Track is Back!

I just realised that now I am not doing the GVBR I can go to Revolution 1 track night at Vodafone Arena!!
Tickets are $25 for General Admin or $49 for Reserved seating and going by the map on Ticketek there may not be the infield bar.

I would defintely be interested in going along with a few people to this! :D :D

PSA - 1 stolen bike!

My friends pub bike was stolen from err, well, outside his local pub on Fitzroy St St Kilda somewhere between 1800 on the 29th and 1200 on the 30th. If you see this bike contact me or leave a comment on the below linky

clicky for photo's of what to be looking out for

Maybe I should sell my bikes...

I have finally organised getting a second opinion about my back. Yes, yes I know some will say 'about bloody time', especially after the comments on Saturday, but it is done and the appointment is Friday arvo/evening.

Last week my osteo told me to see him in two weeks time but keep the next apppointment (today's) booked in until Thursday/Friday and cancel it if it isn't needed. I forgot to cancel it and it was just as well. On Saturday my back was playing up a fair bit and my sciatic nerve also yelling out for attention, as well as on Sunday.
I told the osteo that I only rode once in the past week and it was last Thursday and he really wasn't pleased about how tight my back was again considering only the one small ride, so today he suggested I do pilates! WTF?!?! I have mentioned that to him the past two weeks in a row and today he came back with something along the lines of 'well your back isn't improving so it looks like we will have to try to strengthen your core muscles now regardless of the inflammation as it isn't improving' - great.
I rang up a place near home and made a booking for a clinical pilates appointment with a physio, what a nice money earner that is for them -shock-, but then after speaking to a couple of people at work, I decided to change the appointment to a plain physio appointment.

My osteo told me to not ride at all this week before my appointment next week because he wants to see what it will be like after a week of no riding. I told him that Sunday was the last of my track skills sessions course so he said Ok but only to do that! ARGH!!!! I have however been given permission to do as much walking as I want, so this week I plan to do a heap now that daylight savings has started.

I really am going stir crazy not riding or doing any exercise and to go with that I am getting a massive build up of work stress that I am not getting out of my system through exercise and because I am working 11-12 hrs a day at the moment, including working yesterday, Sunday, to try to relax I am not cutting down my alcohol consumption and all the above combined is really not a healthy combination for me.
I also would love it for my appetite to return and to stop feeling sick due to stress and for my vertigo to piss off.

Tomorrow we are having a meeting at work about if this project is a no go or not for release into production this weekend. I found ANOTHER design fault today - I really don't get why a developer, who is meant to be as good as we were lead to believe when we hired them on contract, would hardcode something, ANYTHING!! Grrr At this point it is looking like a no for release this weekend, which not only means that I will have to work on Monday, but also probably Tuesday, which is cup day.

In summary, I am not exercising, barely eating, barely sleeping, over stressed, drinking too much alcohol due to all the afore mentioned pieces and feeling sick from my stress levels. I really need a holiday and I am putting some serious consideration into keeping my leave booked for the end of the month and just taking off and vanishing for a few days.

How many chances?

If I had to categorise myself as a pessimist, optimist or realist, the majority of the time I would be somewhere between an optimist and a realist. This is why I keep having faith in some people. I am not too upset about it, but I do feel a bit let down, some people just can't see past their own fence.

Really over it

Today I discovered two more screw ups with the design of the project I am working on. How can you call yourself a competant BA and not even contemplate how a customer is going to get their login username and password?

I am also kind of miffed at myself for not picking this up in the doco/design stage as I know it so well, my only saving grace, to me, is that it is not my job to do so!

We are a week away from completing the 3 weeks allocated to testing before releasing the product into production and we are still designing the bloody thing.

To say that I am frustrated at the incompetence of the people on the project, would be an under statement.

The early bird

This morning I got up at 5:30am, got dressed in my cycling gear, packed my clothing into a bag, put everything in the car and drove to work. Once I got to work I got the bike out and went for a ride! I headed up Bridge Rd to St Kilda Rd and down Albert Rd to Albert Park where I did one lap anti clockwise. As I have to limit my time on the bike at the moment I could only do the one lap before heading back to work. For the return leg, I followed someone's suggestion and went up Domain Rd to Anderson St and down across the Yarra River to the Main Yarra Trail. While my speed along the tail was probably slower than on the roads, I didn't have the hassles of having to deal with peak hour traffic - a very pleasant way to end the ride.

