport at 7.00 AM for a not bad flight to Brisbane airport, I was met by my wife and brother in law who had just landed from a flight from Canberra. It was great to see my wife again after over 3 weeks. The next couple of days passed in a blur of shopping, lounging around, cleaning out the garage at my father in laws, getting utterly soaked by the rain and eating and drinking loads of wine. I took a few photos, but the weather was not kind, very heavy rain and I was juts not geared up to get myself and my camera gear too wet.

Rainy in Paradise



The funeral on the Tuesday passed with out a hitch and the wake was held at my mother in laws house, it was a small quiet affair. I took a few photos for one of my brother in laws who was on his way to Ecuador and un able to attend. The following day my wife and I were up around 4.45 AM and drove down to Surfers for a walk along the beach, a big breakie and a swim in the sea. The surf was crap sadly, but the walk and breakfast was great !





Soon after that I was back on the plane and flying back to New Zealand. My plane was delayed so I did not get home until after 2 AM and I was up at 7.30 the next day when youngest came home from his friends house for breakfast and to get ready for school.

Riverhead ride

Today was Waitangi day in NZ, bizzarely we have a public holiday on a Tuesday, I am not complaining though.

Even though youngest only came back from two and half weeks in Australia on Sunday he was off today with a friends family to go snorkelling up at Goat Island. I decided to go ride at Riverhead with a bunch of other Vorbers.

The forecast was for rain but it was a reasonably sunny, though windy morning. The six of us in the group and we decided to ride the Roadside trail we cleared a couple of weekends ago and then do the BikeParks loop and Eagles Nest trails. I havent ridden BikeParks for ages and have never done Eagles Nest. For a change I took the AC, the idea being on the AC I would get to hills and just say stuff it and walk up them, thus saving myself for the hlaf marathon this coming Sunday. This will mean I have ridden all three bikes in the last 10 days which is excellent.

The Roadside trail was OK, I would have liked to have done it last as Iit always takes me a while to get into the rhythm for twisty downhill tracks, especially riding the AC after riding a hard tail for a while. The first section of the BP trail is quite fun, down hillish with a couple of sharp pinch climbs that catch you out, the trails were really dry in most places with a couple of small holes as always at Riverhead. I made it half way up the road climb before quitting, only one rider made it all the way up, all three times. Eagles nest is a cool little trail off to the side with a couple of small jumps and steeper sections, we rode it twice which meant we had to do the climb a few times. Worth it. We then rode the rest of the parks trail back to the car park. A fun little ride, good group to ride with, not too fast and not too slow.

These are some photos from one of the other riders, on the climb I am the blob half way up the hill.
Me appearing at the bottom of Eagles Nest.

After the ride I was going to join the two oldest kids at Groove in the Park, a three stage dance music concert at Western Springs. I got a park about 2k from the gate which was better than I expected. My plan was to sift around and take some photos of the some of the bands. After queuing to get in for about 30 minutes and barely moving and with time slowly disappearing and rain clouds appearing over the horizon I gave up and went home. The main act I wanted to see was on at 6.15 and I had to be at friends for dinner at 6.30 so it was not worth hassle.

On recommendation from some blog I read I am listening to some free tracks from the Dismemberment Plan's web site, they are really cool. While do I only hear of these bands a few years after they split ?

Piha trip

After the ride on Saturday I expected a good sleep that night but it just didn’t happen, no real surprise there I guess.

On Sunday I was up earlyish and on the road ready to run by 7.30 it was another great day, no wind at all and warm but not too hot. I parked at Kohi again and ran back towards town. I kept to a slow pace again and was reasonably consistent all the way to the bottom of the hill into the domain. The domain climb was Ok, I didn’t really struggle though my calves were a bit tight on the way up. The run down was not too bad and the return to the car was a bit of a struggle, I faded a bit about the 12-13k mark, which used to be fairly common for me in the past but I have been pretty good with my runs so far this time. I did half perk up for the finish which was pleasing. I was pretty broken at the end though. I was expecting this after the ride yesterday, so I was not overly unhappy. The tide was in again so I had a refreshing dip before driving home. One week to the first half marathon, so I will drop a couple of the runs from the training plan this week and taper a bit.

