Flipper Fetish

Today I picked up my bike.

$375 for the privilege.

New Chain

New Derailer

Frame required heat treatment to bend back into shape.

I won’t eat for the next week, but my bike looks nice.

Swimming:

Last night I discovered how wonderful it is to swim with flippers for the first half of swimming squad, and how cruel it is to have them taken away from you for the second half. Revoking of the flippers is good for testing your mental strength only, it has nothing to do with your legs.  I can still hear the faint screams of my brain willing me to just stop, get out of the pool, and drive far far away.

I did learn that if you want to go a little harder, lead the squad.  People talk about drafting in riding, the same technique also applies to swimming. If you swim in someone’s draft zone, then you have it a little easier than the person out front.

Fun Fact: 

Portuguese scientists say that a swimmer who stays 2 feet behind another swimmers foot kicks experiences 44 percent less drag through the water. What's more, you can draft off another swimmer from as far back as 19 feet and still reduce your drag by 16 percent. 'You'll maintain an overall higher race pace, since you'll be sparing energy’, they say.

Go get wet! See you soon.  

My first (proper) stack...aaawwwww

Remember when you were a kid and you fell off your bike, there was that second or two when you thought, this is going to be really bad, and then you cried?

Turns out nothing has changed.

I’ve been told that there are 2 types of riders. Those who have stacked, and those who are about to stack. This weekend I was initiated into the category of ‘those who have stacked’.

Saturdays ride was to be a 100km trip to Mount White and back. I was pumped!

Chugging along at a nice pace, about 30kms in, my wheel fell into a slight ditch on the side of the road, everything quickly went to shit as I became intimate with the road. It’s funny, the first thing you think of is ‘Oh god, who saw me’. Second thought is ‘how is my bike’, the third and surprisingly delayed thought is ‘am I about to be hit by a car’.  Fortunately, the collection of thoughts came fairly quickly and I scooted off the road in no time at all.

I’m told I’m quite a graceful faller, and I take that as a great compliment. My bike however, did not fall so gracefully.  I dusted myself off, made sure my bike was still operable, fought back the tears to prove how tough I was, and limped back onto the bike with a token bloodied knee.

Many hill climbs later and 4 gears not really working very well, my derailer decided to snap in spectacular fashion.  So here I am, half way up a massive hill, 60 kms into the ride, drenched in sweat, with no way of riding my bike and definitely no chance of a taxi (being in the middle of nowhere). Despite the best efforts of Dr Dave, utilising his Goggles, my hair tie and a whole lot of MacGyver skills, we were unable to turn the bike into a fixie.  So we took our shoes off, and proceeded to walk up the hill. So devastating.

Carting my sorry ass (and sore knee, shoulder and right hand) up that sorry ass hill, I thought to myself- I should have realised at 5am when I couldn’t find my right glove that this day would not go to plan.

Thank you to my cycling mates for accompanying me up  the hill and the forward soldier who rode the 50kms back to the car and came to get me.

Lesson:

-          Learn how to take links out of a chain to make your bike into a fixie in the event your derailer breaks.

-          When you have learnt how to make said fixie, make sure you have the tools on hand to do it in the event your derailer breaks.

So needless to say I couldn’t race on Sunday, no biggie. Turns out I was stiffer than a geriatrics hip the next day anyway.

My bike is now in the shop – lets us pray it’s not going to cost me a freaking fortune.

Water Safety

Im talking about my safety here.

The thought of doing ocean swims can be pant crapping, head spinning, hysteria inducingly scary.

I dont know about you, but my deepest fears are as follows:

-          Clowns

-          Masks

-          Hands

-          Seaweed

-          Sharks

Now, 2 out of these 5 fears happen to coencide with ocean swimming. Awesome.

I did a race in Kurnell in January and about 300 metres into the swim, I went through a patch of seaweed. I screamed, stopped swimming, hyperventilated and realised that the only way to get the hell out of there was to swim- fast. So whilst humming the theme to Jaws, I sprinted the rest of the distance to shore. Good news, it was a great swim time. Bad news, I couldnt braeth properly for the rest of the race.  Note to self, bring paper bags into transition for instances just like this.

