Denniston is a former coal mining area situated on an alpine plateau about 30km North of Westport on the West Coast of New Zealand (Wikipedia here). It was actually an active mining area right up until the 1960’s. In recent years it has fallen under the ambit of the Department of Conservation. Along with the Buller Cycling club they have been building out a bunch of Mountain Bike tracks around the area.

You can pull details on the cycling area from the DoC site and from the Buller Cycling club.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-visit/west-coast/buller-area/denniston/activities/mountain-bike-tracks/ 
http://www.cyclebuller.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=19&Itemid=3 

Dave and I decided we’d try and visit the tracks as part of our summer South Island road trip. We drove in via Murchison as we did some paddling along the way. We had a couple of days in the Murchison region where the water levels were well up. Paddled a few runs that I’ve done before as well as a new run down the mangles that started with about a 2m waterfall- pulled quite a crowd when we ran that one for some reason… didn’t seem that difficult.

We drove into Westport the evening before we planned to ride and found ourselves a nice motel (Buller Bridge Motel) with free WiFi. Got up early and headed up the hill. This place really is quite the plateau. The hill rises steeply off the ocean almost to an altitude of about 650m at the carpark. The views were pretty good for us; on a really fine and still day I can imagine you’d be able to see all the way up to Karamea.

Once we got to the top we had a bit of a potter around looking at some of the old mining ruins. Denniston is famous for the Denniston Incline which is a frighteningly steep, two pitch, coal railway that literally goes straight up the side of the hill. Check out this video from the NZ Archives for an idea of what it was like.

Then we headed up the hill to the Museum Car park which is the designated starting place for the Mountain Biking trails. While getting organized we saw the Google Car driving around- yes, even in the middle of bloody nowhere there is Google!

We started out with the Ropers Hotel Circuit.
http://www.cyclebuller.co.nz/attachments/011_MTB%20-%20Denniston%20-%20Ropers%20Hotel%20Circuit.pdf 
Straight away the riding was quite different to anything we’d ridden before in New Zealand. Lots of slick rock and ledges. Was quite fast riding and reasonably hard on the suspension. A 6” trail bike is ideal- we had a Trance and a Mojo. The last part of this track before it hits the road is walking only- for ecological reasons rather than ride-ability. You definitely want to do this track in the predominant direction indicated on the map as it would be a pain to walk up that hill.

Next we rode out on one of the longer trails. This was nominally on 4WD track but I’d challenge most people to take their 4WD there and get it back in one piece. The track was Sullivans Circuit and it went off the other side of the Plateau back down towards Westport.
http://www.cyclebuller.co.nz/attachments/011_MTB%20-%20Denniston%20-%20Sullivans%20Circuit.pdf 

This track had plenty of challenging riding. Lots of large rocks and ledges. it was all too easy to go far faster than 0.1mm of lycra really should justify.

Finally we rode the Miners and Drill track circuits. Again, lots of hairy riding with a bunch of sketchy single track, some of which we both had to walk.

There was still plenty of sign of the old coal mining stuff and indeed the coal itself.

Despite only doing about 30km (in 3.15hr!) we were in need of a beer once we got back to the car.

Here’s the GPS dump

And the full TCX file of my Garmin 310XT is here:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21786909

Thought it would be interesting to do a blog post of my stats for 2009.

It was a pretty hellish year for travel. It’s the first full year that I’ve used TripIt which has proved to be a really useful tool. TripIt also provides travel stats.

Now not all of this was work travel (I had a couple of overseas holidays) but it was still a pretty full on year.

This is borne out in my exercise stats. Obviously my most exercised location was Wellington, but, I also did a whole heap in Issaquah, Washington and also in Bangalore, India.

I remained pretty steady over the course of the year in terms of the amount of exercise I did. It was still really hard to maintain anything approaching a good training program though.

Once again it was a shitty year for me skiing wise, though these stats do miss out a bit of skiing I had in January. I also did far less mountain biking than I would have liked to.

I did do over 300hr of exercise over the year and travelled 2700km. I also burned 65,000 calories.

Will be interesting to see what I can manage this year.

So… I genuinely object to paying US$20/day to use the hotel gym. But, needs must sometimes and so it was that I found myself at the Mandalay Bay Spa  $20 the poorer this morning. Been working reasonably hard in the build up to the K1 road race in a couple of weeks so needed to get some time in on the stationary trainer.

Well, what an utterly useless experience that was. I got inside the Gym to find that;

1. They had two consumer grade exercycles and that was it as far as bikes went.
2. None of the cardio equipment was available anyway

So even if I had been able to get on the equipment it wouldn’t have been much good for the Interval workout I had planned- I ripped the crank off a consumer grade exercycle in Bangalore this year so it’s just downright dangerous.

In the end I threw my toys out of the cot, got myself a refund of my fees and went for a run up the strip.

Think I’ll try and find someone friendly at the Luxor for the Gym tomorrow and will not be staying at the Mandalay Bay for MIX10 next year that’s for sure.

Got out for hills this morning on the road bike. Turned into a shorter ride, but, I pushed the 2nd interval really hard (100% MHR) and in doing so smashed about 7% off my PB up the short pinch climb I do.