In the afternoon I picked youngest son up from the airport as he has come back from Australia ready to start school on Thursday, it will be his first day at high school.

Today was another good day, youngest and I went out to Piha for a swim late morning and the surf was just PERFECT for body surfing, I must have caught 20 waves, it was magic. We stayed in the surf for about an hour and by then the tide had gone out to far for the break to remain even and sized enough for a good body run. May well go back tomorrow.

Listening to some old Stone Roses today, damn they were good.

I snapped this shot of some rubbish bins on the way.

Rotorua ride

The great weather has continued through out the week though the wind has not yet dropped. El Nino summer means it probably will be windy for a while.

I had a good run after work on Thursday, did another 10ker along the waterfront, warm evening again and the wind had shifted so it was not so telling but it still had an impact in a couple of places.

After work last night I went up to One Tree Hill to take some pictures and try and get a decent sun set shot. It was horrendously windy there and the sun set was not too exciting so I went home for another quiet night in alone.

Today I was up early with the intention of remotely booting a server and then driving to Rotorua for a ride with a few Vorb guys. My plan was to leave 45 minutes earlier than I need to and take some photos of anything that caught my eye in the early morning sun on the way. Unfortunately the remote reboot didn’t work and I had to go into the office and physically restart the box. This pretty much screwed my photography plans ! Apart from a couple of bad patches I had a good ride down to Rotorua, I stopped to take a photo of this shack. I have been wanting to take photos of it for years as it has been decaying for a long time. I plan on snapping it every time I go down.



Had a great ride with 3 guys and a girl from Wellington and 1 from Tauranga. We rode the road to A trail and then Tickler and then ground and in my case walked to the top of Hot Cross Buns (HXB), I am struggling to climb on the DMR at the moment, the climb is averagely steep and has a spongy loose surface and I find it too hard to maintain traction on the SS. Easier to walk ! HXB is riding sweetly, it has been fairly cut up as they are now shuttling up there so there are a lot more riders going up now, I had a bit more fun as the rear brake pads are worn out, I hucked one small jump and almost went off the side of the track as I just about failed to slow enough to get round the following corner. The guys sessioned the jumps at the end of HXB for a while and I took a couple of photos.





After HXB we rode up to the Rollercoaster, which is rapidly becoming one of my favourites, through Chinese menu (Chop Suey, Spring Roll and Sweet and Sour) not bad trails though the Sour bit is a bit of a grind. These take you back to the top of Be Rude Not Too, which is a favorite, the trail is just so quick, fairly flowy with a couple of nice little drops to get some air under the tyres. Tauranga rider left us for the car park at the start of Diamonback. It is a toss up which is the better trail out of Diamondback and BRNT, though I bottomed by forks on an early drop and broke my speedo cable, third cable broken… I lost the rest of the guys while I tried to sort out so kinds sifty rode the rest of the trail, nailing it on the berm sections though as you just have to…

We stopped for lunch at Zippy’s Café which was damn good and then I made the two and half hour drive home happy and pretty tired.

18k run tomorrow morning !

Piha photo visit

I had a good run on Tuesday night. I was thinking about running along the waterfront after work but there was a very strong westerly blowing so I decied to go home and run Exhibition drive as it is a bit more sheltered. I drove up to Titirangi and parked outside Lopdell House and ran up Kohu St to Exe drive and then abck around to Titirangi again. All up I guess it was closer to 9km than 8km, and it had a nice gentle hill to start. The training program really kick in from this weekend with an 18km run this Sunday and increasing over the next few weeks as well as an extra run per week. I am really going to have to manage those rest days.

Last night after work, mowing the lawn and cooking dinner I went out to Piha to take a few photos as the sun was settings. I took a whole bunch of shots on different settings and tonight I will sit down and work out what settings had the best effect for the light.

Here are the best two shots.

Todays Photo

Yesterday was Auckland Anniversary day and a day off work, it was also a training rest day so I did not do any real exercise. On Sunday night the rain that had been forecast for the weekend finally arrived, around 30 minutes after I had watered the tomatoes... It rained again first thing yesterday morning but soon after the rain cleared we had another glorious day. I visited friends and then drove around Titirangi in the late afternoon snapping a few shots.

