It is working

Last night I managed to get through my entire pilates routine in the 30 minute class which is a good sign that what I am doing is working because I now find it easier to engage and un-engage the TA muscles. I can also tell that the exercises I am doing are working because my back is feeling better, the best it has felt since about August last year or even earlier! I am still walking in the morning's and trying to walk at night, but I find that if I am feeling lazy and my pedometer is showing at least 10,000 steps I tend to not do an evening walk - must correct that! I now also need to actively push myself to get out on the bike!
I have found that cycling, while I have missed it a lot and think about cycling related things a lot, it is taking a bit of thought to get me onto the bike which probably sounds really odd, but I am out of the routine of using the bike almost everyday! I am working on it, trust me on this one :D Even little things like I should ride to my pilates classes instead of driving etc will all help :D

I haven't heard anything back in regards to my email to BV and I am not sure if I will, but some kind of response would be good, either from the person I marked it attention to or just anyone would be nice. If I end up getting some kind of feedback I may post my email on here, it all depends really.

My workload at work is starting to pick up YaY!! And it also looks like I could end up going to Sydney once a fortnight to attend one of my two regular weekly meetings in person instead of just being a voice on the other end of the phone.

Back to bikes, now this is utter unadulterated bike porn! Big thanks to Andy for linking it on his site. I may have to head down to DISC to catch this bike in the flesh! I will try not to drool too much, but I really can't promise, I think this photo explains it all really...

Done and sent

So I sent my email to a specific person at BV and -fingers crossed- that he gets it!
Today I did bugger all apart from a 30 min walk this morning and right the above mentioned email
I have the feeling I've eaten something NQR because I am starting to feel quite a bit off and hoping that if vomiting happens then it will be sooner rather than later.
I don't really want to go to work tomorrow but that could be because I don't feel all so good, but my alarm is set for 5:30 anyway to allow me to do a 1hr walk in the morning.

It isn't hot enough

Firstly, I have to say that I am very very very disappointed lately in the chilli content of 'hot' foods - they are not hot! HTFU and make things hotter!
Secondly, I am impressed by a certain member of the BV board who approached me yesterday at the BBC and asked me what my issues are with BV and why I no longer think my membership with BV is no longer relevant to me. I am writing an email to this person to explain my position and my view as they are genuinely wanting to know.

Yesterday was also my first road ride in 2 months and it was awesome being back on the bike!! The ride to the BBC was great with the tail wind and the beers and people at the BBC were great, but the ride home into the northerly sucked more than any ride I have ever done before! Also I think that I had a food bonk on the way home - not fun at all!
Good news though is that today my back wasn't even sore from the riding!!! :D :D :D :D This is a very awesome thing which means I now need to try to get out on the bike on the road even more! :D

I do have a kitchen floor, I found it again today after removing the drop sheet! Today I finished off my kitchen bench thingy that I have been halfway through staining/varnishing for a few months. While it is back in the middle of my kitchen to dry, once it is dry I can put it in its place and tidy things up a lot more ie. get the shit off my kitchen table, which I don't use, and put it in this bench thingy! Tomorrow I might even tidy up the lounge room and vacuum seeing as my back can now handle these things! Scary but true, I am excited about housework... more so the ability to do it without being in a world of pain as a result!

I think I have been wearing my pedometer in the wrong spot on my waist band. Today I had it more towards the front of my hip bone and the number of steps recorded for a walk I have previously done a few times was a lot more than previously recorded! I have been heating myself of steps!

Ground hog day

Last night I decided that I would get up early again today and do a 1 hour walk before work, so at 9:30pm last night I headed to bed in the hope to get 8 hrs sleep, but no that didn't happen. At 4am I was wide awake, just like the other day. After just lying there for a while I decided I wasn't going to get up any earlier than my alarm so I just stayed in bed with my eyes closed in the hope of getting more sleep.

I've had a mega lazy afternoonbut have still manged to do over 11,000 steps even though I didn't go for a walk tonight like I should have. I did however do a pilates class today as well.

Tomorrow I plan to get on my bike and hit the road! Yup, my first road ride for the year AND since about the first week of December! It normally takes me about 30 mins to get to where I am going tomorrow, but I am going to allow about 45 mins so I can take it really easy. I am also thinking of doing a short walk (15 mins) before heading off to give my back a chance to warm up a little bit. The hard bit will be the trip home though, while there are no massive hills or anything it is still uphill on the way home and it will be a lot warmer (top of 32 degrees tomorrow).