The average power was 450 Watts over the 4min 31 seconds. Pity the hill wasn’t a touch longer as it meant my new PB 5 minute power ended up being only 431 Watts i.e. 30 seconds of my rest break at the top was included.. Goal for the next few weeks is to really work on lifting my power profile. I think I’ll probably look at doing Peak 1’w and 5’w on Happy Valley road as it certainly appears to help going up a hill. At the moment my 1’w isn’t even on the chart and I’d like to work on getting my entire profile into the Cat 4 region over the next few weeks in the lead up to the K1 race. Means I need to be targeting 350 Watts for 60 minutes which I think is going to be the hardest bit.

The other interesting thing is to see just how much temperature variation affects my (supposedly temperature compensating) barometric altimeter on the Polar s625x. All 5 of those intervals should be the same height, but, there is a definite trend downward over the set.

Thoughts I’d start a post of some of the grades of the various hills (Road Cycling) around Wellington.

I’ve pulled these off various rides around the place. Have noted where some are averages. All data recorded on a Polar s625x

Hill	Map	Distance	Height	Grade
Makara Saddle. Karori Side. Cnr Allington Road and Apex of Saddle Average of 3		1.05km	87m	8.5%
Makara Saddle. Makara Side Lamp-post in front of Church to Lamppost at top of Saddle Average of 2	Map	2.61km	186m	7.15%
Takarau Gorge Road Intersection to Top of J’ville Intersection Makara Rd and Takarau Rd to top of Johnsonville on Cortina Road	Map	11.07km	268m	2.2%
Aro Valley Up Raroa Road From Traffic island at bottom of hill to top of hill on Raroa Road	Map	1.96km	107m	5.7%

So I got up early this morning, did some email and proposal writing and then got out for a good hard session of hill repeats.

I have the luxury of having the Makakara saddle just a few minutes ride up the road from my house.

I’ve typically done the shorter Karori side in the past. Today I did three laps up the Karori side and two up the Makara side.

It was dark so I couldn’t see when I had properly pressed my lap button so I have a few more laps that I probably needed. Stats look good though

The short laps got progressively slower: Sub 5 minutes is a good time for me at the moment and only the first was (4:57).
The long laps the 2nd was faster but both were still not super fast. 13:46 and 12:55

Average power for the final long lap was 360 Watts… So shouldn’t be too hard to knock that time down a chunk given I should be coming 400 watts for a CP10 effort.

Other interesting stats. The Karori side is steeper at 8.5% gradient to 7.2%. 86m on the Karori side, 186m on the Makara side.

So all was quiet for me with a big travel load the last couple of weeks. Spent an amazing week in Redmond last week and kinda wish I had my bike with me- Seattle in Summer is rather alluring to be honest!

Got out for a MTB ride with my brother today. Not far, but, we got a couple of hours in. We did a lower loop of Makara Peak then up to the top, down Zacs and Varleys and home along the road.

The Yellow Mojo got really filthy. You can at least still tell it’s yellow.

Adventure Sports | Gettin Fit|Sunday, July 05, 2009 7:35:26 AM UTC|Comments [0]|    

So my goal this morning was to get some base kilometres in. I was originally hoping to do >100km but in the end my ride on Friday just took a bit too much out of me. It turned out being a slow and grinding 90km. I tried to mix things up by going a route I normally wouldn’t for parts of the ride.

Went from Karori out to Johnsonville via Makara. Then back past Karori, down throug Aro Valley and up and over past Happy Valley. Then around the bays once, over the hill from Mirimar to Worser Bay, back around past the airport and home via Oriental Parade.

The little spike out the side of the map in J’ville was me riding towards Churton Park and then seeing the weather. In the end the weather was fantastic- a touch windy around the South Coast but apart from that lovely.

Average power is understandably a chunk lower than Friday. Climbed 1130 meters which is a nice reflection of my efforts to include a few more hills today.

I listened to a bunch of interesting podcasts on the bike today.

1. Neil deGrasse Tyson on Point of Inquiry talking about the Pluto Files. I listened to the Pluto Files audio book last month while on holiday so was interesting to hear this interview. Unsurprisingly (CFI is a secular lobby org) they got to talking about ‘teach the controversy’- the answer of course… there is no controversy. (Cool shirts here for all of you readers who think the earth is older than 10,000 years… and yes I do have readers who think it’s less than 10,000 years old.)
2. Charles Platt talking about Working at Wal-Mart on Econtalk. I found this very interesting if maybe a little shallow. Platt worked at Wal-Mart for a week which I don’t think really qualifies him to reach some of the conclusions he did. Nevertheless a interesting interview particularly about the aggressive devolution of tactical decision making at Wal-Mart.
3. Professor Doug Richards on TVO Big Ideas as part of their best lecturer series. Richards is a Bio-mechanist and was talking about stretching. An interesting topic given how much my legs were hurting at this point in time. F couple of interesting ideas I drew from this lecture.
1. I think there are some great opportunities to build on the use of Elasticity when I talk about cloud computing to use other metaphors from materials science- viscosity, plasticity…. look out for an interesting blog post on this some time.
2. It confirmed my feelings that whitewater kayakers (of which I am one) should be VERY careful when stretching their shoulders. I’m a big believer that shoulder stretching is actually qhite risky for paddlers as it means we end up with shoulder joints far more prone to dislocation.
4. Austin Dacey on Point of Inquiry talking about the United Nations ‘Human Rights’ Council and the Religious Defamation resolution. As you’d expect, my position on this is that it’s a steaming pile of manure and I do also agree with Dacey that hate speech laws in general are free speech stifling bullshit. The answer is more speech not less speech. I’ve not listened to Point of inquiry for a while and it was good to get back to listening to some of these again.
5. I finished with making a start on this weeks Economist which is my regular read. I got through the whole of the technology quarterly on my Friday ride.

