Just chuggin along

Just chuggin' along

Thursday: Running continues to go OK. No orthotics, 8 x 230 @ around 4:30 yesterday. Some minor achilles burning, but more just general soreness in the muscles of the feet and lower leg, and not limping this morning.

Wednesday: Easy 30k with Pat on

Massage from Brett, I'm in a very shabby state and can feel it during the massage, but there's no alternative other than to stick with it.

First Continuous Swim - Oh dear!

First continuous swim - 1km

Downloaded the Garmin 910, which converts all the data into a cheerfully colourful chart. Looking at the lap-by-lap graph shows a downward sloping curve that seems to infer that somewhere in the next three laps I would have sunk to the bottom of the pool, which is all rather discouraging - The folks at Garmin really need to work on that.

That said, my triceps are quivering as I type, which probably reinforces the Garmin's fundamental point.

1k in 20:48. and as unimpressive as that might seem, it's better than my usual first dip.

Garmin tells me that my first lap was 49 seconds with 25 strokes (SWOLF 74, this deteriorated to a lap of 65 with 30 strokes (SWOLF 95). Averaged at 2:04/100 SWOLF 91.

Another tick - on my way.

Thinking about a "onesie"

Weight 89.9

Attempt at 3 x 900m @ 5:00/k pace this morning. Baled halfway through the last one when my right achilles started to burn. Walked home, quick ice before driving to work. Some 2 hours later all is well - just a little tender. Not sure if I quit just in time or whether I'm spooked and pulled-up unnecessarily, but in any case I live to run another day.

Might leave all running to the afternoons for a while, everyting seems a little better lubed at that end of the day.

Scheduled for a swim at lunch today if work permits.

RJ 12 today, so a good morning of present opening etc. If anything illustrates the bridge that kids are on at this stage of their life, he wanted the picture that Paul Pelletier drew for him "properly" framed and "onesie". It's easy to think a onsie is stupid, until you see them in action. And then you secretely want one yourself.

Plenty of small ticks

Weight 90.0k

All in all a pretty good week. 175k on bike, recommenced running, touched the water and got a first (rather punishing) massage. No pain or limping today, though Achilles remains tender to the touch and still quite thick in the right leg.

Friday: Ride home – 38k in good time

Saturday:

am Ride cut short to 45k due to Harry the Wonder Dog’s overnight vet stay.

pm 8 x 230m @ 4:00 pace at Dukes with Riley

Sunday:

am: 1km of easy swimming with riley to reintroduce myself to the pool
pm: 30k in the crappy wind. Easy effort, concentrating on getting the pedals to go around. (Thinking of getting some slightly shorter cranks to try and alleviate some persistent patella discomfort).

Hawaii ironman yesterday. All the usual buzz, but it’s hard not to see some very dark clouds looming for IM triathlon.

 

Feelin good

Weight at 90.2

Thursday evening: W/u 1k, 12 x 70m @ 4:45 pace; 10min 3 x 350m at 4:45 pace. HRT sat in 140-156. Silly heart rate given the distance and intensity, but there you go. Fat and untrained = uncordinated which requires more work to make the whole thing move at a given pace.

All at Dukes Oval - Nice setting for an arvo run - we might become friends.

No residual pain.

Brett booked for Tuesday night.

Ride home today + w/e will put me well over 200 for a second consecutive week.

Small session, but its done & I ain't limping - On my way

The Honey Badger

Weigh in: 90.2

Sensible eating has (largely) been in place for a couple of weeks now.

More consistent training is occuring

Wed 2 x cc in 32:30 (ave 34.x)
Tues 12 x 60m easy
Mon Eastern Creek Race - Spat early.
Sun: 8 x 60 easy + 30k easy
Sat: Solid 80k Greendale + Lappo

I was reading about the honey badger today. Wikip: “When mating, males emit loud grunting sounds. Cubs vocalise through plaintive whines. When confronting dogs, honey badgers scream like bear cubs. Next to the wolverine, the honey badger has the least specialised diet”. Well didn’t that all send me scurrying for the mirror. Good news! still an overweight, pasty-skinned accountant – uncomfortable few moments nonetheless.

Time to Start Running

A good week on the bike. First week over 200k for a couple of years, and some of that at (and occasionally above) threshold. Love Strava.....

Time to start a running plan (stairs and general strengthening have gone well as a reintroduction). 8 weeks to see if my achilles will play ball, or else I'm buying a Malibu to take to Port in May.