How I have managed to get past this?  I havent.

But I have sorted out the shark thing.... to a point. See below for pointers on not thinking about sharks.

Do:

-          Swim with someone for the first few times you go out. Safety in numbers. Also helps to swim with someone a bit chunkier than you, thus providing a tastier alternative for the shark.

-          Wear a swimming cap. If you have longer hair, seeing your hair floating in your peripheral vision looks like a shark... It doesn’t end well, believe me.

-          Swim when there are heaps of people around and the sun is out.

Don’t:

-          Don’t wear tinted/dark goggles. Makes you feel like you’re in a ‘Blair Witch meets Jaws’ styled ocean project.  Wear nice clear ones. I figure you need to see what’s going on around you, otherwise your imagination tells you what you what to see.

-          Don’t think about sharks. Easier said than done. My personal favourite form of distraction is general thought rambling. Eg ‘ I wonder how fast turtles might be able to move if they were in space. Would they need N.A.S.A freeze dried bluebottles to eat whilst they were up there? If you filled a whole heap of bluebottles full of helium, then gave them to turtles to eat, would they then be lighter and subsequently able to move faster when on land? I guess the bluebottles would need some sort of super strong encasing so that the turtles couldn’t digest it properly...otherwise it wouldn’t work, the turtle would probably just burp the helium out once the stomach acids burst the bubble... or are they like a dog and can’t burp?’... and so it goes on, you get the idea.  Other schools of thought suggest you should focus on stroke and breathing techniques... Whatever works.

Pointers.

Probably should have started this blog back in November when I started back into things.

A few significant tips I picked up along the past few months:

1.       To quit smoking, don’t waste your time on patches – head straight to the Champix. The Government will subsidise it and it makes you feel like you have already had a cigarette, so you don’t really crave on. Try it and let me know how you get on. Link here

2.       Join a team. Look for your local triathlon club or cycling group. They look intimidating in all their lyrca and the idea of joining them scares you I know... but I bit the bullet and did it, and haven’t looked back.

3.       Don’t be a turkey with ‘all the gear and no idea’. Ease into it. It’s a bloody expensive sport. Do your research and know what you’re buying before you put the money over the counter.

4.       Let your mates know what you’re doing. The more you get into the sport the less they are going to see you, fact. At least until you adjust to the training schedule. Warn them, otherwise you will piss them off. I’ll cover off a little more of the social aspect of things later on.

Till next time

G

Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by ( Cliché perhaps?)

 

I have spent years and years enthusiastically abusing my body and getting a kick out of how well I was able to enjoy the best of all worlds.  Smoking, drinking, drugs, holding down a pretty good job and maintaining a good level of fitness.

Slowly the cracks started to show... illness, fatigue, hangovers, and the inability to party for 3 days straight. Work became a refuge from my social life. What was happening to me?  I needed change.

Firstly,  I moved house and surrounded myself with people who weren’t going to be there with me to answer the door to the police every weekend at 5am.

Most of all, I needed to give up the fags... easier said than done. I always thought myself to be very good at smoking. A true hidden talent. But they had to go.

So it turns out that when you give up 2 things that take up a significant portion of your life, you have a lot of time to think about exactly what your missing out on.  I needed something to fill these minutes...

This is when I decided that my only path to complete health would mean replacing one extreme with another. Make of it what you will, but it’s how I operate.

So I bought a bike, packed away my ego, and started competing (a very loose term) in triathlons. I don’t intend on being a world champion, but I’d like to win a race one day.  That’s the goal.

Given that this is a massive sport with a lot of dickheads out there telling you what you should and shouldn’t be doing, I understand it can be difficult to know what’s what.  

Join me on my path of discovery... not just the sport, but how to integrate it into your life without pissing off too many people along the way!

So welcome. Stick around...

G