Bowing to peer pressure

I rode 200km on Sunday and now I’ve got a cold. Should have known I wasn’t up to the task since I didn’t train, oops!

After numerous requests (1 is a number!) it’s Friday profile madness again. It’s been a pretty full on couple of weeks since I last posted properly, we’ve found a junior who is going really well and given up house hunting because it’s so much work.

Last week was a big week, everything-wise. Here the profiles, oldest to newest this time

Get a beer, this is Bowing to peer pressure: War and peace edition. You asked for it, SecretCoach!!

Around the Tan with Chris

Note the time (6am on a Saturday! That’s committment!). Jogging around the Botanical Gardens with Chris for the first time. We dragged mum out with us, and she power walked the course not a whole lot slower than we jogged it LOL. We were able to use this as amunition to get her to do the event with us, yay! At this point my heart rate is starting to settle down a bit, and isn’t shooting up to 200 every time I walk 3 paces…

• 28 April 2007 Jogging around the Tan with Chris

Around the park with Phil

At this point my motivation for getting off my butt to train for the Mother’s Day Classic is about zero (sorry Chris!). In order to combat this, Phil brings out the hyrid and rides aorund the park in front of me. So nice of him to lower himself to do 8km an hour or less… Nothing special here except I wanted to vomit by the time I finished. I guess that means I went hard enough. Miss riding. We were listening to a cycling radio show on RRR, and one of the guests said when he was out with a bunch one night he saw a girl jogging and her ‘boyfriend’ riding a bike beside her. Apparently someone yelled out “Buy her a bike you cheap bastard”. I don’t remember anyone yelling at us, but we do see bunches ride past us when we’re out - wonder if it was us?! Does that make us famous somehow?

• 1 May 2007 Jogging around the Park with Phil (sucks)

Spinervals

Spinervals (think Aerobics Oz Style, but with stationary road bikes - looks as dumb as it sounds) on the trainer, hard work not just because it’s arse busting but because of the craptastic music they play on the DVD. Thanks for the backup cousing Andy

• 3 May 2007 Spinervals on the trainer

Pootling in Caroline Springs

Phil and I made the long haul journey to Caroline Springs to go riding with Shayne. Shayne’s also had a transplant, and is considering maybe doing the Around the Bay in a day with us this year, since Phil’s effort last year was so inspirational Shayne’s just starting out so it was just a quiet pootle. It was fun to see how low I could get my heart rate - you can see it shoot up to 130 bpm when I scared the crap out of myself and nearly didn’t unclip in time!! Wonder how many calories that burned? Did some sprints on the way back to have a go

• 6 May 2007 Caroline Springs Shayne

(The long awaited) Ben busts my ass

Conveniently, Ben said he didn’t have any lights so couldn’t go for a ride. Stupid me volunteers to ride over with my spare ones, thinking we’ll head out for a quiet ride after and everyone will be happy. See previous post on this ridiculousness… Short ride my (busted) ass.

• 7 May 2007 Ben busts my ass

Pete busts my ass

Maybe Ben and Pete are ganging up on me? Pete later admitted that he was running fast on purpose to see how far he could push me. Answer? Not that far LOL, as previously discussed.

• 9 May 2007 Jogging, Pete busts my ass

Final Mother’s Day Classic training session with Chris

All this ass busting (especially running) has me missing riding. That and, pizza for lunch two days in a row means I could really do with burning 2000 odd calories - riding to Willy for jogging will do it!!

This needs to be documented as the first time I’ve ever been jogging and had fun doing it. I’m having a great time training with Chris, chatting, not too much ass busting. It’s all good! And I get to ride when I’m done, what more could I ask for?! Purposefully riding easy to save myself for the Mother’s Day Classic.

• 11 May 2007 Riding to Willy
• 11 May 2007 Jogging with Chris
• 11 May 2007 Riding home from Willy

Clinic with Cogsgirls

Warren Cay from BikeNow runs Cogsgirls skills sessions for girls for free on Saturday mornings. I’ve only done one session previously (training for Buller), and it was just fantastic. Since I spend all my time riding on my own, or trying to keep up with Ben or Andy, I’ve got no idea how to ride in a bunch at all. This session we rode from Hampton to Black Rock, did some drills, rode on to Mordy then back to Hampton.