Back at work, after my shower and I had checked emails I did my stretching but earlier I could feel my back tightening/stiffening up a bit so I did some more stretching. When I did the stretch for my lower back, my back cracked in about 6 different places and it felt so much better after that! In all the stretching I have been doing the past month or so I have never had that happen before, I see it as a good thing. I will try to stretch every few hours today, which will be a PITA, but if it means I wont be in a world of pain then it is something I will do!

I am going to try to do this ride 2- 3 times a week and the beauty of it is that I now have a base time and if I want/need to increase the length of the ride then I can just do another lap of Albert Park.

Mostly shop talk

• Work is crazy, 11 - 12 hr days starting at 6:30am to 7am are getting to me, but this happens when I am actually in the testing phase of a project though and I don't overly mind it cos I am compensated for it at other times
  
• I am tag teaming between doing my job, being a BA, a Solution Designer and Network Architect because the people on the project don't understand the environment, the systems, the processes or can't openly accept that they don't know these things and pretend to think they do and impress this on others when they are wrong and I have to clean up their mess. Good thing is that this isn't going un-noticed
  
• The project manager on my curent project seems very impressed with what I am doing and told me today that he likes talking to me because, unlike everyone else, I actually tell him what is happening and what the problems are instead of hiding things, I told him I talk to him like I talk to my manager and we have a very open communication channel - I tow the company line, I tell it like it is heh
  
• My manager is extremely pleased with what I am doing and the way I am doing things and has 'grand plans' for me - all good, providing I go back to 'normal' hours after cup weekend when thi software/product is realeased. It is nice when your manager tells you that they know they can assign you something they have been charged with and they know it will be done
  
• Very sick of finding things wrong at work that should be picked up in the documentation and NOT when I get it to test - I am good at breaking things
  
• Even though it is my job to break things, I still find it frustrating when I do when it was blindingly obivous - please stop making it so easy to break something, I need a challenge
  
• I feel weird getting praise for what I see as just doing my job, it is nice that people appreciate it though and let you know... compiliments just don't sit well with me which is why I was suprised as all hell when I got my promotion earlier in the year
  
• Someone in Sydney has (jokingly?) mentioned poaching me because of my knowledge, nice, but please don't freak out my boss cos I am happy with what I am doing - I get to tell people they fucked up but don't have to make the decisions on how to fix things, although happy to provide input and make things go my way when I want them to... like today
  
• I need a holiday but the one I had planned has gone south for the winter (spring?), so I need another plan of attack
  
• I need to clean my house
  
• The more time I spend off my roadbike the less I mentally want to get back on even though physically I am craving it and_need_ it
  
• Today a massive restructure was announced at work to try to blend two companies and I have no idea what this really means to me other than that the company we are trying to meld with has no testing area, at all, so I most likely wont be being made redundant and with the way people are commenting to me directly about my work and efforts on my current project, it is all good for me, because I figure what people say to your face is half of what they say behind your back - a good thing when it is positive
  
• With the company changes, I am now finally starting to realise what my promotion a few months ago actually means, I am excited about my prospects where I am
  

The writing is on the wall

I just had to enter the age of 30 into a form for the first time... hrmmm

Super Dog?

I saw something really funny today, a person riding a scooter with a box thingy on the back to put stuff in and between the storage box thing and the rider, on the seat, was a dog with blue goggles on! I wish I had been quick enough with my camera phone so I could get a photo of it cos it was so funny and the dog seemed to be loving it!

By any other name

Some days you need to just sit back and smell the roses and today is a day I feel like doing this. I feel like sitting back and just observing the world.
I have to go into the city for work later so I may just have to take some time out and go sit on a bit of grass somewhere in the sun.

Track Sprints

Today at the track skills we changed what we were doing from motorpacing to Olympic/Track sprints due to a) The weather (34 degrees outside!) and b) They had a technical problem with the motorbike in that they didn't have a key for it hehe.