Most (but not all) of my achilles problems occur when I am "restarting". The better I'm running, the further in the rear-view mirror achilles problems seem to be. Whether that's because a consistent period of running leads to good technique and good times, or whether good techniques reduces injury risk. Chickens and eggs.

In any event, I'm prepared to be patient this time, concentrating on getting rid of the accumulated scaring, remodelling technique, and releasing the lower leg muscles.

See how we go with:

1. Break up existing scar tissue. Consider Graston Technique or similar to break up the existing scar tissue that is still all over the right achilles - currently 4cm thick. (Simon did this under ice-numbing some years ago and it seemed effective).
2. Improve flexibility and movement of all the bits down the back of my ass and legs with a weekly massage.
3. Run daily even if only very lightly. Knee and achilles seem to work better with a daily lube.
4. All running on grass for the foreseeable future. I don't think this necessarily benefits achilles problems in itself, however compensating for sore knees and road shock when the general infrastructure isn't yet strong is "technique-altering" and stupid. Even Monday night's run felt a lot better at Hunter Fields.
5. Work on technique first. Start with easy 12 x 60m intervals. Progress with interval-distance some continuous running at the end of 8 weeks. The whole system just needs to start engaging again, and slow slogging of continuous k's won't improve running form, and is unlikely to prevent injuries.
6. Review technique: Get the video out for some technique review.
7. Experiment with ditching the orthotics and clod hopper shoes. Two worst bouts of achilles injuries that I've had have been in Brooks Beast and Trance. Both heavy and inflexible in their own right, but throw in some orthotics and it is like having bricks on the feet. Running form and technique appear to be better in lighter (at least mid-range) shoes, and I suspect that technique might be a better guard against injury than motion control shoes.
8. Get weight down. Not sure what the connection is, I don;t think it is a load-issue with achilles, but again extra weight means shitty technique, which I am holding as chief culprit at the moment.
9. Fish oil and that other whacky anti-imflammatory stuff: Almost certainly witch-doctor treatment, but possibly worth a shot

Happy Days

Coming into some good head-space at the moment - final assignments cleared, tenders fnished etc.

Friday: First run - 8 x 80m on grass + 2 x 1.5k walk run. Very slow - hips tight but no injuries - happy

Saturday: 60min (modest) intervals on bike + (some) swimming.

Sunday: 61k in 1:38. Pumping like crazy - quite fried afterwards

Diet improving (generally)

No injuries. Health good. Happy days

Simple stuff for 6 weeks

After aborting kick-off to finish essays and a bout of the seasonal respiratory/sinus infection, I’ve finally got some time to restart this thing properly.

31 weeks to go.

6 weeks plan – really simple:

Ø  I’m fat - Get weight to 86

o   Sensible eating plan has started

Ø  I’m fragile

o   Small/easy sessions often

o   Massage

o   Anti-inflammatory foods

When Annabel Crabb saved a whole election coverage

Weight : 89.4 Here we come
Achilles: Smooth as. Can't wait to give them a burst.
Head Space: Lively
Rating for the week: 2

Back on the bike for 30min of spinning last night. Not much, but at least the door has been unlocked again. All good.

What exactly was the highlight of the election coverage? Some people may have missed it, especially since it lasted less than a full second, the lime it takes to say a single word, potentially even smothered by the sound of a single bite of pizza.

Anyone not watching the ABC’s coverage would have missed it completely, but right in the middle of an ‘ad hoc’ piece of conversation, Annabel Crabb dropped “egregious”. She did her best to act as if it just rolled straight from the super-highway of her most recently resonating neural pathways to her lips, but everyone tuning in knew that she had brought that word along in the kit-bag and was just searching for an opportunity to throw it in. Sent me scurrying for the iPad, and apparently it is “conspicuously bad or offensive”.

Obviously Annabel knew in advance that something during the election was going to be conspicuously bad or offensive, even if its just a rehashed reference to a pollie with his penis in a glass. Clearly that’s egregious.

Which makes me wonder, what is the world’s greatest word?

Ø  Foppish, meaning Hugh Grant

Ø  Masticate, simply for the fun of it.

Ø  Mindfulness, just because I like it.

Ø  Kakistocracy, meaning the NRL Commission

One day there’ll be a definitive list, and egregious will be a starter for sure.

