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.

The first shot I am happy with

The bad weather continued into the evening and with no plans and Star Wars Episode II on TV entertaining the youngest I started playing with my new camera, checking out some of the functions. Though I have now taken 215 shots - I love digital ! There are only 1 or 2 I actually like. The Youngest has snapped a fair few of the 212 as well, I am happy for him to use the camera as long as he is careful.

Here is my favourite, when I get Photoshop I will clean the flash reflection dots from his eyes.

Running is boring

OK, running is a little bit boring, but not too bad, writing about going for a run is boring however, and I expect reading about someone who has been on a meaningless 5k run is more boring than writing about it. But that is what my life is going to be for the next 3 months as I train for this first marathon.

I could write about work but, man, that is even worse. Photography hasnt really started for me yet, though I hope to get some in this weekend. I have a few projects I am going to focus on - graffiti, bands, blue skies, punk/metal/goth people and imagery, but I will snap anything that is of interest.

Anyway back to the running.

As we were childless after work on Thursday my wife and I decided to go for a run along the waterfront, and she would have a go at 5 kms. We drove back into the city and out to the end of St Heliers beach, at the start of the marked 10 km run. It was quite windy and very humid though it wasn’t raining at least. We took a very slow jog from St Heliers to the traffic lights in Mission Bay and back again, Deana stopped about 100 metres from the end but I made her carry on so she achieved her goal. It was her longest run in many many years and a good achievement.

It was good for me to run slowly, I need to learn how to do this for the longer runs that are coming up soon.

This weekend I have two 10k runs scheduled, the forecast is awful for the whole weekend with strong winds, rain and high humidity set for the next three or four days. I was hoping to get and do something fun with the youngest over the weekend as he will be away for the next couple at least.

As the weather was so pants I got up late and had coffee and toast before heading out for a slow 10km at 8.30. My aim was to take my time and keep the pace down to a bare minimum but pick up the pace for the small climbs scattered along the course. I ran down Godley Rd, up past Craigavon park to Blockhouse Bay, along BHB Rd to Wolverton Rd, back down Portage and up Godley. It took 1 hour 5 and I am guessing it was between 10 and 11k, though I am not overly concerned about time on the slow runs. Tomorrow I am doing a faster 10k and will stick to the tried and true Titirangi Rd loop.

The damn MP3 playing mobile phone had a flat battery this morning, that just sucks, I do like to run to loud music, I have charged it up again for the run tomorrow but I think the battery is screwed. I am going to have buy myself a proper MP3 player I guess.

Having a play with the camera today, Hope to get out to Whatipu or one of the wild west coast beaches tomorrow to get some ‘stormy’ weather photos.

On Friday I finally managed to get a copy of the new Mint Chicks CD “Crazy Yes, Dumb No”. It was voted in numerous productions as one of the albums of 2006 so naturally it sold out, though I expecting it will sit un-played in a few collections. I have only had 1 listen and it is not as loud and fun as the first album “f**k the golden youth, but not too bad at all.

In celebration of listening to loud fast guitar pop (and I try to only listen to vinyl in the house as I cannot play it in the car !) I am listening a couple of early Soup Dragons EP’s. They are very Buzzcocksy, but with their own twist, they are such good EP’s, as is often the case the LP and everything since was crap.

Hog run

The first Loaded Hog run of 2007 took place on Tuesday night, I had brought my running gear into work on the off chance my wife would join me in town for a quick run along the waterfront after work. The weather was vile, windy and wet, so it was no surprise when she did not come in. I was on my way home when one of the guys asked if I was running as he was going to attend, so I made my way to the car to get my gear instead.

As I headed out from the hog for a 5 minute warm up the heavens opened up and it poured down, it was not the most inspiring warm up ever ! The actual race was run with only a small amount of drizzle but the wind was quite strong. The pace was lightening fast and as usual I went out to quickly and was being passed by loads of people by the first kilometre as I started to drop back to the correct pace. I thought I was struggling by the time we hit the half way turn around point but my watch said slightly over 10 minutes which is pretty quick for me. The second half was harder but I kept to a reasonable pace and finished in 22:18 which I was pretty happy with, considering I had run 21k 2 days before. Sadly my work mate beat me !

My father in law has been slowly dying from gall bladder cancer for a while now and we got the message last night that he has 4 weeks left to go. My wife and youngest son are going to head over to Australia next week for a while and spend some time with him. I will head over later for the funeral I guess. Not the best news, but it is good to finally get some closure I guess.

My wife is 11 days into non-smoking and has started some slow jogging. When I got home from work tonight we went out for a slow jog along Exhibition drive. My program has me doing a slow 5 km so we started on that to see how she would go, in the end she turned around at the 2 km mark, but that is a pretty good effort some one who hasn’t run for a while. I cruised on and finished a 5kmer. It was quite humid and warm, but at least it was not raining and windy.