Here is my favourite from the day, it is the main door to Lopdell House in Titirangi village.

Parahaki ride

I had another crappy sleep last night, slightly achy from the day, but it was so hot. At least I was up reasonably early and on the road on time for my drive up to Whangarei. The weather was again beautiful, though again the forecast was for cloudy and showers. As I was making good time I stopped for a coffee in Welsford and too take a couple of photos by the oil refinery at Marsden Point. Te photos were a waste of time but I did get some quite good shots at two ‘sail’ statue thingies outside of town.

Sail


I was meeting an old Vorb buddy, Geoff, at the information centre and snapped some graffiti while I waited. We had a short drive to the trails at Parahaki and I was really looking forward to riding there for the first time. The trails are mainly in a forested area of the park and are very exposed, so the clay surface is as hard as concrete. The riding was pretty good, mix of short XC and freeride trails, though we took most of it slowly as I was on a rest day and Geoff is recovering from an injury. We had a good ride and over two and half hours covered most of the trails in the park.

The Cindercone at Parahaki



Some of the trail network


Geoff on the final climb back to the car

I forgot to put sun tan lotion on and ended up getting a little bit burnt on the ride.

On the way back to Auckland I snapped a few more photos and stopped for a quick swim at Uretiti.

The drive was not too bad on the way home, until I hit the big hill north of Maharangi when the traffic just stopped, it too over an hour to cover the next 12 or so KM’s to the highway, it was very frustrating.

Earning some trail karma

I had a good run this morning. I had another lousy nights sleep, one of the worst in a string of bad sleeps, but I felt Ok when I got up and was down at St Heliers ready to run 16 km around 8.00 AM. The first 8km went really well and I sat on an almost completely even 5:45 minutes per km. This will be my approximate marathon pace if I can sustain it and I was pleased that I was so consistent without really putting my effort into pace management. On the return 8km I managed to complete a fast km and a slow km all the way back. My return journey was again 4 minutes faster than the way out, very happy with the negative split again. All up I was running for 1:31 which was slightly faster than last week, which is again pleasing, though I did not stop for a drink and a wee like last week. The conditions were great, low humidity, no wind, though further towards town the temperature was showing as 24 degrees.

The tide was miles out this morning, I tried to get in for a swim, but after wading out 50 metres though sticky mud and only being knee deep I gave up and had cold shower on the beach.

I took the photo below from the end of the run, you cannot say that view is bad here.



After a quick feed and an hours ‘rest’ at home, I drove up to the Freeriden bike shop to go out with a few of the guys to do some trail clearing at Riverhead forest. 5 of us cleared the Roadside track which was getting quite overgrown with gorse and cutty grass. I appropriately wore jeans to a track clearing day on the hottest day of the summer. It was an uncomfortable few hours ! I got pretty dehydrated as well, I only took a single drink bottle and that was just not enough. Still it was pretty good to get earn some trail karma !

Hopefully I will sleep well after the running and trail work today, tomorrow I ride.

Here is a shot of the track entrance !



The Gorsenator in action


Some cleared trail.

The wedding.

Riding buddy’s wedding was an enjoyable affair. The ceremony was in his(their) lounge and was attended by 12 people. The photography went OK, I was not overly impressed with many of the shots, but it was quite a tricky environment for a beginner. A narrow room with the ceremony taking place in front of glass doors to the outside. The light was not photography friendly. The best shots were at the reception when I got the couple outside for a bit. They are going to have a second, larger function later in the year when they have time to organise something. I will be able to get more photos then.

I did have a 2-3 glasses of wine as well, it could have turned into a session as the reception finished around the time most people knock of work for a friday drink, but I decided to just go home for a dull night in by myself.

Anyway it was cool to see them married and happy

The best shot I took of the day was this one below, I was looking at the back of the town house for possible shooting locations and spotted this reflection as I walked through the garage.

I got my laptop back

The good news this week is I got my repaired laptop back before the long weekend and the even better news was they did not have to touch the hard drive so all my photos are cool. The plan for weekend is to burn the photos to DVD.

Even cooler is that I have tomorrow off as my biking buddy is getting married. It will be a small ceremony at his house followed by a lunch. I am snapping some shorts and will print and frame the best as as a gift, what else can you get two people who have most things ? With my wife away, wedding gift shopping was always going to be traumatic.