Busco in the morning

WEIGHT: 89.8

ACHILLES: Perfect – though entirely unused

HEAD SPACE: Filled with snot

RATING FOR THE WEEK: 1

Board meeting early in the week followed by a week of the flu so no training this week. Final assignment for the year due 20^th Sept so another week and a bit of faffing about - Quite longing to get my boat wet again and drag the MTB up the hill a few times.

Loving Busco on SWRFM (Blacktown community radio) during the morning commute. I think he is the only dude with a paid permanent on-air position, and the others slots are a bit sketchy, but Busco seems to have that polymath / hipster combo thing going on, with a good range of music.

In the mean-time my head will be stuck up the collective freckles of Keith Windschuttle and Henry Reynolds and how the relatively scant documentation of historical “facts” in relation to white settlement in Australia provide such a fruitful forum for the academics and media commentators to build their own profile through agendas derived from left / right dogma rather than any genuine attempt to deliver better outcomes for indigenous people.

Pure, hateful, self-indulgent, fuck-the-consequences dogma. 

Singin' Willie Nelson on Saturdays

WEIGHT: 90.1 (Hovering)

ACHILLES: Super-duper. No limping, no pain, no nuttin’. Ready to start tip-toeing into running again
HEAD SPACE: Optimistic
RATING FOR THE WEEK: 6
FOCUS FOR UPCOMING WEEK: 2 x solid mid-week rides. (Nowra and Hunter Valley GFs both look like good options).

Two good rides this weekend just gone. Kurrajong loop remains my favourite local outing, possibly because we only ever seem to do it in good weather, or possibly its just a good mix of pinch climbs, fun downhills, spankingly good scenery and (now) a chocolate shop. No idea really, it just works in the way that makes you want to sing Willie Nelson songs.

Race Sunday. Worked hard but more than just a bit hung-over from the hard ride Saturday morning. Tried to drop the bunch a couple of times, but didn’t even get close. In the end, no cigar but completely trashed, which essentially is the main idea at the moment. Tick.

Climbing on Sunday afternoon with ads and the kids. Strength to weight ratio is hilariously bad but fun nonetheless. I should do this a little more often than we do. Good for RJ, good for me.

I'm losing my balls

WEIGHT: 90.3 (Crap, its gone north again)

ACHILLES: Cautiously optimistic. A walk/run in this week with no material flare-ups.
HEAD SPACE: I’ve cracked – I’m a clown
RATING FOR THE WEEK: 2.5 - As bad as it gets without getting injured.

Monday: Nutting

Tuesday: Nuttin (Seeing a pattern)

Wednesday: 7km walk/run. Slow running. Right patella a bigger problem than Achilles. Think I can fix that.

Thursday: 30min on wind trainer. Stretch n press.

I’m like some fat aspiring clown at his first day of clown school. The teacher chucks him two balls and he starts juggling – promising start. Then a third ball, and problems start to appear, though at this point they are at least manageable. When the fourth ball gets thrown in the whole lot just falls on the floor.

And there’s the problem. It isn’t just the last ball that falls on the floor leaving the clown to juggle the ones that he can handle, they all fall down. And the clown stamps his feet and starts crying. ‘I just want to be a clown !!!’.

Knowing full well that I’m a lazy f#$%er, I put structures in place to stop me from falling into a vacuous abyss, but at the moment I’m just an overcommitted clown, and there are balls flying everywhere. At least I’m not trying to juggle chainsaws and pussycats.

When I signed up for uni, it was so I didn’t become intellectually lazy. Equally though, when it gets to the uphills on that front the effort required is very solid. 55 for my last assignment is the lowest score (I think) I’ve ever had in any study, and when I re-read what I had submitted (at 11:57 on deadline night), I suspect the 5 points sufficient to give me a pass was more like an encouragement award. Didn’t even proof read what I sent in, and in retrospect the arguments read like the Nymboida in flood - plenty of flow but anything of substance in its path ended up smashed and washed out to sea. A lot of cows drowned in the writing of that essay.

When I signed up for IM, it was designed to help keep a fitness goal in focus, and to that extent its a successful strategy. But when you don’t actually get to the things that are required to meet that goal, then it simply turns into a stress point.

Need to catch the family and work balls before they hit the floor, gather up the rest of the carnage and start again.

 

Time for simmering opposition to break out into open violence

WEIGHT: 89.7 - Reasonable improvement, still no particular effort on diet, though marginally more conscious.

ACHILLES: Pulled up a little rough from stairs – but all good Monday, no limping.