I hope everyone has a good Australia Day tomorrow!

-blink-

Ummm....



And yes, I am/was connected to the internet at the time!

I can't get to google reader either, but my blog seems to be working - odd

Relief

I found my cd wallet - phew!! the relief was amazing!

I also decided to take a look at my touch up paint for my car and paint my thumb nail with it...

Not good

Today started out ok and then I got grumpy and then it got better and just now it became really shit. I can't find the cd wallet where I keep the cd's from all my photo's. This includes about 2-3 years of photography including the photo's of when my niece was born. I suspect that my old housemate has probably packed it up with some of her stuff by mistake, so I have sms'ed her, but I doubt she would have kept it if she came across them, otherwise she would have contacted me - well I'd hope she would have contacted me if she found them. She just may not have unpacked them, I don't know but they aren't in the loungeroom where they should be or the kitchen or my desk. Yes my place is messy at the moment, but a big CD wallet like that kinda stands out.
I currently feel so gutted that I may have lost them for good, really really gutted.

I think tonight I am going to have a drink or 2.

In other news, I finally had my car serviced today, its 10k km service at 12k km's and got some touch up paint for the stone chip in the bonnet.

How much??

I am still going strong with my personal challenges and lost weight again this week. I am still trying to walk twice a day and have discovered the hard way that I can't increase the speed I am walking as it then hurts my my back :( The last two days I increased my pace and my back became slightly sore but I didn't twig about the pace increase until last night, so this morning I slowed the pace slightly and the walk helped my back again! The physio also confirmed it tonight for me, she explained that the faster you walk the more you tend to arch your back.

This morning I woke up at 4am - bing! Wide awake! Once it got to 5am and I realised that I wasn't going to get any more sleep in the 45 mins before my alarm was set to go off I got up and went for a longer walk than normal - 55mins instead of 20-30 mins and I did about 5,000 steps. I have already done over the 10,000 daily target but I need to go for a gentle walk later for my back so I might do it down at DISC while I watch the racing.

Seeing I have been doing so much walking, I decided that i really needed to buy a new pair of sneakers as mine were 2-3 years old and very bad condition. I headed to Athletes foot earlier today and $200 later I have a new pair of Asics shoes -shock- I don't think I have ever paid that much for shoes! They were RRP at $259.95 and then discounted to something else and then another discount if I paid cash. I showed my shock at the price to the sales guy and he was like 'oh umm how about I throw in some socks and shoe cleaner too' and I thought about it and went why the hell not! I am walking twice a day and will soon start incorporating stair climbs so having good shoes will help my back and hopefully stop me getting sore knees! The socks are really nice too, as they should be with a price tag of $10!

Should I?

I am thinking of cancelling my gym membership. I haven't been for months and now that I am doing heaps of walking outside and have a good wind trainer that I am actually using, I don't see the need for it. Also, now that I am doing pilates I really can't afford both. I figure that if it is raining and I want to walk then I can head to DISC and walk around the velodrome like lots of other people do and it would actually be good to head there once or twice a week anyway to do stair repetitions.

I did another walk tonight, 35 mins and I achieved my minimum 10k of steps which is impressive seeing as I spent the majority of my day sitting in my arse watching the state track champs, which was awesome!

A good way to start the day

This morning for brekky, after doing 20 minutes on the wind trainer (YaY!!!) and then doing a 30 min walk, I felt like egg's but not in the normal way. Right now I am sitting here eating my breakfast - steamed rice with my eggs stirred through. I scrambled the eggs in the fry pan with a nice healthy dose of chilli powder. Once I had mixed the eggs with the rice I then added a nice big splash of perri perri hot sauce :D Yum! Plain, simple and took about 2-3mins to cook as I had one of those nuke-a-packet things of rice which take 90 seconds to cook.

Day 6

I love the sound of constant rain on tin roof tops, I find it really relaxing combined with the smell that comes with the rain. I would love to go for a walk in the rain right now, but it is late and it is dark and it wont be relaxing as I will be on edge for any sound or shadow.

I am enjoying how focussed I currently am on the goals I've set myself, I feel strong about it and it is nice to actually be this focussed on something again, it's been a while.

Lets walk

Due to being harrassed by someone to get the photo's I took from Hawthorn CC's crit on Wednesday, here are the photo's. I haven't done the ones from the road champs yet, but they will be up soon.