I got out for a totally fantastic ride this morning. Just went on my own but half way around realized I really should have got my %&^$%* together and called @RowanSimpson so sorry fella! Sunday maybe?

I went for what I felt was a fairly cruisy ride, but, unless my power meter is telling porkies it was actually a pretty decent ride. I’ll usually do about 280 Watts average for a 2.5hr (60-70km) ride but this morning average was 310 Watts. Hopefully this means that I’m improving both fitness and leg strength.

Was basically a flat ride. Came down from Karori, around the Mirimar peninsula to Happy Valley Road, turned around and came back again to the office. Out @ 0530hr in the office by 0800hr- marvellous!

Got a lovely photo coming back around the peninsula as the sun came up.

So not much blogging went on around my exercise this week. Just too busy with work and running a training course for Windows 7 developers in Singapore.

I did the miles/time though. Well, as much as I generally manage while travelling which is about 5-6hr per week.

Had a good session today though. A 10km hike up the big hills behind Wellington on my favourite tracks. Blistered feet because I haven’t been in my shoes for 3 weeks- groan. Back to Les Mills tommorow for an Upper Body workout and a blast on the Lifecycle. Will be trying to get some Boxing classes in this week before I head out to the US next Wednesday.

So I think that the Intercon Mumbai (The Lalit) has a pretty decent gym. A bunch of late model Technogym cardio and strength equipment. They also have free weights here and decent amounts of weight! Not sure if they have a squat rack though- don’t remember seeing one. Probably the best ‘in hotel’ gym I’ve been to this year. The Venetian and the Holiday Inn Issaquah both have access to great off site gyms: Canyon Ranch and Sammamish Club (checkout the cool Bing search results for it)

Had a hard cardio session today – Training Effect 4.4 on my Suunto t3c. I’m really getting to know how my body responds to exertion now. It’s really interesting working at anaerobic threshold because you can quite literally feel when your body has switched into aerobic mode: less puffing, high heart rate.

Booked in for a massage this afternoon at the hotel spa and then will probably have the day off tomorrow- or a VERY light spin.

49% of my workout today was in my top heart rate zone. So it really was a hard threshold workout!

So my 1hr of solid exercise on the recumbent went a bit pearshaped this morning as I broke it half way through. Note to hotel owners: Kitting your gym out with rubbish equipment is never a good thing.

Ended up doing the rest of my cardio workout on the normal bike. Training Effect of 4.0 on the Suunto. Polar profile below.

So I got a great workout in this morning in Bangalore today. My key focus was to really blitz my upper body.

To achieve this I focussed on using an Isolatio9n exercise followed by a compound exercise for each body part. With the Isolation exercise I focussed really hard on exaggerating the movement of the muscles I was targeting and worked hard on  not using the muscles that tend to kick in if I’m being less concentrated.

So for example- for chest I used a simple Pec Deck followed my machine press. The key here was to really exaggerate squeezing my chest together. I should hurt tomorrow all things going to plan.

Really wishing I was in WLG so I could go running like @Pipssqueaks

So I’ve been horribly slack over the past two weeks. First I was sick. Then I was on holiday.

I managed a measly 36 minutes of exercise week of the 18th and I’ve managed just 2hr this week (week of 25th). But, I am back in action again as of this morning.

I’m back in Bangalore running the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Business Action Training Tour event. I’d never been tin India before the start of this year- this is now my 4th trip. Gets a little exhausting, SQ502 (the flight SIN-BLR) has to be my least favourite flight in the entire world and last night they put me 4 rows from the back in a middle seat… I was not happy.

But, that was yesterday. Got back to the gym this morning. Staying at the Monarch Luxur hotel, which despite being a ‘Jewel in the crown’ of The Monarch Group is what can only be described as a ‘good value’ establishment. The rooms are not too bad, once you flush the Naphthalene balls they leave everywhere, but the gym is a bit average.

So my workout today was very much a make do sort of workout. So here are a few tips for a make-do workout.

1. Don’t be afraid to try a new piece of cardio gear.
   I used the rather decrepit recumbent bike here to good effect today: in fact I think I’ll try for a full on Cardio session on Tuesday morning using this machine.
2. If there’s not enough weight on a particular machine then go unilateral and explosive.
   Today was leg day and the legpress machine here (part of one of those all in one Gym things) had a very limited weight stack. So it was a case of racking the entire stack and then doing unilateral (one leg at a time), high pace (explosive), high rep (15 per side +) exercises. Makes for a hybrid cardio/strength workout. Wouldn’t want to do it every week as it’s liable to consume a bit of muscle mass but for a first week back it was great.
3. Use body weight exercises
   As above, you can get a good cardio/strength hybrid by using body weight. In my case this was bench step-ups. The bench here was nice and high which made this a good challenge and it was a good balance test as well.