Warren showed me a few “safe” ways to contact riders in the bunch. I have to say that riding down Beach Rd rubbing shoulders, LITERALLY, was quite strange. Thank you Warren for being so patient with me!

Since this is the day before the Mother’s Day Classic, I’m thinking I should take it easy - funny how quickly I forget that once I get out there LOL. I practised some pairs rolling turns with a guy called Peter who was there helping out, which was heaps of fun. I broke my heart rate again (195 oops!), but it was awesome fun. We rode back to Hampton as a bunch, which I found really difficult. I feel uncomfortable riding beside people, and when I was at the front felt nervous and anxious about riding too slow/fast/wobbly/etc.

The whole bunch kind of disintegrated going up a hill, and Warren sent me off (don’t really remember?) to keep up with Peter - more awesome fun. I forgot to turn my polar back on again when we left Mordy, so I’ll never know how fast I was going (ohhhhhh how convenient!! no evidence! *evil laugh*).

Had a great time, can’t wait to do more! Profile is a bit messy because we were doing drills.

• 12 May 07 Busting my ass with Cogsgirls!

(As an aside, I cut the post ride coffee to hustle home and get ready for an auction we were hoping to bid at. The opening bid was $30k above the estimated price, and it ended up selling for $150k more than it was advertised at - thus the suddent disinterest in househunting).

Mother’s Day Classic!

We rode into the city to do the Mother’s Day run (even mum!! I wished her Happy Mother’s Day halfway up Nepean Hill heheheh). We were running a bit late, and in all the fuss I forgot to turn my foot pod on or even hit the lap button when we started running. Because we were running late I didn’t meet up with Chris until right before the run (soooo sorry Chris!!), and you can see my heart rate going all over the place because I was stressing out. The body is very fascinating!

Once we hooked up, we had a fantastic run. I had such a great time, and I think Chris and mum did too. Mum ended up running quite a lot of the course, and based on the time from the website Chris and I averaged about 8.89km an hour, which is a record for us (probably because Chris decided to sprint the last bit, thanks!!). It was a really great event, with cool freebies and so many people. A great way to connect with family and friends

Special mention to smarty pants Pete, who did the 8km run and completed his 4 faster than we did Show off!

I had the polar running during the ride as well, so where the cursor is, is approx the start of the run.

To balance out all the frantic activity we had a lovely breakfast at Babble on Babylon, and then had afternoon tea at Nanny’s. Such a nice day

Looking forward to the next event with Chris, maybe Run to the g?

• 13 May 2007 Running the Mother’s Day Classic

I got a cold the very next day, which sucks.

So that’s about all the profile madness I have!!! It certainly is a disincentive to exercise that it takes so long to waffle about this stuff here… Maybe that’s why I’ve done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING all week?

So I’m off now - think of me with my champers (Lance says yes!!) watching the Search for the newest Pussy Cat Hussy, because that’s about all I’ve got the energy for.

*pppbbblllllttttttttt*

I’m recruiting at the moment, and I have to say that the general behaviour of people has really taken me aback. I won’t go into it here, but sheesh, seriously it’s shocking the way that some people conduct themselves.

At least I managed to get an arsebreaking ride in yesterday! Did a quick 50km trip with Benny down beach road (profiles later!).

Weird things have been happening lately. My heart rate is pretty out of control right now, and I’m spending lots of time (hours!) above 80% of my maximum heart rate. This has lead Phil to advise me that I shouldn’t be seeing my HR max as a target or to do list I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading about it but still can’t really see why it should be jumping up so much. I’ve just got unfit I guess!! It’s been a long time since I’ve done a resting heart rate test (after a strong cup of coffee would be a bad time, right?) so it will be interesting to see if that has jumped up again too!

I didn’t exactly have an optimum lead in to the ride last night - I’ve been a bit dehydrated, and forgot that I had an early lunch. Figuring we’d be doing a quick 20km I didn’t bother to take gatorade (just water), so did that whole ride with pretty much no calories in the tank to begin with and none inserted during the ride. For future reference, Lance says “Calories go in!!!!”.