And to cap all the this off Monday is a public holiday in Auckland

I have set my self up a page on Flickr.com and will start to upoad some shots there over the weekend, once I am happy with how it works.

Had a scheduled 10k run tonight. I went straight after work and ran along the waterfront from the city end towards Mission Bay. It was not a bad run, very very warm and quite a strong westerly blowing, but I again started off slowly for the first 5km and then did 3 1k high HR runs on the way back to the car. I was extremely hot by the time I finished, but happy with my 57 minutes.

I broke my non-drinking rule and went to the grooms house to bless him with a wee scotch before heading home with my nicely rebuilt and cleaned laptop. I will have a few dribks tomorrow at the wedding, but I have a big weekend planned if the weather defies the bad forecasts, with a 166km run followed by track building on Saturday and a 3 hour drive to Whanagarei for a ride on Sunday. Monday is rest day !

I am reading "One train later" Andy Summers autobiography, it is OK, fairly interesting but he is a bit of a nob. Great guitarist though, so I am listening to a bit of The Police tonight.

Tonight I have been playing with the basic software that came with my camera. This is the best effort, I called if "Lifeguards in Space", though it has lost a bit of detail in the small format

Comet McNaught or not

Ironically after all the drama with the car over the weekend, I had it booked in for a service and warrant of fitness check yesterday. Apart from the horn not working, which I knew about, everything else was fine and the car is back in my possession, freshly serviced and warranted.

As it was not too hot when I got home form work I decided to get out for my scheduled 8km run. I drove up to Titirangi and ran up past Mt Atkinson and then along Exhibition drive and back the normal way to Titirangi. The run is probably closer to 9km than 8, but it didn’t have as much hill as I guess it should have, but I was still feeling the effects of the Waharau ride a bit. The sun came back out half way along and it did get quite warm, mixed with the humidity it was a sweaty run. I kept to a slow pace to start and sped up for the return so my return time was again faster than the first leg. This is something I am going to be focusing on as well as keeping to a slow, low HR run, though again I did push it a bit on the way back to the car. I am going to really have to try and keep to low HR runs as I am feeling quite worn out again this morning and I have only barely started on building the training miles. I was considering a ride tonight but I think I will rest up instead.

After the run and a dinner of reheated leftovers from Sunday night (tonight I have reheated leftovers from Monday night) I decided to go out to Piha to try and get a photo of Comet McNaught which has been seen in the skies about 9.00 – 9.30 PM. There have been a few photos in the newspaper so I thought I would have a go and Piha was a recommended spot. I got about half way there, as far as the Anawhata Rd when I could see that there was heavy low cloud hanging over the edges of the ranges. At that point I decided to turn back and try the lookout at Arataki. I stopped and took a few photos of a tree in the fog, I have bracketed a range of speeds to see what works best. Here is the shot I like best.

I got to Arataki about 8.45 and there were half a dozen people there. I set up the camera and tripod in a likely spot and snapped a few sun set shots while I waited. Again I snapped a hole load with different manual settings to see what came out best, though I haven’t had a good chance to review in detail yet. Here is the best of those shots.


By 9.30 there would have been 100 people on the lookout and sadly I was in the wrong spot to see the comet. I moved down towards the car park where it could be seen, but there was too much wind and too many cars to be able to take a long photo. I did get to see the comet and it was all very unexciting. I went home.

There are some shots of the comet here

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=000568BF-464C-15B3-81A783027AF1010F

I had an email from my wife, youngest is coming home on the 4th of Feb, though it sounds like her father might not make it that far so I could be over sooner rather than later.

A day working from home

Due to stolen house keys and the damage to the car I decided to work from home today. Luckily I have employers who support this to some degree so there was no real dramas, but I was missing a few things I needed to really be effective. Luckily the good news is I get my lappie back on Wednesday and nothing lost. I am so pleased, not having music at work was killing me !

The locksmith came fairly early in the day, and it only cost me $135 to get the barrell changed and 6 new keys cut. It was less than I expected to pay but of course more than I wanted to.