Polar screenshot for the day

So once again, travel is getting in the way of fitness. Was in Sydney over the weekend and while I managed to get an 8km walk (and a 50m swimming race) in with Adam Cogan over the weekend I’ve not done a decent road ride for a week.

Got back from Sydney last night at midnight and on the plane to Dunedin again this morning then Dunedin to Hamilton tomorrow. Oh happy joy!

I did get a morning boxing workout in with Scott @ Les Mills on the Terrace this morning. My 3rd since I got back into it and my fitness is definitely improving.

Did a recovery aerobic session at the gym today. On the RedEye SIN-SYD tonight so will probably try and bang out a decent length session on the spin bike tomorrow. Note to frequent travellers: The Intercontinental in Sydney has proper Spin bikes in their gym.

So I did upper body this morning at the Gym here in Singapore:

10 Min on the Elliptical and then into it.

Tried the old trick of pre-exhaustion through isolation exercises; namely  dumbell chest flys to start. As the heart rate chart shows, not the best. So instead I did a chest pre-exhaustion using isolateral cable flys (those are the BIG peaks in the first bit of my weights routine on the chart). An all together much better idea- the reason, cable machines give you resistance throughout the movement whereas in a standard chest fly the last part of the movement is basically at full extension and the weights just doing nothing.

An easy session on the bike again tonight.

Arrived in Singapore last night. Here for a few days running the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Business Action Training Tour.

I ummed and ahhed about bringing my road bike this time… But in the end I couldn’t be bothered.

Nevertheless I needed to get some miles into the legs this morning so it was onto the Lifecycle for an hour. I did a Training Effect of 4.8 out of 5 on my Suunto T3c which was the highest I’ve had it yet. I decided to leave getting to 5.0 for another day. 34% in my top zone was all good. Obviously the Lifecycle doesn’t give me enough data to feed to WKO+. The stats I worked to were approx 270 Watts at 110-120 RPM.

So my morning bike ride today was an on again off again affair. An early morning tweet from @nathanm kinda leant me towards going to the gym instead. But looking outside (despite the thunderstorm) it didn’t look too bad.

Headed out around the bays but it was a nasty southerly. In the end I just ended up doing some hill repeats on Mt Victoria. Forgot to change my Polar x625x to bike mode so no power/speed/cadence in my chart today which is a bit annoying.

So I had a totally on-again off-again morning today. I was planning to go for a road ride, but, it was raining so I ended up hitting the gym for 50 mins on the lifecycle at about 260-320 Watts doing speed drills. Great hardcore workout. Training effect of 4.6/5 on the Suunto.

Back into working out boxing styles with a PT. My techniques not too bad and power is still really good. Fitness- we’re working on.

Lest you think that boxing is not the most killer workout you can do check out the peaks on the chart below.

So my morning road ride ended prematurely this morning. Got half way around the Miramar Peninsula and blew out a spoke. Stupid cheap Shimano R500 wheels- methinks I might get Oli @ Roadworks to build me some nice training wheels.

I have got my speedo working properly again though.

So just a great morning here in Wellington today. Rode into the office and dropped off my laptop then did 50km around the bays. Rode out around the peninsula to the round-about then back again. About 1hr 45min all up but the last bit from Kilbirnie home was pretty cruisy. Training effect on the Suunto T3c was 4.0. Speed on my Polar is broken due to a spoke that keeps coming loose.

So I’m staying on the Infosys Campus in Bangalore this week and hitting up their gym each morning.

The campus is a fantastic facility and the gym is top notch.

Did a cardio work this morning including a sprint on the Recumbent bike…. never thought I could peak my heart rate like i did on the recumbent! Always thought they were for grandmas! Definitely more of this for me going forward. Check out the chart

Tracking my workout using both my Polar S625x (as above) and my Suunto T3c at the moment.  Set out to achieve a 4.0 Training Effect on the Suunto which I nailed right at the peak of the recumbent interval- I think I was on level 18 (Constant wattage mode) doing about 100 RPM for that interval.

With all this travel I keep forgetting just how lovely Wellington can be on a great day.

Did a fantastic road ride today. Out to Johnsonville (past the murder scene at the Mobil), back into town via Ngaio, around the bays and the Miramar peninsula and the I cut home @ Kilbirnie as I was pretty stuffed by then. Rode a bunch of the peninsula with a guy from Mercer comparing notes on hotels to stay at that actually have proper spin bikes.

Did about 70km all up.

My peak 20min power was up to 300 Watts so I’m defn. seeing some improvement in my Functional Threshold Power (up from 280 Watts last time I did a proper test) . Even more pleasing was I maintained 290 Watts for 20min and 255 Watts for 60 min. Just have to get the body weight down and should be caning it.

Ready, Steady, Go!

Hiya Guys,

Recently the feedback board featured an interesting ‘suggestion’ around the new jukebox. Specifically:

‘A lot of the music on the new Jukebox is dance music and not really suited to working out.’

To which the Bodyworks team replied, in part:

‘The developer is increasing the number of songs and the ‘house’ music is being removed.’

Frankly I wasn’t too happy to read this. Music is a matter of taste, yet, where your correspondent sets out as an objective fact that ‘dance music [is] not really suited to working out’ your team seem to be in total agreement. Would a better reply not have been something like:

‘At Bodyworks our membership comprises a broad cross section of the community, we try to provide a broad cross section of music to suit all tastes. We’re adding songs regularly so keep checking back for new tracks.’