For women, its two teams of two, starting on the pursuit lines and racing each other. It is from a standing start and the person higher on the track drops in below the lead rider. The lead rider only does one lap before they peel off and then the second rider completes a lap on their own and then its over and these are fast and FUN!!! It involves quite a bit of communication with the person you are riding with, saying up for faster and down for slower.
I haven't done a start from being held by a person before so today was my first of these and at first I was more nervous about that than anything else, but we had good handlers so it was all good :)

Due to the heat we also had a bit of downtime today but it was nice to just ride around on the concrete at a slow pace as there is no air movement inside DISC and just moving that bit helped to cool me down a bit between efforts.

My back is now feeling quite sore from the riding today, even after stretching, but it was full on efforts from standing starts so it is going to put a fair bit of strain on my lowerback and if I am out on the track doing these things then I am going to give at least 100%. I have my regular osteo appointment tomorrow and there are only another two weeks of this course left, but it has definately brought home to me that I really made the right decision by following my osteo's advice to not do the ATB

I hope the people who started the ATB today managed to complete it and coped OK with the conditions, I was kind of relieved that I wasn't out there today with the strong northerly's and 34 degree temperatures!

Numb

I am starting to feel a bit bleh about the weekend but I have a few things planned which should help to keep me busy and distracted.

Ride To Work Day!

So today is National Ride To Work Day so I just had to ride to work! I didn't go to track last night so I knew that my back would be OK (hah!) before setting out for this mornings ride.

I firstly headed into Fed Sq for the free brekky being put on by Bicycle Vic and The Farmers Federation and ran into a few forumers and then I headed off to the community breakfast being held near my work. The one near my work was great last year and just as good this year. When you arrive you register and get a raffle ticket and every 10 mins or so they did a raffle of a half dozen or so prizes ranging from bike lights to bike computers to Camlebaks! I had a lucky ticket and had the choice between a bike computer and a voucher so I took the voucher - $20 thank you very much! They also had free espresso coffee and lots of fresh foods from Bakers Delight and they were even giving away whole loaves of bread!

While I was standing around at Fed Sq I had a bit of discomfort in my back and could feel it tightening up which wasn't good. Once I got to work and had showered and dressed I did my stretches and even after them my back didn't feel that great so I took a couple of nurofen plus. It has been better since taking them but its still a bit tighter than normal, but its not killing me and the sharp pains stopped. I am going to get a work friend to drive me home so I don't have to ride home with my back pack so I don't push it too far and make it really bad.

It really was great riding to work though :D

Dissapointed

Yesterday my back was really bad, the worst it has been. I woke up in the morning with the right hand side of my back now hurting and the sciatic nerve on that side being affected so I knew it wasn't good and it still wasn't even after my regular morning stretching - sitting for anymore than 30 mins at a time was uncomfortable.
I decided that seeing as I couldn't sit for any real period of time I would go shopping in a hope that the walking would also help to losen up my lower back a bit more. While I was out shopping I had to cough and the pain in the middle of my back was so fierce that I couldn't breath for a few seconds and was scared that my back had locked up. Thankfully my back hadn't locked up but I continued to cough during the morning and each time I was really scared and fearful of the sharp pain in my back.
I decided that it wouldn't be wise to participate in the afternoon track skills but went along and listened anyway.
Even after taking two nurofen plus tablets it hurt to do certain things, like sit down for too long, bend over to pick up my water bottle from the ground etc but thankfully I wasn't getting the sharp stabbing pains anymore and I could walk around with no discomfort.

Today I saw the osteo for my now becoming regular Monday appointment. I told him about what happened on the weekend with the gentle ride and the knee pain at the end of the ride and about Sunday and how now the other side, my RHS, is now also playing up. He worked on my back and advised of a slightly different stretch I can do for my hamstrings and told me to keep doing all the other stretches because even though I can't feel a stretch happening it is helping to keep my back mobile.

It looks like I just did too much on Saturday even though it was a gentle - medium ride. It looks like the time I spent on the bike was just too much for my back to handle at the moment. I know I can do 30 - 45mins or so of gentle - medium effort at track but it looks like 90 mins is too much so I need to find a nice balance so that I can continue to ride while trying to get my back better.

We discussed the ATB and I said that I have resolved to not doing any of the ride this Sunday because I would prefer to do the motorpacing at the track skills course in the afternoon. We also spoke about the Great Victorian Bike Ride in that it is 8 days of 50-85km's a day for 8 days and the lugging of my luggage etc combined with putting up and down a tent and sleeping on a very very thin mattress (which last year did cause a few issues with my back) and we decided that it was best I don't do the ride. It is a very physically demanding event and combine that with not being able to train for it 5 weeks away from the start of it and I realised I just wont be able to do it.