The car window was not in stock so I could not take the car to the window place until 4.00 which was a pain. It was also too far from the mall or anything interesting so I wandered up to the supermarket and went for a 40 minute walk to kill the hour and a bit it took them to replace the window and clean the car. At least insurance covered it all which was cool.

I really didnt want to do that much exercise today as it was supposed to be a rest day, but I did walk real slow :)

Youngest son might be coming back from Australia this week, not yet decided but he could be here on Thursday. He is away at a Christian rock festival with a school friend all weekend if he is back, but I am not sure what I will do next week when he is off school and I am at work. I would take some time off work but my one and only staff member is off for the whole of Feb. He is old enough to leave for a few hours, but I am not having multiple 13 year olds running around unsupervised for a whole day.

I have discovered that my scales are completely nuts unless I lost 1.4 kgs while having a shower today. I knew they went up and down over a day or so, but assumed that was related to sweat loss and how much I ate or drank during the day. May have to invest in another set. Though weight watching is largely irrelevant. I can see I need to lose some fat, it is just hanging there ! Though I would like to be well under 80kgs before the marathon, which will be easy as I am only slightly over.

It was so nice to be able to listen to the radio all day, such a relief from the relative silence of the office.

3 weeks to the first half marathon and 14 till the marathon...

Photo update from yesterdays ride

I know I could have edited the last post, but I am not expect at mucking around with photos in the blog so decided to add seperately.

Here is a photo of me and the Cindercone from the ride yesterday.



and I still didnt sleep well last night.

Waharau Ride

Today was almost a great day.

I had another crappy sleep last night, so the 16km run, plus early dinner, plus reduced caffeine and a warm bath did not help at all. Perhaps today after a good ride my fortunes may change ? though it is quite humid tonight. Something has to work eventually.

Up early as I was awake, light breakfast of coffee and toast and in the car and off to Waharau, which is about an hour and quarter drive from home on the Firth of Thames. Wharau is part of the Auckland Regional Council park network and one of the few that we are allowed to ride in, and one of two that has tracks worth riding. The loop is short at slightly over 18kms, including 4 km of flat water front road, around a 450m climb over 9km, some lovely twisty ridge line single track in native bush and ending in a wicked double track decent back to the car park. I am sure the whippets could do the circuit quite quickly but for us mortals it is usually a 3 and half hour trip, with time for the slower riders to catch up, mechanicals, view admiring, photos and eating all to be catered for. This is the third year we have had a Vorb ride here, though this year we only had 6 riders down from the 20 or so last year.

Remarkably for a vorb ride we only left 20 minutes late, with a brisk ride along the road to the start of the farm track. There was a howling head and cross wind on the road and I seemed to lead the whole way – teach me for riding the hard tail I guess. Fortunately the hill we were climbing sheltered us from the wind as a long climb into a head wind would have been pretty tough. The track is a semi-overgrown four wheel drive/farm track and is fairly exposed.





The first third of the climb is not too bad, easily rideable for someone like me, the further up the trail the steeper and sketchier the track became with a couple of sections too steep for me to ride and a couple more that no one rode. It took us 2 and half hours to get to the top with numerous stops along the way.




After a quick refuel we lept into some nice twisty tightish single track. Sadly the council have graveled the track in the last year so it was not quite so much fun, and I particular hate riding down loose gravel trails, still it was a hell of a lot fun. There was a lot of vine and fern across the track so parts were fairly jungle. At one point I got ahead to get a couple of single track photos and picked a spot with a nice low hanging vine just to add to the action.




After the ridge line trail we climbed a bit more four wheel drive track before starting the descent back to the carpark. The first couple of km’s are just the most fun, not overly tight, but twisty with lots of short climbs and descents on a nice firm beech leaf littered mud surface, on one short section I clocked 47kmh. The rest of the decent is a bit more open on a narrow four wheel drive track. The whole track is shared with walkers so we were always cautious on the way down, fortunately the only walkers we saw were at a a viewing platform and a trail intersection. The decent takes about 20 minutes and pops you are out right in the car park.