Your explicit agreement makes a mockery of your whole feedback system.  The customer is *not* always right- in this case the point is at the very least moot.

But, let’s take for a moment their statement that ‘dance music [is] not really suited to working out’ objectively and look towards some evidence.

Maybe we could start by consulting the various group training instructors at Bodyworks, experts surely in workout music selection. Based on my regular visits to the gym I would say that ‘dance’ music is a very popular format for their choreographies- disproportionately so if you compared their track listings against say the popular music charts. We’re not merely talking about more recent ‘house/trance/techno/…’ music. These guys use dance music from right through the past 20 odd years- remember the 80’s? Jazzercise? 80’s dance music?

But really I don’t even think that the argument as to what is good and what is not should really raise its head here.  Everybody is going to have different tastes- the whole purpose of the jukebox is to, as best one can, attempt to cater to all of those disparate tastes.

Maybe your correspondent was referring more generally to modern dance music, the electronic varieties (Trance, House, Breakbeat, Electro, Techno, Drum and Bass). Maybe they don’t like it? It’s certainly not to everybody’s taste. Maybe your team don’t like it? Ditto.  But, your capitulation really does make a mockery of the whole feedback system. Not all feedback is going to be right. On receipt and analysis you should be considering the, quite obvious, thoughts and opinions of other members. In this case you quite clearly haven’t.

If you must have your ‘perfect’ workout music then you should take an MP3 player with a decent pair of in-ear (noise blocking headphones). If you choose not to and instead rely on the jukebox then you should be prepared to compromise and show a degree of communal tolerance- others may have a different idea as to just what really suits their workout.

Anyway. Rant over. I do love my gym a whole heap. As someone who travels overseas a lot (the IHRSA membership is a real bonus) I still love coming back to my own gym and still sits at the top of my favourites list if only because of the whole sense of community. Let’s not spoil that community with this sort of feedback and response.

Regards

Chris

Phil, Tim and I went for a MTB ride @ Makara on Saturday afternoon. Had a blast.

Went up Koru, along Sally Alley, out onto the 4WD track then down the bottom of Ridgeline and Swigg. It was a pretty leisurely pace but we all had a hoot of a time and got filthy muddy.

Here's the profile of the ride- I really have to get myself a watch like Darryl B's... So it can talk to a wheel sensor.

If you're keento come on any of our rises do et us know!. Phil has some photos here.

Managed my first sub 100kg weigh in this morning.

Actually a bit surprised as I've had this week off exercise as I'm sick as a dog with some viral cough thing... driving me insane.

So I got onto the scales this morning expecting something ike 102kg and came it @ 99.8. I'm pretty stoked really!

There is this old lady @ my gym who wears entirely nasty gym gears... then I found ths picture in a shop in the Venetian in Vegas... I sooo thought of her. I've attached some of the other cool poster pics too.

I had forgotten that it was bike to work day. As I rode from the Gym (Thorndon) to the Office (Willis St) I stumbled upon the free breakfast (well the end of it) @ Civic Square.

Anyway- IU've got right back into riding to work having shifted to Wellington. Fuel is too expensive, m car drinks it (Turbo Subaru), and I'm really liking my new bike.

I think that Phil is keen for a Makara Peak MTB ride soon. So, if you are keen for a bike ride in WLG post a comment here and we should all heahis weekend sometime.

Been spending a decent chunk of time doing gym cardio recently and I’ve come to a conclusion for cardio equipment manufacturers.

Where you have a machine with variable resistance, say 0 to 20, the default when you jump on the machine should be 10, not 0. Seem to be so many people at the gym who think that doing 120rpm for 20mins at level 0 on the stationary bike constitutes a workout.

I stayed in Richmond Sat and Sun night before presenting at the Nelson .NET Users Group today. I stayed at the Destiny Motel and it did a pretty good job of meeting my essential home away from home requirements. It had CNN, Broadband and…. 50m down the road BJs Gym. I got a couple of sessions in, Upper body on Sunday (which kicked ass) and Lower Body this morning (which was a bit average- wasn’t feeling all that on game). But anyway. BJs was a great wee gym. Good free weights and machines. Cardio room was OK- gear was a bit old and all tended to be pro-sumer grade stuff which 100kg+ers like me tend to feel like they’re gonna break.

The staff @ BJs were really friendly, other gym bunnies were pleasant. I even met another whitewater kayaker (Rieds Farm T Shirt gave it away) who I was sure I recognised but I think it was recognition from a canoe polo tournament rather than slalom.

Anyway. If you’re staying or living in Richmond it’s a convenient gym. Off to Bodyworks in Wellington tomorrow.

OK.

So a wee while back I posted about moving into an Intensity phase.

Here is an update to that.

1. I've not managed to nail the 2 a day exercise. But, I have significantly increased my total exercise time. Mainly by getting to the gym early in the morning for an hour. I've been pushing my legs quite hard on Monday mornings which means by Wed morning I need to aquajog for some active recovery.

2. So that carries on to the more weights. I'm lifting much bigger weights and slightly lower reps. Have dropped back from hitting 20 reps in the 1st set to more like a 15,12,8 set pattern.