I asked if pilates would help and his response was that 'yes, it will, but not for a while because right now we have to work at getting the inflammation down before we can focus on trying to build your strength up so that you can try to do these rides in a years time, you have a very strange back!'. This was said just as I was leaving and I didn't have enough time to come up with the question of 'how long is this going to take?'

To say im not in a great mood tonight is a massive understatement.

Suggestions wanted

I may end up going camping on my own with my annual leave booked for end of Nov and start of Dec - where should I go? I am thinking that if this does happen that I a) will be on my own and b) probably camp at a caravan parks, more so for safety.

Maybe I should visit the relo's in outback NSW.... -shrug- I don't know what is happening just yet

As easy as riding a bike

Well today I did my first road ride for 2-3 weeks, pretty much since my 110km day where I discovered my injury. All up, 37km's in about 90 mins or so which is good. I have still been riding at track and did a couple of goes on the trainer on my road bike, but I hadn't ventured outdoors on Smurfy and this morning was awesome! Hell of a wind, but that's OK cos I was out on the bike and I just accepted that I would go slow. The fit feels pretty good too, well I didn't notice any discomfort other than the bottom of my knees/top of my shins which is a bit weird, but we will see how that goes.
My back feels reasonably OK after the ride but during the last stretch of the ride home I could feel the back of my knee getting tighter when I was upping the cadence and putting in some effort ie. more than just cruising along at pootling pace.

Is resistance futile?

Everyone I know seems to be on Facebook! I signed up one day but then went 'nooooooooooo I cannae do it captain!' I really don't need anything else on the internet to waste my time on, really I don't... or do I? Hrmmm

A New Day

Today is a new day and with it comes a good feeling about the world again. Yesterday was a combination of dissapointment and PMS which is never a good combination.

I only had about 5 hrs sleep last night and I have been up since 5am and I'm already feeling tired. I did about 25 minutes on the indoor trainer this morning, not a lot, but better than nothing. I need to get out on on the road.

Yeah, it isn't fair

I just need to get this out and to vent everything that I have pent up...

For my birthday this year, my family has yet again decided that dinner on my dad's birthday will do for me. My dad's birthday is 9 days before mine and my niece (my sisters daughter) has hers 8 days after mine so for the past 2-3 years my birthday has pretty much been ignored and blended into the other two birthdays. Yes it hurts me because I have such a low self esteem and self worth, but I have mostly coped with this until this year. This year is a big birthday for me and it means something to me to be able to do something that will be memorable and that I can look back on with fond memories so doing lunch, dinner or even bloody afternoon tea with my family on the actual day for once would be nice. I really feel unimportant within my family and it really hurts that they 'ignore' my birthday every year and this year it hurts even more because it is a 'big' birthday. I don't have many friends so the family that I talk to does mean a lot to me... i just wish that I was as important to them, for even one fucking day as they are to me all year round because right now I am contemplating not even going to my own dad's birthday dinner... oops sorry, I mean OUR birthday dinner where I have to bring half of the food with me so that my dad doesn't have to cook for his own birthday... what about me? For once I want to be selfish and even now it just feels wrong.

Self Preservation

I hate this time of year, I really do. No wonder I have been single for so many years and tend to be a bit of a loner, people only let you down and cause you pain. You'd think I would be used to being let down and hurt by now or least not be expecting anything from people anymore.

Of course there are also many other reasons for me being single, but lets not go there today...

Saying I don't expect anything is very different to saying I don't want anything

Sometimes I just need to vent

I am starting to get really annoyed and frustrated by all the people who just whinge about everything and how society and the world seems to owe them something and it isn't being delivered so they constantly seem to complain about it - OH life is too hard!! Poor me, staple, hand, forehead.

FFS! If you want something in life go and get it! If something isn't going the way you want it to then how about actually trying to change the path or fix the situation yourself?!? Stop relying on other people to fix your problems and your unhappiness and stop blaming others for you being unhappy and miserable! The world does not owe you anything so get over yourself and stop thinking it does!