Yesterday I did a bucket load of exercise! A 30 min walk before work, a 25min walk at lunch and then after 15 minutes on the indoor trainer ON MY BIKE!!! I did a 20 minute cool down walk, all up my pedometer tells me I did 14,355 steps yesterday. Yes I got on my bike on the wind trainer and it was awesome to be pedalling again! I must also say that there is a huge difference between a cheap trainer and one of the expensive fluid trainers - the fluid trainers are defintely well worth the money that they cost. Not only are they quieter, but they are a lot smoother and make the time on the trainer a lot more realistic.
Whilst I was on the trainer my back felt fine and I had no discomfort at all. I tried to keep my cadence around the 95-100rpm mark for the whole time and it felt great. This morning my back is a little bit stiff, but that could be because of the massive amount of walking I also did yesterday, I will keep an eye on it.

Today is a bit of a rest day for me exercise wise, I did a 20 min walk this morning and probably wont do a walk tonight but I might at lunch time, it really depends where we decide to go for lunch.

I am really tired today. Sitting at my desk at work I am yawning every few minutes. At least it is a tiredness from being busy and active.

Early morning's are great

Last night I did my first pilates class, I didn't manage to get through my entire program in the 30 minutes, but I was told it's a common thing as when you first start doing pilates as it takes you longer to reset your TA (Transverse Abdominis) muscles each time.

This morning I did a longer than normal morning walk, I did the full walk I would normally do in the evening and tonight after I spend 15 minutes on my bike on the trainer *excited* I will do the same walk again. I noticed this morning that my pace has really increased and it is still feeling quite comfortable and I really enjoyed the walk this morning. I love being up and about at that time of the day, being outside when there is barely any traffic or people around and the birds are chirping away.

You know how somedays it isn't a struggle to get out of bed when the alarm goes off at 5:50am and that even though you may be tired, you still feel great and alive and awake and you are in a great mood? Well today is one of those days for me :) Of course the increased exercise and no alcohol for a few days would have nothing at all to do with that... ;)

Today I will be sending off my entry form for the HHCCC and yesterday I booked some accomodation in Mansfield for the Saturday night. I am really looking forward to this ride and I have my fingers crossed that tomorrow morning, after doing 15 mins tonight on the wind trainer, that my back is OK.

The older I get the more I realise just how goal orientated I am. I need something to focus on to push myself otherwise I become very lazy. I now have a couple of things to focus on and it is great :D

It is all good!

I saw the physio last night and I have been given the go ahead to get back on the bike! At first though I have to spend a couple of sessions 15 or so minutes on the trainer with barely any resistance, so just pedalling to ease my body back into the position of being on the bike. If after doing this my back is fine, I can then increase the resistance and then in a couple of weeks I can then get out and ride on the road or at the track! YaY!! I will also ensure that after each session I do on the trainer I will then go for a 20-30 minute walk to stretch my back a bit and as a cool down.

My Physio also said that having the goal to do the HHCCC 50km ride on the Sunday (Option E) was a great goal and is a reasonable time line for me to achieve, providing I don't try to do too much too soon in the first few weeks of being back riding. She is also happy about the ride being in twp loops so I do have a bailout option in case. I am pretty confident I will be able to do the ride but at what speed I will do it who knows!
Yesterday in the mail I received my entry form to fill in for the ride too, so I will send that off today with all my details! Time to book some accomodation!

Last night I also had my Pilates program written up. She took me through a few tests and she got the ultrasound machine out to look at my muscles in action and so now I have a program writtten up for me and I have to attend 1 or 2 classes per week. AFter the first 6 weeks of basic strength stuff, she has said that she will then target my program towards my cycling.

I am still going well on my personal challenges :D

I love corn on the cob!

I have set myself a few challenges for the coming weeks, but I am not going to put on here just yet what they are. All that needs to be known is that I have set some and I am going to achieve them because I have a focus and a goal that is 7 weeks away.

This past week I have been walking, only at a gentle pace - no power walking or anything and barely working up a sweat, but I have been doing it at least once a day and most days twice a day to help with my back and each walk has been between 15-30 minutes. Combine that with the craving for good healthy'ish type food after a week and a half of camping I managed to lose 1.4kg's this past week. It is amazing how just that extra movement, even though I wasn't power walking, made a big difference. I also seemed to crave rice last week, I made fried rice and rhubarb and vanilla rice pudding and yeah I ate the whole lot so I am really quite suprised that I lost that much weight.