I sat down to load a marathon training schedule into Excel last night. It is quite scary how many klicks I have to run to be ready, I look at this schedule and find it hard to believe I will be able to do it. Slow and steady will be the way to go, I am doing lots of reading on training and rest and diet to keep me motivated and I have 3 half marathons along the way. I just hope my right knee holds out !

I think I will be dropping all riding for the next 3 and half months, the Colville race is out, I cannot train and compete in both events I am just not anywhere near fit enough. Though with wife and youngest in Aussie next weekend I might squeeze in a 21km run on Saturday and do the Vorb Waharau ride on Sunday, slow and easy ride (push up the hills) though. I should get the bike ready this weekend in case.

2007 - the year so far.

Welcome to 2007.

The year so far has been OK. I did not take holiday time from work so have attended the office a few times. I have actually been busier than anticipated so did not get through much of the work I planned. But that is not entirely unusual.

As is tradition in New Zealand the weather over Christmas/new Year is arse, this year was no exception though it was less arse than it could be. On New Years Day we went up to Army Bay to go snorkelling as youngest son (13 years old) has a real bug for it now and Goat Island is too far to go to all the time. The weather was not the best and there was a bit of chop at Army Bay, we could see OK but there was just nothing to see which was a shame. We swam around for 30 minutes before youngest started to get cold – and he has a wet suit as well !. Once we got out of the water and changed it rained really heavily. We went home soon after that !

The following day we took youngest son and his mate down to the Karangaheke gorge, about an hour and a half drive south east of Auckland. The day was much nicer than New Years day and we had a pretty good drive there. The walk is quite nice, includes an old train tunnel that is over a km long plus numerous caves to explore. I took a lot of photos on the new camera but deleted most in the end. The camera is so different to my old SLR from 20 or so years ago, it is going to take me a while to work out all the functions.

I worked the next 3 days.

Last Saturday we went back up to Goat Island for another snorkel, though the sun never really came through the cloud so it stayed quite cool and the water lacked the clarity from two weeks ago. Had a fun snorkel around and came home early.

Sunday I was up at six and down to the waterfront for a 21 km run. The weather was almost perfect for running, light cloud and sunny patches, not too cold, though there was a reasonable breeze that moved around a bit. I parked at the St Heliers and ran from the changing rooms to The Strand, up through the domain, down St Stephens and Gladstone Rds back the The Strand and back along the waterfront to the car. The run went Ok, slower than I would have liked at exactly 2 hours, but I have not run that distance for well over a year and when I did run it I never ran routes with a hill like the domain… The main thing was I did not feel too bad, though I could not have run too much further. After the run I jumped into the sea for a cool down walk and dip before driving home.

For the last four weeks I have been, mostly, following quite a rigorous half marathon training program. I have not seen a program that has you running the distance twice before the event; normally you only ever do most of the distance prior to the big day. I quite like this new program ! In the next week or so I will start to check out the full marathon program as I am going to find that one tough.

My wife finished her degree at the end of last year and is now looking for a job, once she has settled into something I will review my own employment plans.

That’s about if for the start of the year, I have listened to some good music, read a couple of good books, seen some good movies, so all in all considering it has only been 8 days, 2007 has been good. I have some good things lined up, with a Marathon as my key physical goal and getting my photography going again to get my creative side working, rock on 2007. I even plan to ride the bike as much as I can without breaking the training program.

Bought the new Slayer CD as it was only $15, it is not too bad, certainly better than some of the other works. I have been after the last Mint Chicks CD but it was voted CD of the year for 2006 and has been out of stock ever since…

Oh yeah - I am back drinking coffee, though I have managed to keep it to 3 cups a day and only one ‘real’ coffee. The coffee reduction didn’t help my lack of sleep, today I am so tired…

2006 closed.

My general slackness has continued through the festive season and into the new year, though I have been picking up the training for the half marathons that are coming up in February.

I have just read back to the last post and I had missed a fair bit out of that, so lets do a brief summary of the end of 2006.

To celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary on the last week of November my wife and I went to Queensland for a holiday without the kids. The youngest stayed with my sister and the older two stayed at home by themselves. This was a big trust thing for us and we were pretty pleased with how it all worked out. The holiday itself was good, 4 days on the Gold Coast with the In-laws was OK and then we went up to Cairns for another few days which was great. We did a snorkel/dive on the barrier reef which was expensive but just amazing, drove up to the Daintree and around the tablelands for a couple of days. It was a great trip, no stress for 4 days, one of the better holidays I have had, and would have deserved a decent post.

Our daughter moved out for her first taste of flatting the week we got back from our holiday, it is strange not having her in the house. Though we have made her bedroom the computer room, which probably means less internet time for me as I usually surf while watching TV.

Had family Christmas day a week early this year as my parents were away for Christmas day in the south island with one of my sisters and my other sister was with the in-laws in Tauranga. Had a pretty good family afternoon, all the “kids” behaved themselves.