If you only see the negative bits in life then suprise suprise, the world you live in will be a negative place! Try and see some positives, stop bloody whinging and take control of your life! If YOU don't like something then YOU can actually try to change it. People don't owe you anything so stop thinking that they do.

Life is not meant to be easy, it is meant to be challenging and it is also meant to be fun so get off your arse, stop complaining and do what it is you want to do! Also, stop being so bloody selfish and try thinking about others at some point too. Believe it or not, but your actions can impact others so how about you think about that as well instead of being so self centred.

If you made a mess then bloody well clean it up, don't just expect someone else to clean it for you or think it is unreasonable for you to have to do certain things - from time to time we all have to do things in life that we don't want to do, but THAT IS LIFE, deal with it! Evidentally you are an adult so how about you start acting like one!

And yes, I am fully aware that this could be seen as me whinging about whingers, and I spose I am to a degree, but I am also just venting, so build a bridge and get over it, just like I plan to try to ignore the kinds of people I have mentioned above because I don't want or need their negativity in my life!

It happens

I am feeling a bit meh today and im not really sure why. I had a great morning down at DISC this morning and got to meet Anna Meares and Ryan Bayley (photo's and more on that tonight) and it really was an awesome way to start the day, but now I am just a bit flat and really can't be arsed working.
Just one of those days...

Bike Fit

I have now had a proper fit done for both bikes by Carl at Cycle Science!
Started off on Smurfy (road bike) as it is the bike that I spend the most time on and after a warm up we looked at cleat position. The cleats on my shoes were moved forwards and out to the sides a bit more - evidentally its rare to move cleats forwards, they normally need to move backwards.
On Smurfy, we ended up moving the seat forward, again this isn't very common (Kennedy would hate that! ;) ), angled the seat up a smidge so I was better balanced on the seat, put the seat up and put on a longer head stem - yes longer! The new headstem is a similar angle to the previous one so by making it longer the bars are actually higher so my knees will no longer hit the bars when standing - handy that.
On Dacks (track bike) the saddle was moved back and down and a new shorter headstem with a higher angle was put on - this has really helped me while riding on the drops today.

I haven't been for a ride on Smurfy since, but the changes made to Dacks seem pretty good so far. The pulling on the back of my knee I have been experiencing the past few weeks didn't happen at all and my back feels alright too, although having cooled down I can feel a slight pulling on the back of my knee, so more stretching. I did my stretching once I got home and my back didn't feel much tighter than it did this morning which is a good thing. As mentioned above riding in the drops was a lot better and felt quite comfortable although the shorter head stem did make the bike more twitchy so I need to be more relaxed which isn't a bad thing. I had never realised how a shorter headstem actually made a bike twitchier because all I knew was the short one on Smurfy but now I get it and it will be interesting to see what, if any, difference the longer one on Smurfy will make.

Match Sprints

Today at the track skills sessions we did match pursuits and it was pretty good. After two weeks of basically beeing off the bike the legs were a bit bleh and the lungs were very bleh and I was a bit dehyrdrated and had a headache. We started off doing a flying 200m, learning the correct way to do it by building up the track gettinghigher every half lap and where to come down from the wall to get the best speed advantage we can from the track - I really enjoyed this.
We then split up to do the match sprints, most were doing two people three lap match sprints but I went off in a group of three for three laps (forget what they are called). I deliberately stayed off the back for this so that I could easily see what the other two girls were doing without having to look behind me. I saw a gap open up coming around the bend after the 2 lap to go call when both girls were above the blue line but this being my first time doing this I was a bit unsure about cutting down below them and by the time I had thought that I should just go the girls took off - ARGH!! Bugger, game over.
The next match sprint was again in a group of three and I played this one a bit better. I was at the back again but one of the girls higher than me on the track was trying to get behind me so I kept slowing down so that she couldn't, this time it was four laps and after the two lap to go call the same thing happened, a gap on the bend with both girls above the blue line so I though bugger it and I went and I didn't look back! It really started hurting and I didn't want to look around to see where they were, if they had followed or not so I just kept going flat out! I got a bit of tunnel vision and coming down the front straight I wanted to just slow down all I could think was "don't slow down, this is the last stretch and don't look around to see where people are - JUST KEEP GOING HARD!!" so I did and a good thing I did because I had no idea one of the other chicks was right next to me and I got her on the line by a few inches! It really was awesome! Having done the pursuits the week before I knew that I could go flat out for two laps and that really helped with the mental barrier with the physical pain. I don't much like the mind games bit of match pursuits but I think that's cos it is new and I am just not used to it, also having a headache didn't help, but looking back on it, it really was a lot of fun :D

Does the shoe fit?