3. Supplementing is going well. The Thermogenics took a bit of getting used to again and the creatine has wacked on some serious water weight (like 4 kilos). But, I'm pleased with the supplementing regime. I fell like a million bucks most days and I'm nialing some hard morning gym sessions.

4. My eating has not changed a great deal. Slightly better at making my own lunches (generally Chicken breast and salad sammies). Have been MUCH better at eating fruit. Doing at least 2 pieces a day which is a major change for me- loving apples at the moment. Mmmmm... big juicy apples.

Weight this morning 104.2. Now this is up on pre creatine levels but given that when I started the loading phase I bounced up to almost 106kgs I think I'm still well on target for sub 100kg by Xmas. I really have been stripping it off over the past few weeks.

So, all in all good progress.

My recent training calendar.

My intensity grah showing much more time being spent in the yellow and red zones and less 'junk miles' in the grey zone.

So. I've kind of plateaued on the weight front but am still seeing pretty good body shape changes.

Currently sitting around 103.5 kgs.

I've decided to lift my intensity for a phase of about 4-5 weeks. This means:

• Twice a day, every day exercise. Ideally around an hour on most days. Trying to lift my proportion of time in my MAX heart rate band (170 bpm +)
• More weights. I'm focussing on pushing reasonably high reps still.
• Pretty intensive supplementing reigime*. I started a creatine loading phase on Sunday night. I'm doing twice a day protein shakes (Gymeez OEM stuff). I'm also back on the thermogenics (I know, I know!) but they do give you a kick in the pants.

Anyway. Will be trying to blog about progress a bit more. Eating well at the moment which is good. Probably still need to lift my fluid intake. Anyone got any tips to enforce good water drinking habits?

* In case you think I'm just replacing one breed of processed shit with another I am easting well for main meals.
Typical day:

Breakfast
4 Weetbix, Fresh and Fruity Yogurt, Protein Powder. (Need to add more fruit and veg here)

Lunch
Sachet of Seafood Chowder (not too creamy and fatty variety), chopped cooked lean chicken breast.

Dinner
Ultra lean venison, green slad, corn and bean salad.

Snacks
Nuts- Walnuts, Almonds, Hazlenuts, Pecans, Brazil Nuts
A bit of Gatorade Energy Bar

No not the ASX and NZSX dummy... my weight- in fact I ws up on the stocks I purchased yesterday but I've pretty much quit my NZX holdings (not they they were huge anyway).

Anyway, weight.
103.2 yesterday morning.

Tredning down and hopefully on target for sub 100kg before Xmas...... Still haven't quite saved the $$$ for my Lasik yet so I've got a bit more time....

OK. So the week started out pretty well for me with my first sub 104kg weigh in. But then it kinda didn't really spark. I didn't do a heap or exercise (Gym Mon, Canoe Polo Tue, Run Wed, Run Fri) and so come this weekend I needed a jump start!

I got up this morning, went to the farmers market, had an apple strudel and some yummy russian deep fried pastie for breakfast...... and then ran/walked up Mt Cargil 5 minutes faster than ever before.... that's like 10% off my best time!

Just to prove it, here is my chart....

Now I've blogged about this before. But this is really a follow up.

I currently cook about 80% of my meals on my Foreman Grill. It was a wedding present from Debs Aunt and Uncle.

It really kicks ass. Reasons:

1. All the fat runs off (Atkins can take a giant leap... fat is BAD BAD BAD....BAD!)
2. It cooks twice as fast becuase it's heated top and bottom
3. You can easily make dishes free meals with it.
1. Stick steak and veges on grill and cook
2. When finished place on sice of bread and eat.
3. While grill still hot wipe clean with kitchen paper.
4. VOILA... no dishes.

Over the next wee while I'm ging to post some of the essential bits of my get fit gears.

#1 Is Singapore Syle Running Shorts

Yes, the skimpy ones that show a lot of leg. Who cares what you look like, they are the most comfortable thing to wear if you're doing any running or decent distance walking.

P.S. Currently floating around 104. Have kinda leveled out a bit... need to step up the volume again soon but late August and most of Sept is travel mad for me.....

OK all..... for those of you in Auckland on the Saturday.... I'm going to organise a geek run... we'll probably go up to K Road, across through the domain, down through Parnel and back along the waterfront.

We'll meet at the bottom of the Sky Tower @ 8:30am on the Saturday.

This will be a slog jog.... so all bunnies are forbidden.

Here is the entry for ya Smartphone
Geek Run.vcs (.41 KB)

RSVP in the comments if you are keen.....

OK.... so I have reached my first milestone!

Today, for the third weigh in in a row, I registered under 105kg- 104.2 to be exact.

As a result I have earnt my new gadget. Fortunatly my credit card billing period ticked over last night...... so I both deserved it and could afford to buy it!

Haven't had a good play with it yet... but look out for some nice charts of my progress on here real soon.

Just one more sub 105kg weigh in and I can claim that I have reached my first goal

Actually had a pretty average weekend- only got 3/4 of the way up Flagstaff on Sunday as it was Windy and Cold.

Did knock 30 seconds of my Mt Cargill time though- currently stands @ 44minutes and 58 seconds.