On the last day of normal work we packed it in early and had a few wines with lunch, I then went down to my old employers for a few drinks and ended up in the pub for a few more. Somewhere along the line things got beyond blurry and I have no recollection of anything at all happening between 6ish and 10ish. My memory kicks back in again around 10 and by this time I was at the Kings Arms tavern to see the Mint Chicks play. The support act Shaky hands were really good as well but the Mint Chicks, sans their recently departed vocalist kicked arse. I spent the whole set leaping up and down like, and with, the teenagers. My daughter was there as well and she gave me a lift home which was pretty cool.

The next day I vowed to stop drinking after new years eve, though I do not drink much or often, when I do I have a drink I seem to have blank spots in the night, this I have concluded is not a good thing !

Christmas was OK, we had a friend with us for the day and went visiting other friends for the afternoon, the weather was OK, had a few drinks and ate too much. I am not a big Christmas fan so it was all a bit ho-hum. Did get some good books though !

On Boxing Day we took the youngest up to Goat Island and went snorkelling, he has been wanting to do this for a while and the weather and tides were right. Had a great time, though the water is far from warm yet. Goat Island has been a marine reserve for many many years so there was a ton of fish and things to see. Youngest son had a blast.

I was meant to work through the non-stat holiday days, but the first day back at work was so supposed to be the only dry day for a few days I took the day off and a few of went down to Rotorua for the day to ride. Had a great ride, I took the SS and never regretted it, even though I did have to push up the hill to the top of a new trail called Billy T that is the highest point in the forest. The ride back down was grin inducing. As always we had a blast on the BRNT and Diamondback trails. Great riding was had by all…

Had two days back at work and didn’t really do much, surfed the net and fixed a few things, I should have been blogging then !

A while ago I decided that if I got a decent bonus this year I would buy myself a good camera, I spent a large portion of my two work days researching cameras and seeking opinions on them from friends. An old friend of ours who we haven’t seen for years even though they only live less than 2kms away is heavily into photography so I gave her a call and we went down to visit and talk cameras. It was really nice to catch up and decided then to get a Canon 400d twin lens pack as it was on special for $1800. I bought it the next day…

New years eve was quiet, went to a friend of Deana’s for dinner then to another friends for drinks and downtown to watch the fire works.

Finished drinking until at least April 28th when the Marathon is on.

Catch up 1

Wrote this in Word on December 15 and hvane posted it yet.

As well as spending 10 days away from computers on holiday I have continued to suffer my motivational crisis. I really cannot be bothered doing lots of things and keeping this record up to date has been one of those things. When I look at my last post from almost a month ago if suggest the same thing. So it is time to kick start the festive season and my event plan for 2007 with a blog update and good intentions to keep it up to date again.

Biking

Over the past month I or so I have done very little riding, I rode Wednesday night at Woodhill for the first time in ages. I took the AC for its maiden Woodhill voyage under my guidance. Found it tricky at first as I am used to riding the trails on the single speed, it took me a good hour to relax into riding a fully suspended bike, though at the end I was still grinding up climbs in the wrong gear. Riding down SPCA was so different, I had the seat too low, was always in the wrong gear and was bouncing around all over the place, I found there is a real difference in body positioning and balance between riding a hard tail and a fully suspended bike, I intend on riding the fully more over the next few weeks as I my ‘training plan’ is going to be based around road miles and 1 fun ride mid-week.

Last weekend I attended the final round of the Auckland MTB champs at Riverhead forest. Apart from an ill-fated run down to the bike shop the previous day I had not been on the bike for almost 5 weeks, so ‘racing’ at Riverhead was a bad idea. The day was good and there had not been too much rain in the preceding days so the course was remarkably dry, though Riverhead bogs never go away, its just the size that varies. I found the race to be incredibly tough, it was the first event I have ever competed in that I did not enjoy, not helped either by my first off road flat tyre…. The course was really not designed for single speeders, let alone unfit single speeders who have not been on their bike for 4 – 5 weeks. 9 started, 7 finished and I came last of the finishers, plus I only completed 2 of the 3 laps. I was not the only 1 who competed who did not finish though, there were a lot of drop outs in the geared classes as well. When I got home I found I had another flat tyre, which including the flat I had when I rode to the shops the previous day, means 3 flats in 2 days. I suspect something is up with my rim. One day I will take the tyre off and have a look, lethargy has prevented that happening so far…

Running.

I have semi-committed to doing the Rotorua marathon on April 28th so my focus over summer will be on getting my running miles up. I have also semi-committed to do the 70k Colville connection MTB race on 10 March so I need to develop a training plan till then that will get me some base miles on the bike up as well. Colville is 90% gravel road so road riding will be the go for training.

This weekend I aim to get together a decent training plan that will allow me to increase mileage on both bike and foot until Colville at least has passed. I am not really concerning myself with Colville too much, but I do have a time (and friends) to beat !