I see the physio tomorrow and I am going to ask her if I can do some time on the bike on the indoor trainer to build up some cardio and I will do this on top of the walking, even if it is only 10-15 minutes it is a start!

HHCCC ... again

Ok so my last post containing 8 links to to the HHCCC website only comes up as 4th on the google search list (already) but I just realised that the top search is MY link to stage one for the HHCCC course on bikely, so I am still a winnar ;)

HHCCC FTW!!

Today I went to watch the Australian Open Road Cycling Championships (photo's in the next few days) in Buninyong and I got an SMS from Stealth asking if I was there, yup I was. Next I get a call from him asking me to come down to where they are near the start/finish line as they have a deal for me that I can't refuse. Knowing what Team Idiot can in fact get up to, I started to become very skeptical and conjuring up all these things that they could be on about.

It turns out that they had been chatting to Steve and Bruce the guys who organise the HHCCC (Holden High Country Cycle Challenge) and as they were talking Steve asked Karen if she knew who "Lisanne" is?
It turns out that in the office of the HHCCC I am well known, but they didn't know who I actually was. If you do google searches for the HHCCC my photo's and blog came back as several search returns from last years HHCCC and they said that at one point my blog came up as the first link to be returned under a google search! (hah let see if I can get it back there after this post! ;) )

I don't know if it was Karen who explained it to them or not, but they knew about my current back injury and that I had won a free entry to do the HHCCC at St Kilda CC's TdF quiz night but I handed it over to Heather because I wouldn't be able to do the ride. They proposed that if I am able to do it, that I come up and do Option E of the ride which is done Sunday morning and is a copy of the original Saturday morning ride of the two loops around Mansfield. They are trying to organise a bit of a celebrity ride with a few people and would like me to be part of it as I am famous in their office!

It is such a bizarre thing to happen, it really is, but I must say that of all the cycling events I have done, the HHCCC was by far the most organised ride I have participated in.

I am going to talk to my physio about it on Tuesday, but I reckon I will be able to do it. The HHCCC is 7 weeks away and I think that would be plenty of time to get me back into it to be able to do a 50km ride and even if I end up just doing one of the loops, then so be it. This is the motivation that I need to keep me focussed on getting my fitness back and to get back onto the bike as soon as I can, but while following the advice of my physio and trying not to rush it - but it certainly gives me something to aim for :D

I am still a bit spun out by all this and it makes me laugh! :D

Top Gear Africa

I just watched Top Gear season 10 episode 4 - the trip across Botswana in Africa and it was awesome!! :D Definitely watch it if you can and if you can't just yet, then it should be on SBS on Monday night at 7:30 in about 4 weeks!

It is currently 30.4 degrees in Melburn and 32 degrees in my backyard. My lounge is at 21 degrees (even though the aircon is set for 24) and my bedroom is 32 degrees - looks like I'm sleeping on the couch!

Ouchies

On Tuesday at the physio she taped my back again, but this time in a different spot, this time it was more to do with how easily I could raise my left leg while lying down while she was applying pressure/support to my muscles which was simulating core strength. We were doing it to my left leg because it was the one that felt heavier when trying to lift both legs individually. As a result I had tape at the back/side part of my right hip and front/side of my left hip. My skin often reacts to to tape if it is left on too long and sometimes this also happens with the hypo-allergenic tape that they use to reduce this.
Now this could be a bit TMI for some, but this morning part of my skin seems to have had quite a reaction to the tape, I have about a 2 inch sq patch of skin that has, well, stuck to the tape and the tape has come off. I don't really know how to describe it, it's like the top few layers of skin has come away and as a result the area was weaping extremely badly, kinda like an open wound that is really shallow yet not bleeding, I spose kinda like gravel rash or if someone has taken some sandpaper to my skin. What gets me is that it didn't hurt! At no time did I have any pain, I only noticed it had happened due to the wound weeping, a lot! I raided the first aid kits at work for some melonin and some gauze and taped it all up but that only lasted about an hour before the padding was soaked through (I kept going to the bathroom to check on it) so I went to the chemist on my lunch break and bought some second skin stuff, unfortunately though they didn't have one piece big enough so I used a few smaller pieces - this didn't last long either because I couldn't seal all four sides properly. On the way home from work I got some bigger sheets of second skin and when I got home sealed it all properly and now it's all fully enclosed and should hopefully start to heal! I figure all the weaping is due to my body trying to create a scab over the wound to protect it and because I kept having to change the dressing it couldn't make one. Now, even though I can tell through the bandaging that it continued to weep a lot, at least I don't need to continue to change the dressing and I can leave it on for a day or two so that the healing process can start.

