Moving House
What a fun job this is. Methinks I may have to go and hire a skip bin from a Central Coast business to cope with all the stuff we’ve accumulated in our rental house over the past six years.
At least this time around it’s a relatively slow and easy process. Back when I was moving around in the radio industry we generally had a week to pack and bail!
A Nerd’s Opinion
Some may think it a tad on the odd side, but despite being a nerd who normally goes in for all manner of techno-garbage, I just can’t get excited about little boxes mounted on the dashboard or windscreens of cars that tell you where to go. Possibly it’s because I have an awesome sense of direction, possibly it’s because I generally know my way around Newcastle, the Central Coast and the major areas of Sydney that I need to go already, maybe it’s because I just don’t like ANYTHING blocking my vision out the front of the car, but when it comes to playing ‘werrafukawe’ I would still rather pull over and pick up a Gregory’s street directory than punch in stuff to a GPS unit.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my Garmin Forerunner 310XT that I got from First Endurance. I enjoy going for a run or a bike ride or a skate or a kayak and know how far I’ve gone, how fast I’ve been going, what my current speed is, etc etc etc
So when it comes to GPS, I am a big YES for one on my wrist, and a big NO for one in my car.
I also gave Amazon’s Kindle a go, but more on that later…
Rainy Day Training
A few weeks ago I had an idea for a new online business. I enjoy riding my bike, but quite often and especially over winter, it’s a tad on the cold and wet side. Whilst a true hardcore rider would scoff at all but a meteor storm and head out to ride in torrential downpours and sub-zero temperatures, I reckon there would be one or two more casual cyclists like myself who would prefer just jumping on a turbo trainer or rollers and doing half an hour or more in the nice warmth of the garage or living room.
The thing that I have found with indoor cycling trainers is that they can get a bit boring – even when you’ve got Lord of the Rings playing on the TV whilst you’re riding. Even when using rollers which rely on the cyclist to stay balanced and focused it can get a bit dull after 30 minutes.
Recently, however, I got hold of a couple of Spinervals training videos. These are like Spin classes where you do sets of different drills in different gears, then have a rest of slow pedalling in between sets. Due to the fact that there’s standing and high-cadence drills it wasn’t until I had made my rollers into ‘floating’ rollers that I was able to get up out of the saddle and pedal hard, but now that I have my Spinervals and have my floating rollers, I’ve really started enjoying my inside riding.
I then got to thinking about how while some bike shops (both shopfront and online) sell the odd trainer or training accessory, no-one really seems to have a wide range of different trainers and all the bits and pieces to go along with them. So I am now investigating setting up an online shop where cyclists, triathletes and mountain bikers can get the gear to train when it’s too urky to train outdoors.
Coming soon : www.rainydaytraining.com.au - helping cyclists go nowhere fast!!!
Sydney Tower
After several years of bad timing, I finally got to achieve another goal in my fitness things – climbing the stairs of Sydney Tower as part of the 2010 Run Up. 1500 steps in 13 minutes, with the first half done jogging up each step and the second half done one flight jogging/one flight walking. My heart rate peaked at 182BPM.
Best thing was walking over to the window at the end, looking down at Pitt Street Mall where we had just started and thinking “Damn, I’m awesome!”
I Dreamt It, It Must Be Real!
Every now and again, our eldest furrykid Jess will be fast asleep, and then wake up growling at the front door. I’m sure that she has been dreaming of a pussycat slinking past the front door of the house, and then wakes up in a start not being able to tell the difference between her dream and reality.
… and they say border collies are supposed to be smart!
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