HEAD SPACE: Laser skirmish

RATING FOR THE WEEK: 5.5

 

A good weekend to finish:

Friday
Ø  Stretch n press – flexibility is hideous at the moment, even by my own appauling standards; can’t even complete most exercises.

Saturday
Ø  Greendale + Lappo hill – stuffed. Not sure why I found it so hard, but I was shattered and asleep on the couch by 2:15.

Sunday: Bombed with hay fever and passed on club race;

Ø  AM: 4 x 6km (7:04, 6:31, 6:32, 6:45). Slight headwind which turned more cross as the session progressed.
Ø  PM: 5 x stairs. 2:48, 2:31, 2:46, 2:48, 2:53 – 2:45 ave. 5 sec improvement on last week.

What’s with spring. Mid August and its here already. I hate spring, its the universal period of conflict - sinuses collide with pollen, Penrith Waratahs junior rugby league team has its annual crowd/player brawl, Cairo divides itself into four teams of 6million to take-on each other and the military, and magpies and cyclists each start mobilising troops on the borders of the disputed territories along roads the country over.

Cyclists of course will respond with the equivalent of moving a censure motion in the UN - by putting cable ties on their helmets – embarrassingly ineffective posturing, and just another reason to hate spring.

Well hello Yana...

WEIGHT : 90.3

ACHILLES : Coming along slowly

HEAD SPACE : Heavily forested

RATING FOR THE WEEK : 5

 

Tried to run a little for the first time last night. No go, but it doesn’t seem far away. One more set of stairs this week, and a good massage, and then will have another crack.

Tuesday – Nuttin’. Railroaded by a late afternoon call from Singapore.

Wednesday – Gym

Thursday – Rollers

On the upside I’m apparently becoming quite intriguing. I know this because Yana from the Ukraine has written to me personally to tell me so. Yana has seen my profile on LinkedIn (surprising given I’m not on LinkedIn) and she has written to my work email address to tell me that I sound intriguing and that she can’t believe my age, “you look so much younger”. Yana doesn’t actually state my age, nor how young I might look in comparison, but surely its encouraging.

Of course the possibility exists that the only truth in the whole correspondence might be that Yana actually resides in the Ukraine. Given that I’ve never known any ‘Jana’ to spell her name ‘Yana’, I’m guessing that my secret admirer may in fact spell her name ‘B O R I S’. Housed in a Kiev slum, hunched over a computer, cigarette pushed up against whatever teeth have managed to cling defiantly to his inflamed gums,  and with the ashes gradually accumulating on a singlet festooned with the artefacts of lunches long since forgotten, Yana would like me to respond with more about myself. I may yet call her bluff. “Dear Boris, …. right back atcha babe...”

MAYBE WE NEED A LITTLE DICK

STATUS

WEIGHT: Fat, but less fat than last week - 90.4 (-0.2)

ACHILLES: Promising - Pulled up ok after stairs.

HEAD SPACE: All over the freakin' shop - but recovering - and lemon citrus tart is helping lots.

RATING FOR THE WEEK: 5.

SUMMARY

Not much training at the end of last week. June audit at work, assignment due Friday (submitted at 11:57PM). Pretty much buggered.

Thursday - Gym

Saturday - 5 x stairs – big improvement on last week - 2:50 average (3:06 last week), Range 2:41 – 3:06 (Cracked at the end)

Sunday - 4 x 4km reps on bike – good session - 6:06, 5:58, 6:01, 6:06 (TT bike, aero wheels on, conditions perfect – little breeze)

Monday – Gym

OTHER STUFF: OH F#$% THERE'S AN ELECTION ON

Argh! The atrophy in political culture is just aweful. While whinging about Australian politicians has been sport since… well forever really, in essence Australian politics has served us well, (and anyone disagreeing with that need only look at Spain, Italy, or even the US for a comparison). Notwithstanding occasional moments of lunacy, (Menzies' blind commitment to the Suez Crisis works as well as anything I can think of off the top of my head) governments and leaders from both teams have generally steered Australia with quite safe hands, both economically and socially, bounded by the reasonably modest extremes of the progressivism and conservatism of Whitlam and Howard respectively. Australian governments have been (generally) prepared, though with a pragmatic eye to the election cycle, to address emerging imperatives even if contrary to popular opinion – acknowledging that change always makes winners and losers:

Ø  Despite Australia’s prevailing British race patriotism, Chifley and then Curtin turned to the US for military support in the Pacific when they realised that the British assumption of global influence could not be sustained by the modern British economy. They signed ANZUS in 1951 - in 1968 Britain announced a full withdrawal of troops East of the Suez. Australia wasn’t happy, but it was prepared.