I still feel like a truck has hit me from benchpressing and other madness on Saturday, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that an hour after I got home last night I nearly lost my lunch (what was left of it) and carried on a phone conversation with my mother that I have pretty much no recollection of. A glass of lemonade fixed me right up, so once again Lance says “Calories go in!!!!”

So today I give myself the What a peanut tag, I guess I really should have known better!

Not that anyone cares (except for maybe Chris) here are the rest of my profiles to date. Notice big gaps between meaningful exercise! Lance isn’t happy.

Newest first.

• 25 April 2007 Riding to Black Rock with Ben
• 24 April 2007 Jogging around the park
• 20 April 2007 Blackrock on my own
• 8 April 2007 Jogging in Tassie
• 28 March 2007 Riding to Willy
• 28 March 2007 Jogging at Willy with Chris
• 28 March 2007 Riding home from Willy
• 25 March 2007 Riding to Williamstown
• 25 March 2007 Jogging with Chris (Went home in the car, what a wimp!)

I wonder who got in first - me or them? There’s another secret training!!! Lance won’t be happy. Their team looks like they get up to more SecretTraining than I do though…

Haven’t posted in a month. Been too busy to think about it really, it’s not like there’s been a shortage of things to report.

Work is busy in the extreme, and I’m in the middle of recruiting - this is an exciting and scary process.

We are house hunting, a depressing and arduous task given the real estate market in Melbourne right now. Houses listed between $450,000 and $500,000 are regularly selling for at least $200,000 more than expected price ranges. One listed at $525 ended up going for $802!!

I know we’ll get there in the end, yet another lesson in patience from the universe. Thanks for that!

I have been badly neglecting Chris’ jogging cause (some training partner I turned out to be), and managed to ride my sexy new bike so little the chain rusted (mechanic points to me for fixing it myself though).

Funny to read below about my “super high heart rate” of 189. I have regularly been clocking 198-200 lately both riding and jogging. Does this mean not enough exercise being done? My rapidly expanding waistline says so. Used to be Lance says no…. No chocolate cake, no beer. Now Lance says yes to all!

Time to get back into it, don’t want to lose my hard earned man legs, now do I?

Will upload more profiles when I can get time to do it!!

No Baw Baw today, weather is too bad and Ben has cancelled. Can’t decide if I’m happy about this or not, I think I am.

Yesterday I met a photographer for coffee to chat about some businessy stuff. He rides as well, so I thought it was yet another opportunity for me to make my bike a legitimate tax deduction It was 37 degrees, and windy as all hell. As is evidenced by the profile from the ride. Fast out, slow as hell back. I think I was tempted to toast a guy on Beach Road, which explains the stupidly high heart rate.

Was good fun though, I think jogging the other night has messed my heart rate up a bit!!

Some more profiles….

• 22 March 2007 Riding to Williamstown
• 22 March 2007 Jogging at Williamstown with Chris
• 22 March 2007 Back to Brighton
• 23 March 2007 To Black Rock

So, due to peer pressure, I’ve now got a blog. Expect to see cycling ridiculousness, design and font nerdery, and pics of Max the kitty. Probably some other stuff too, I guess it depends on how much work I should be doing!

Craig has been hassling me for more info re my bike riding lately.

Recently team SecretTraining (me, Cousin Andy and Ben) did the Holden High Country Cycling Challenge:. Basically, 230km over two days and climbing Mount Buller thrown in for good measure. My ride report from that day and my profiles follow It was a large and arse breaking ride, but the free endorphins were well worth the effort.

Since then, Ben and I have somehow become committed to riding the 8 most difficult mountains in Victoria (in response to this thread on Bicycle Victoria). So far we have done 2 on the list (Mt Buller and Mt Donna Buang), and we’re attempting Baw Baw tomorrow. Someone send an ambulance just in case!!

Tip for new players, avoid any ride with “Mount” or “Gap” or “Challenge” included in the name.

So here, have some profiles (for other cycling geeks out there), and my ride report from the Buller ride.

• Mt Bulller ascent profile (110km)
• Mt Buller descent profile (120km)
• Mt Donna Buang (80km)

Hope everyone has a killer weekend, I know I will (thanks Ben).