Nuff said

...and I'm 105.1kg, a mere 100gms off my first target weight and thus almost able to get my first reward. Well, actually I'm making myself record 3 days under 105 before I'm claiming I've made it.....

1/2 way there..... 100kg here we come.

...with my exercise routine?

Well I have. but only in the last two days.

I've been kicking ass otherwise.

Weight was down to 106.9 last time I weighed in but it's much more muscle than flab now. I've been exercising a lot more- my fave trick at the moment is walking up big hills. I went up Flagstaff from Booth Rd on Sat in 42.26 minutes. I usually do Mt Cargill on Sundays but one of my staff memebers and a number of my paddling mates corrupted me with my own duty free grog on Sat night so I crashed on the couch with the dog for Sunday.

Had a bad day for eating today and yesterday- back on track from tonight.

Still eating well. Onto home made lunches again this week.

Decent activity levels last week.

Gyming and Exerbiking.

Jogged/Walked up Flagstaff and mt Cargill on Sat and Sun respectivly. Rolled my ankle on way back down Mt Cargill. Quiet day today- at GYM with Personal traineer this arvo.

Weigh in tommorow. Not losing weight particularly fast by defn. toning up.

Weighed in this morning. 108.2 Lost 0 kgs... oh well... patience I reckon.

No exercise last night. But 25 mins cardio and a weights circuit with Dave this morning.

Proteing shake for Bfast. BLAT for lunch.

Flying this evening... Must be strong and NOT much out on cheese and bikkies @ the Koru Club!

Yesterday was good. Until my little windows episode yesterday afternoon.

Got up and did 35 minutes up and 25 minutes down the Pineapple track. All in 130bpm to 150bpm.

Got home. ate some frozen leftover spagbol and pasta for breakfast. Had a sammie for lunch and conrded silverside with the in-laws for dinner.

Up this morning. Did 50 minutes at the gym- combination of arms workout and 25mins cardio.

Got to work- bit of cold thai chicken and veges from the other night and a protein shake.

Spilt my protein shake ALL OVER MY TABLET PC...... So I just rinsed it under the tap... gotta love those Toughbooks... More later.

Weigh-in defered till tommorow. Felling stronger/better though!

OK... SO yesterday was pretty average.

Poor eating, stressed, no exercise.

I ate rubbish (Chicken Roll with Hollandaise for lunch and kebab for dinner!... Bleh.) I had Thai Soup (takeaway) Thursday night too but followed it up with a good long bike ride and a session of Pilates with Zosha et al. Watched the rugby with Matt from Fortress and pigged out on cheese.... bleh.... altogether bad.

Not going to make excuses. Fell off the rails.

Back on track today. Did a 60 minute run with Toby (the Dog) this morning and then did a clean up of my bach. pad.

Protein shake with Bannana for breakkie. Going to head in and do some work soon.

Found a great new running circuit... need to know Dunedin to understand instructions...

It's a figure 8 loop around Ross Creek. You start at the entrance to Ross Creek on Cannington Road and take the track that runs along the edge of the golf course around to the lake. Run across the dam then up the hill and along the northern boundary. Run right along the northern boundary until you get to the booth road entrance right at the top corner of Ross Creek. Cross ver the road and head up the Pineapple Track. Keep climbing the track and you will go past the water tanks and treatment facility and eter into a closed in bush track. Head up this for about 200m and you will get to a signposted track for McGouns(sp) Creek. This is the apex of the run distance and climb wise.

Head down the McGouns track until you hit a 4WD track. Head left down this track back towards Booth Road but just before you cross over the bridge take a right onto another 4WD track. Follow this down until you hit the sealed road. Cross the road and you are back into ross creek. RUn down the southern edge of the lake this time and cross over the track you run up on. Run down the dam face, to the footbridge. Then down the creek for about 250m when you get to a stream crossing. GO across the stream and up the hill.... you'll be back at ya car.

The DCC says you are meant to have ya dog on the lead here... but mine preferes to be off and the fine is only $100 bucks or something so I reckon it's worth the risk. Not been caught yet and everyone else does it.

Having a crapy day today... more about it later.

No exercise this morning... didn't even eat breakfast..... BLEH!

Didn't make lunch... BLEH!

REALLY REALLY cld in the house this morning....

I've just gone and done it again!..... Body went on auto pilot and ate my muesli bar for lunch instead of afternoon snack..... GRRRRR.........

OK...

So since my post this time yesterday I've done pretty well.

Exercise.

Did a 20 min run with the dog last night @ 130bpm to 150bpm Heart Rate (Found the HRM in my sock draw). Got up this morning and did a 25 minute stroll with the dog- legs were sore from yesterday.

Food- I ate a light dinner last night. Steak and Salad. Went and watched the rugby with Matt @ TicketDirect. I managed to build almost an entire Pocket PC Ticket scanning application during the rugby match... which was pretty cool- look out for it in action at the Wellington match next week and the ABs Lions test in Welly early next month.

Today I had a protein shake for brekie. M bar for morning tea. Lunch was a chicken sammie with humus and lettuce. Had my afternoon M bar at  lunch.

Shopping for today:
Dinner for tonight

1. OK... Day one went pretty well.

Kept to a good eating schedule.