The ride was great. Sadly some scum sucking low down dirty mofo had broken into my car while we out. They smashed the back right side window with such force they put a small dent in the roof of the car. Luckily out of the 5 cars there mine was the only broken into. Even more luckily the morons had missed the $700 zoom lens sitting wrapped in a t-shirt in my riding bag and I had phone and wallet on me. They obviously had no taste in music either as they had been through my CDs and left them all behind… The only thing they took were my house keys, which is a real pain as I will now have to change the damn locks. My car insurance will cover the window but not the locks. I will work from home tomorrow and get the jobs done. Damn shame to ruin a good ride.

The normal after ride is to go to the Kaiui (sp) fish and chip shop for fish, chips and beer. We arrived along with about 20 members of the Mazda MX5 club. The service is slow enough at the best of times so we flagged it and went home. The fish and chips are damn good which is why it is so popular…

I am hoping for a good sleep tonight !

Damn laptop.

Well I have worked in IT for 18 years now and do I listen to my own crap? obviously not! On Wednesday night my laptop died, totally and utterly dead. It is kinda pointing towards a power related failure rather than hard drive, which is good as I had quite a bit of stuff on my hard drive, all my new photos, and a whole bunch of music files. Sadly most of my work related stuff had been back up fairly recently and I had been working files off the server. My training log will be the worse loss as I haven’t copied that over to my data stick for weeks. I also had a half written post from Wednesday to upload as well.

I am working on some POS spare laptop from work, that has a dodgy network connection and the damn wireless seems not like my home wireless set up very much which sucks.

Tuesday night my wife went walking with a friend so I get a ride to the friends house and indirectly ran home from there. The run went up Konini Drive, Scenic Drive to Shaw Rd, along Exhibition Drive to the end then back along the full length of Exe. Through Titirangi and home. I was planning on an 8km ride but it ended up being closer to 10. I kept a nice rhythm on the climb up Konini Drive and the put the pace down on the return leg of Exe and then cruised home. It was not a bad run, very warm again though.

Wednesday I left work early to take my wife and youngest to the airport as they are off to the Gold Coast for a week or four. My father-in-law has terminal cancer and has been given four weeks so my wife has gone over to see him with youngest, leaving me and number one son at home. They have not fixed any time for coming back yet so I will be fending for myself for a while I guess, though youngest starts high school on 7 Feb so her will have to be home by then. I will go over to the Gold coast for the funeral, though that may well depend on when I guess.

After dropping them for their flight I got home in time to pack up the Cindercone and head up to Woodhill for a ride. My early riding buddy was late so I shot out for a quick trip up Powerball, half of Big Mama, down the side of Cookie, down Race face and back to the car park. Early riding buddy was late enough that we only had 30 minutes before the other two riders were coming so we shot up Powerball again and did the first half of Spaghetti and down the road to the top of Raceface and back to the carpark to meet the other two who arrived on time at 7. For me it was back up Powerball for the third time in the evening, each time I was riding more smoothly and getting the gear changes in the right place. It is strange riding a geared hardtail again after 9 months of mostly single speeding. I think I was slower on the climbs than I would have been on the single, as I did try and spin up them rather than standing and hammering away. This was supposed to be a gentle cross training spin ride, but as usual with the guys I was with we got a bit carried away at times and go a bit of pace going. We had a newish guy with us and I kinda forgot about him as we thundered through stage two of Big Mama before realizing we had lost him completely. Fortunately he took a short cut and met us at the end. I do have to realise that not everyone can ride at the same pace as me - please note – I am not that fast….

We then had a quick run down SPCA, I have never ridden this trail on a geared hardtail before, so was interested to see ho fast I could go, I was slower than expected on the AC but I was sure I would get a quick run on the Cindercone, sadly there was a bit of traffic and I got stuck behind slower guys twice, they both kindly gave way and let me pass, but it would have been nice to flow the entire trail. Next time maybe. On the climb out I snapped my chain, I then remembered that I had snapped the chain on its last ride in April last year. My new chain tool was a piece of crap and I couldn’t remove a link with it (now replaced) but one of the guys had one so I was back on the bike for the ride up Link. A ferocious pace was set by our single speeder and in the end I gave up trying to keep up, this was supposed to be a relaxing cross training ride. Just before the top of Link the chain snapped again so I gave up after that. The boys short cutted Cookie and did Race face down and I rolled and pushed he road back to the car. A great ride. I hung round for a chat with some of the other riders for a while and then went home for a lonely meal of left overs as Number 1 son had eaten at his GF’s house.

