“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." Confucius

Friday 18 May 2012

At the stage race in Alice Springs

With 1 race to go Mel's leading the elite women's race by 15 minutes and  Ben is in 11th pos in elite men but perhaps starting a new career in modelling??

  pix found on FB..not sure who took it.

Thursday 17 May 2012

Found on FB.......


Ganglions

are...what?  according to  www.emedecinehealth.com they are:  a tumor or swelling on top of a joint or the covering  of a tendon (tissue that connects muscle to bone). It looks like a sac of liquid (cyst). Inside the cyst is a thick, sticky, clear, colorless, jellylike material. Depending on the size, cysts may feel firm or spongy.

And I managed to develop one on the end joint of my second toe, right foot.  Don't know when or why....I just noticed it one day.in (I think) January.   A quick consult with a podiatrist at work  led me just to keep an eye on it, but twice since then it's caused me a bit of a problem, the last time taking me to my GP cos it looked infected.

Long story short...yesterday I went to a specialist whose specialty is foot lumps and bumps.  Yes, it was a ganglion, no it wasn't attached to anything significant and yes he would drain it.  It might return, they often do, and if it did and was a problem then we might have to do something more dramatic.

4 needle pokes later and it was clear that whatever was inside was not exiting via a needle so he proceeded to do what I've been dying to do for 5 months..he squeezed the stuff out.  The convex lump turned into a somewhat bloody concave mess which he covered with a bandaid(!)..then he said..  keep it dry.and I think you should stay of the bike for 10 days!...'cos actually  it was probably my new bike shoes and mega km's over Xmas that caused the problem.  Off the bike for 10 days?...not a hope. OK I'll stick with the ergo but..no bike at all??

Straight into problem solving mode:

  • Option 1  My first task  post  "ganglion bursting" was to go my favourite cobbler...one of the few genuine cobblers left in Melbourne and ask him to mega stretch an old bike shoe .....I pick it up today..
  • Option 2 if that doesn't work I'll put a platform pedal on the right side and use an ordinary shoe or open sandal.
  • Option 3 do 10 days of single leg riding :-(


to be continued.....

Sunday 13 May 2012

woo!hoo! a new toy!

so I've gone the "tablet" route and bought  the Asus eeslider SL101..comes complete with keyboard.  And the reason for this rash purchase, when I've already got a laptop???...weight.  the lap top gets a bit heavy when carting it around on my travels, whereas this baby is a measly 800gms or so.  Case closed.


Today I raced the last of this group of 3 TT races in 3 weeks. All in the country and all pretty flat..Wang, Shepp and finally Benalla.  For the Wangaratta race I had a rubbing front brake, for Shepp my seat had sunk down (I raised it 8 mil) and finally by Benalla I'd sorta got it sorted!..raised the forearm pads and moved them forward.

Anyhow..apart from racing the first 5km with   raging case of indigestion..memo dont drink fruit juice before racing......I had a good race with a time I've not bettered since 2008.  Mind you a favourable cross wind on the long leg helped.....the results are matched to the age standard for TT's and I beat mine by ~11 mins and won $30 for my efforts.  My thanks go to the Hume vets club..it's really very good of them to put on a regular TT race..there were people from ACT, Cobram, Melbourne plus the local club members.

But that block of racing is over and now it's back to base training again.

61 days to go!


Tuesday 8 May 2012

TT at Kialla

Have TT bike, will travel.

This weekend it was a shorter journey, but still required an early start from home.  Kialla is just south of Shepparton and I envisaged, correctly as it turned out, a flat course.

This time I made sure my brake pads were well clear of the rims and this time I was happy with my effort.  However, due to not quite understanding the start procedure and expecting as usual to be early off, I stopped my warm up waaaaay too early and so essentially the first part of the race was done "cold".  As a result I had to back off a bit at about 2 km into the race as I knew my HR was peaking far too soon.

There was a sort of a tail wind along the first long straight of the  square course, then a tail wind across the short top section and a very nasty final long leg before a struggle to the end.


Next week Benalla with the Hume vets, then a bit of a break to recover and get back to long training rides.