I am actually awake at pumpkin hour!! No riding today and not riding till the PM tomorrow - it feels weird being awake so late! ;)

Two in one

As you can see, I don't have any issues getting one bike into my car and there is plenty of room

Tonight though I had the challenge of getting two bikes in my car and it was actually pretty easy. I top and tailed them and put a blanky between them and it all fits pretty well

Bizzaro Land

I just got a phone call on my mobile from a private number and here is what was said:

Me: Hello?
Person: Hi is this Lisa?
Me: Yes, whose this?
Person: My name is Simon, I was told that you could use my services
Me: Ummm and what kind of service would that be?
Person: I am a sceptic
Me: ummm ok -pause- I don't know anything about this -me sounding really confused-
Person: I was told you could use my services
Me: As a sceptic?
Person: Yes
Me: Sorry I don't know anything about this
Person: oh, ok then bye

-blink-

Too long?

I have been trying to figure out how I can manage to ride a track bike that is a 52cm frame as opposed to my road bike which is a 48cm frame (50cm ETT) and all I can put it down to is that it is because on the track bike there are no sti hoods and im putting my hands on the bar either side of the head stem but I can reach the drops without a problem on my track bike - weird!

A while ago I came across this nifty chart to record the measurements of you bike on and tonight I finally got around to filling it in for both bikes.

I only took 5 of the measurements and here they are:

Smurfy V Dacks - The Measurements

	Smurfy	Dacks
Saddle Height	638mm	638mm
Saddle to Handlebar Reach	450mm	482mm
Stem Length	70mm	95mm
Handle Bar Width	420mm	400mm
Crank Length	165mm	165mm

So basically, the reach from my seat to the bars on Smurfy is 520mm and on Dacks it is 577mm - that's 32mm difference which is crazy!

Up in the air

I saw the osteo today and after a bit of work massaging my back, ITB, hammy, glute and the back of my knee I should hopefully start to feel a bit better tomorrow. The osteo said that my problem is a strange one because while the muscles are tight its quite difficult to try and stretch them out because I have a lot of mobility (flexibility) in my legs, hips and lowerback area and having knees that hyperextend a lot doesn't seem to help. To try and stretch my glute after some massaging, I was on my back and with my left leg bent and my knee up near my right shoulder he was putting almost his full body weight onto my leg to try and stretch it out.
It appears that my left leg actually is 1/4 to 1/2 inch short normally which is due to my pelvis being out of alignment. For most people with this he recomends a shim in the shoe to level things out a bit, but he is very reluctant to suggest this due to the mobility that I do have. He is worried that a shim would cause other problems because for the most part my body deals with the mis-alignment quite well. I then showed him my orthodics from my podiatrist and he said that they do provide a bit of a lift but I should maybe go get them re-checked to make sure that they are right still.

I am not sure if I can or should do anything about the pelvis being out of alignment or not. He suggested getting someone to ride behind me getting to check that I am not rocking my hips - I am pretty sure I don't, but it is always worthwhile checking.

I have been told that from Tuesday evening I can do some very easy/gentle cycling in a bid to try not to lose much fitness so that I have come chance of doing at least some of the ATB. I most likely wont end up doing the full distance (I am not that upset by that as I wasn't planning on going the whole way), but he suggested that it would definitely be a good thing to do a big ride to see how I pull up so I can gauge if I can still aim to do the GVBR or not. I suggested about 130km's and his comment was 'that's still a really really big ride'... hrmmm

I have been riding my roadbike for over a year and I am only now getting this issue but maybe because I have been increasing my intensity over the past couple of months is the reason that this is now coming out or it could just be bad timing, I really don't know and I really don't know what I should do about it. I think for now I will just see what happens this week with continuing to do ~20mins of stretching morning and night combined with some gentle spinning on a trainer or at the velo with more stretching after riding and then see what my osteo says next Monday.