Ø  In contradiction to his own personal sentiments and much of the electorate, Menzies negotiated releases into the Imperial Preferences system that enabled Australia to expand markets in Japan and Asia in the late 50’s. In 1961 Britain turned away from the Commonwealth and towards Europe via its first (unsuccessful) EEC application. By the time tariff exemptions ceased, Japan had become out largest export market, and the USA our largest supplier. Again, Australia wasn’t happy, but it was prepared.

Ø  Gorton and Whitlam unwound the administrative and symbolic ties to Empire, hammered the final nails into the British race patriotism coffin and laid a platform for multiculturalism to become the dominant nationalist myth. A lot of Australians who weren’t happy now have solid retirement savings because of it.

Ø  Hawke and Keating undertook major reform to labour markets via the Accord v.x, which laid a path to the productivity gains that underpinned international competitiveness, and freed the capital markets, and Howard broadened the revenue base via the GST, and took on organised labour in bringing flexibility to labour markets. (The latter cost him an election - possibly).

And 'maybe' this is where things turned ugly in domestic political culture. Since Work Choices no prime minister has been willing / capable of delviering any serious reform agenda (without losing their job in the process). No labour reform, no mining tax, no broadening of the revenue base, no carbon tax, no industry policy, no marriage equality, and at best a weird-assed approach to energy security. Whether people agree or disagree with any of those potential initiatives, the fundamental point is that governments are currently unable / unwilling to govern, and as a consequence there has been no preservation of mining boom revenues (having been given back in the form of unnecessary tax breaks, school halls and other associated sweeteners by both colour jerseys); no labour reform; no industry policy. Australia is quietly slipping into uncompetitiveness (in terms of productivity growth, research investment, non-mining exports etc) under the cover of the (softening) mining investment and harvest cycle.

At the earliest point of the terms of trade coming off, the country was suddenly under a revenue-stress that could escalate from mild to severe in the space of a decade unless addressed. Ignoring the politicking of the times, government deficits have exploded not through waste (though there are elements of such) but because revenue has karked.

Depressingly there is NO rhetoric in the lead up to this election that would suggest anybody is prepared to address issues of future competitiveness – because they are genuinely hard. This in spite of having hands, (particularly in Rudd and Turnbull) capable of making confident forward looking policy calls - because they CAN’T - we (via our private and public media agencies, business and union lobby groups) simply won’t let them.

Riley will be a bigger beneficiary or otherwise of the next government than I will, but he doesn’t get to vote, otherwise Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson would be calling the shots by Christmas. Short of this, it seems reform might only be possible as a response to extreme crises, still comfortably a few years away yet. Unless China stalls or US debt cracks – then we’re well rooted – and Batman and Robin might be the only remaining policy lever.

Sun 3rd August

Sunday 3^rd August

Am: Doors blown off in C Grade. 25km completed of 60km race. Intensity = "eye balls popping out".

Pm: 5 x Lappo stairs. 3:06 average, 3:01 best (45min session including downhills)

Achilles: Not so bad – stairs might be the go for a while

Weight: 90.6km

And your time starts....................now

37 weeks out – time to start again – two years older but no evidence whatsoever that I’ve gotten in any way smarter.

What’s harder this time:

Ø  Study – Approx 15 hours a week less time available for training.

Ø  Achilles as at the start of this preparation I still have residual issues, and any base miles have long disappeared. I’m a beginner runner for all intents.

What I’d change from last time:

Ø  Lose the weight up front and don’t wait for February. I suspect that carrying weight in itself increases injury risk, but also means that come the peak period I was less energetic than I might have otherwise been, given that I was still calorie limiting. Currently 91km, goal: get to 83 by new years = 375g per week.

Ø  Get the achilles functioning earlier and then forget running intensity. Off/on running is a poor preparation, and need to do everything possible to avoid this again.

Ø  A 1km swim twice a week isn’t swim training. Didn’t learn this until quite late last time – need to get to 3km sessions earlier.

What did:

Ø  Wednesday morning 70k intensity ride. Great way of upping threshold.

Ø  Camp. Three consecutive days of long hard rides seemed to deliver a bit of a step-up.

Ø  Three km straight swims. Swim performance improved rapiudly once I started stayig in the water for an hour each session.