Waffle mode on.

Congrats to everyone who did this ride - I think it’s a big thing to even sign up for something this scary LOL. I saw a few HHCCC jerseys out this morning, and I made sure I said hi (was a cracking pace for a “recovery” ride!!).

This was surely the most well organised ride I have been on: lots of water stations (”swap and go”, what a great idea!!), fantastic quality kit, good signage, lots of support at the end of each of the stages, and showers on Sunday! Fantastic!!

Thanks and hello also to fellow spokes girls too - a great jersey, and good to have someone saying hi/someone to say hi to along the way.

The weekend started out well - my mum had sent flowers to our team’s hotel, team SecretTraining (all 3 of us), which was such a lovely surprise, and our hotel had all you can eat pasta (we’re pretty sure they made a loss).

Well I had a lot of fun riding this event. I tried to keep a lid on it during stage 1, as I didn’t want to burn out and was very anxious still about getting up the hill in the afternoon. I was so nervous leading up to it that I felt sick sometimes LOL. Managed to get around for the nasty second loop in the morning, and back into Mansfield for a good lunch.

During stage 2 I was just trying to tell myself “it’s only 45km”, but boy was it a long 45 km. Felt good for a lot of the ride to the base of the mountain, still trying to keep a lid on it so I had enough energy to get up. My cousin was having really bad trouble with cramps in his legs (if I was him I would have stopped altogether!!!), but pushed on anyway which is just amazing. We were well into the climb when he was hit again, and had to stop (my brother in law (BIL) also pausing for a rest). I knew that if I stopped I wouldn’t start up again, and they told me to keep going so I made the hard decision to split our little team Sad

The little blue signs hindered as much as they helped (what do you mean still 12km to go!!! LOL), but after a while I felt I got into a steady rhythm and was almost enjoying myself. I guess I was sitting on 10-12kmph, with little bursts a bit faster on those two flat parts - I remember them well LOL there were only two. I was so happy to see the 2km to go sign, but I also knew this meant the hardest part was ahead. I was following about 10m behind another rider when I heard him groan as he rounded the corner, and I thought “Cmon, you can do it we’re nearly there!!”, willing him on. As soon as I completed the thought I rounded the corner myself and saw exactly what he was groaning at. Talk about adding insult to injury, the last bit was a real killer!

I’m not sure where I pulled it from, but I managed to get up that last bit and under the finish line. I was so filled with emotion and relief that I was sure I was hallucinating when the guy with the microphone said my name as I finished LOL (My hubby told him, was very sweet!). My brother in law finished not long after me, and my cousin came in (during the rain, poor guy) while I was having my massage - what a massive effort.

We made full use of the spa, pool and sauna at our hotel on Saturday night, and felt pretty good for the ride on Sunday morning. BIL opted out of the Sunday ride, he said that for him the main challenge was making it up the mountain which is fair enough. Myself and my cousin set out at a leisurely 8.30 for the descent and Jamieson ride.

The descent was a gas - I really felt like we’d earned that bit of fun. We got a bit of a tow to the Jamieson turn off from a guy who was going straight to Mansfield (a clever man indeed). I felt the Sunday ride was almost as tough as Saturday. I’d spent so much energy focussing on the climb that I barely thought about the 120km on Sunday, and the hills to Jamieson were a lot more than I was expecting - I DON’T remember seeing them in the brochure LOL. I remember looking at the profile and thinking “Roll down big hill, flat stuff, bit of a bump then Jamieson”. I guess decent climbs look little in comparison to Buller, but they certainly didn’t feel small. My cousin especially had a hard time as he didn’t pull up very well after his cramps. It was very tough mentally but we got there in the end. “Stuff Martin and his gap”.

So it felt great to do this ride - certainly my biggest challenge yet - and meet the goals I set out to meet. Got up the mountain without stopping, swearing or crying, and resisted the temptation to get wasted (1 pot screamer) on Saturday because “it” was over Wink This is a jersey we should all feel we really earned, just for being silly enough to try!! Again congratulations to everyone who participated and made it such a great, friendly weekend.