1. Breakfast
   Protein Shake
2. Morning Snack
   Muesli Bar
3. Lunch
   2 * Tuna Sammies
4. Afternoon Snack
   Muesli Bar (Ate this a bit too early... body went into 'autopilot' and just picked it up and ate it... whoops...)
5. Dinner
   300Gms Fillet Steak (Super Lean)
   Salad (With a little Asian Lemon Splash dressing from Zarbo)
   1/2 a Ciaatta Bread (felt like carbs as I had to play Canoe Polo last night) Splurged and had some Taramasalata on it as it was on clearance at super market- bit naughty but not too fatty and salmon fatty acids good....
6. Late snack after Polo
   Protein Shake

Got through a bit of water but not as much as I'd like. Not doing to good on that today either.  Note to self... DRINK MORE WATER

Exercise yesterday was a 40 minute game of polo. Did a few walking meetings during the day too.

As for today. Missed taking the dog for a run today. Do have a lead though- his grandma left him with one when he went to the groomers yesterday. I did by my Pilates mat yesterday but no dumbells.... instead I got a big rubber exercise band- trying that out tonight.

1. Exercise today so far has been a 40 minute PT session with my trainer dave. General upper/lower/cardio circuit session. Was good. I pushed out high reps for each set and I felt +ve. Planning on a run with the dog, some bike time and some Pilates this evening... Need to do some work too.

Food plan for today.

1. Breakkie
   Protein Shake (was gonna have Bannana but they aren't ripe enough yet) Had this after my PT session
2. Morning Snack
   Muesli bar at about 11am
3. Lunch
   Chicken sammie on 1/2 ciabatta with Taramasalata and lettuce. 6 Cherry toms. Eating this right now.
   I got a whole loadof lean chicken at supermarket last night and cooked it up for this weeks lunches.
4. Dinner
   Is steak again. No bread tonight. Just steak and a BIG feed of salad.

Stuff todo and get today.
Probablly OK todaMaybe some bread from the supermarket cos the other stuff might be getting stale. But should probabbly be OK for sammies tommorow.

General feeling of well being.... not too bloody bad Not been hungry at all which is good. My fod plan is really to not cut down too much on quantity (I'm upping exercise to deal with that) but I'm being much more careful as to when and what I eat. Less fat. bit more protein. Not ditching carbs altogether- I aim to lose via exercise not this stupid stick ya body into Ketosis mode that's all the craze at the moment. Progress thus far goo.d Just got to stay +ve

Things I need to work on:

1. Dragging my sorry ass out of bed in the morning to walk the dog. Anybody got any hot tips on how to make getting up easier? Especialy in COLD COLD COLD climates...?

OK. So this post has a bit of stuff about some of my plans as well as my first weigh in.

I weighed in this morning at
108.2kg
25.6% body fat

This is still much lightr than my peak weight (about 115kg) but my target is to go under 100kg- ideally to around 96-98kg. This was my weight when I was at the peak of fitness at the end of highschool. I am a big guy anyway- broad shoulders, 6'3” - so I'm never going to be a flyboy.

I'm going to reward myself for hitting my weight target with Lasik Eye Surgery So I really need to get it off before paddling season kicks in properly

I got all of my exercise technology sorted out last night. I have it all set up in my lounge.

• Diamondback Road Bike on a Magnetic Trainer
• Media PC running Snapstream (Set to record good stuff to watch on bike as well as the daily episode of Pilates TV on TV1)
• Pilates Mat - tried with my Thermarest last night- no good. Need a closed cell mat. To buy today.

I gave the system a trial last night. Did 25 mins on the back and an episode of Pilates (this week is Boy exercises week so all strength stuff- might save them away till a bit later) then off to bed by about 1/2 past nine. I had finished all my exercise by 9pm but then watched some Kayak Porn because I felt the need for a thrill.....

Up this morning and into the diet routine.

• Protein shake for breakfast. I'm going to add a bannana if I have exercised in the morning. I didn't exercise this morning because I couldn't find a lead for the dog- added to shopping list.
• I made some Tuna sammies for lunch- two sammies - white bread will get brown next time for more fiber - small squirt of Tartare sauce (soooo full of FAT!). I'm going to have a protein shake too as I brought some to work with me.
• Snacks over the day I have a Tasti muesli bar and a pams muesli bar- they were the low fat options at the supermarket. I also have a bottle of Gatorade made up from powder. Need to drink more water too. Will report back on how we get on.
• Dinner - Going to be fillet steak and salad with minimal dressing. Need to buy salad.

Exercise plan for today

1. Run the dog @ Ross Creek - about 30 minutes
2. Game of Canoe Polo @ Moana Pool - about 40 minutes

Shopping for today

1. Dog leash - Supermarket
2. Readymade Salad - Supermarket
3. Second hand dumbells from Cash Converters
4. Pilates mat from Para Rubber

General tasks for today

1. Find heart rate monitor watch. The alarm goes off at 6:30am every morning so it is somewhere in the house.

I'm going to lose some kilograms. Mainly because I've got back into kayaking and I'm too fat for pretty much every playboat (even the big boy models) on the market. I also realy want to look like a 'sexy beast' for Christmas

So. I'm going to blog about it. That way all you people who read this blog religiously can kick my ass if I fall off the wagon. I'm gonna try and do a sort of daily diary with my eating and exercising and all that jazz.

Please, Please, Please... if you find me slacking kick my virtual ass