Thursday was a stunning day, after work and a few house hold chores I headed out for a scheduled 10km run. I got about half way round and I really started to suffer with the heat and with the after affects of last nights ride. I took a short cut and ended up doing a very slow 8km or so. It took quite a while to cool down.

Friday was a rest day – yay….had two good feeds of rice, egg fried rice for lunch at Number 1 BBQ restaurant with the boys from work and a nice chicken korma for dinner courtesy of my riding buddy. Carbo loading for the run on Saturday.

Saturday was a perfect day for running, light cloud, not hot and little wind. I was up at 7.15 and drove to the waterfront after a light breakfast. Todays run was a slow 16km and I was a bit nervous after the bad run on Thursday night. I took 50 minutes to cover slightly over the first 8km, close to six minute KM’s which is my target for the marathon. I kept my HR under 140 for the whole way which was pleasing. On the return 8km I planned on a fast km followed by a slow. I got two reps in before needing to stop for a pee, my HR took a while to get back to normal so I did a 2km slow rep then finished with a fast – HR of around 170 KM a slow and a fast. The return took four minutes less at 46 minutes which I was really pleased with. It was a good run. I finished off with fifteen minutes in the sea to cool down, it was very nice and 8 hours later I am not really feeling much muscle soreness even though I have hardly sat down all day.

After I got home and got the housework done, I purchased a new chain, and replaced the chain tool with a better one and got the Cindercone back up and running for the Vorb ride at Waharau tomorrow. I am really looking forward to that ride and am hoping the weather is going to stay reasonable.

I amstill not sleeping that well, which is really annoying me, hopefully with clean sheets a long run, not much coffee, an early dinner and a bath tonight I can break the cycle.

I really hope I can get my laptop back from the shop early next week. I cannot seem to get the wireless working on this one, I am going to have move the network gear into the lounge so I can surf the net while watching Starship Troopers tonight.


Rock on.

An afternoon at the beach.

Well as always the weather has confounded us ! the forecast was for a showery humid day with winds dying in the late afternoon. The morning was humid and mildly overcast but by lunch time the clouds and wind had gone and the day turned into a stunner. I managed to convince the youngest to drag his sorry ass of out bed at 12:30 and try and hunt down a mate to take to the beach for the afternoon.

We were on the road by 1.00 and after a slow trip out towards Piha we decided to drop down to KareKare beach instead. It was a wise choice, the beach was reasonably empty and the surf was small and even and great for body and boogie boarding. I had a great dip and left in the boys in the surf while I watched from the sidelines and snapped a few photos.

When the boys were done swimming I walked up to a derelict old stone hut on the beach to snap a few more shots. In the end I took about 35 shots today, I was happish with 3. I do love digital cameras !!! My plan for next weekend is just to sit down outside and play with the camera taking the same shot with a variety of different settings to see the effect they all have.

The boys doing what boys do best



















The old beach house




















Graffiti

The Cindercone

Since the beginning of the year I have been really struggling with my sleep, and am feeling quite tired all the time. Physically I do not feel too bad, but mentally I am not the best. I will drop my coffee intake back to one a day again and see if that makes a difference, though my expectations that this will work are not high. After a week of reduced coffee I will go and see a naturopath and try and get some herbal sleep assistance. With all the training I am about to undertake I really do need get some decent sleep in.

Got up at 7.00 this morning and went out for another slow 10k run. I found the run quite tough, it was so humid I was drenched in sweat before half way, though it was not particularily warm. I planned on bounding up the hills again but just didnt have it in me in the end, but for a slow run it was not a bad time.

I had been planning on doing some road miles on the Cindercone and had road tyres on for that reason. I think this was rather a forlorn dream given the amount of running I have to do, though cross training is never a bad idea. Given that I am considering the Waharau ride next weekend, and there was no way my legs would be in any condition to push the SS up that hill I put some dirt tyres back on the Cindercone this morning. I hope to take to the forest Wednesday night after dropping my wife and youngest off at the airport. I havent ridden a geared hardtail for almost a year so it will be interesting to say the least.

Here she is in all her glory, tyred up and ready to go.