Hot!

Before I left home this morning I decided to make full use of the timer function on my aircon, so I set it for 2pm and by the time I was home at 4:30pm it was a nice 23 degrees in my lounge/kitchen area and it was over 40 degrees in the backyard!
I did some washing earlier, hung it out on the line and then put a small load of washing on and by the time that had finished and I put it out on the line, the previous lot of clothing were bone dry only 30 mins later!
Tonight in Melburn the predicted low is 30 degrees, yup 30 degrees celsius - crazy! As I have closed off the kitchen and lounge room from the rest of the house my bedroom was 32 degrees about an hour ago so I am thinking that I just may crash on the couch to sleep tonight either that or drink enough alcohol 'till I pass out

Jayco Bay Cycling Classic

On Sunday watching the crit racing down in Geelong I took some photo's.

Back to the grind

Back at work today and I am kinda glad to be getting back into a routine of sorts. While I had a fantastic break, it will be nice to get back into the swing of things, especially seeing as I can't spend my days out riding.

I took the tape off my back last night as I had left it on for the time the physio told me too, plus it was starting to itch like buggery. As seems to be the pattern, I never think the tape is doing much until the day after I take it off. Today my back is really bloody sore and I am in pain while sitting which really isn't a great thing. Bleh I should stop talking about my back, talking doesn't help it get better.

A good article here quoting Cadel Evans as saying that riding his bike, in his home town and country, is one of the worst places in the world for safety on a bike.

And another article here saying how bike sales were again higher last year than car sales - I can only hope that as the number of bikes being purchased increases that more drivers learn the road rules in regards to cyclists using the roads, although I doubt that will happen. What is really sad is that I don't think there will be more education in regards to cyclists rights on the roads w/out there being more fatalities.

Repetitive

According to my weather station I have here at home, it is currently 32 degrees outside and 22 degrees inside. At 5:30pm today it was 40 degrees in my backyard and 23 degrees in my lounge room.
Meanwhile, because I close the house up during the main part of the day, my bedroom is still at 28 degrees. I really do appreciate the fact that I have air con. At my old place the inside of my house used to be hotter inside than it was outside. when its 35 degrees indoors and only 25 outdoors at 10pm at night, I seriously considered setting up my tent to sleep in a few times.
It also makes the fact of having tape all over my lower back more tolerable because as soon as I go outside for more than a few minutes my back starts itching where the tape is.

I did my 2 x 15-30 min gentle walks today as prescribed by my physio and I really needed it, while they did help stretch my back and ease the pain a bit, I am still in quite a lot of discomfort whenever I move... this really isn't fun. While sitting in my arm chair doesn't hurt I have a feeling it isn't really helping as it really hurts when I get out of the chair.

Love is an airconditioner in Melbourne summer time

It is day's like today that I love living where I do because of one simple electronic device on the wall - an airconditioner! This is the first rental house that I have lived in over the past 8 years that has had one and I love it, I really do! It isn't one of these old style ones either, but a new split system one which makes it quite cheap and quiet to run.

Christmas and New Years

Christmas eve was great, went to my Dad's place for BBQ dinner for Christmas and it was good to see everyone. I got my camp stove and dinner set, as I knew I was already getting and was extremely suprised to get a Coles gift card from my two brothers - its the first time they have got something for us on their own and it really meant something.
Christmas Day was at my sisters with my BIL's family. As I have probably already mentioned, while they don't make me feel unwelcome at all, they aren't really _my_ family, so not long after we had eaten lunch I took some desert on a paper plate and headed off to go camping.

Camping was awesome! No electricity, except from the generator we used at night and no running water. I did lots of surf fishing, although the fish were barely biting all week :( The only bad point, other the flies and mosquito's, was what I termed a man eating huntsman in the cubicle of the drop toilet - after this there was no way I could use the toilet. One of the camps a bit further up had brought a port-a-potty along for them and their kids to use as the kids can't deal with the drop toilet and they were kind enough to let me use their toilet after the discovery of the spider. Before Christmas they had pumped out the toilet so it barely had a smell at all to it and it was tolerable w/out using any air freshener, so I was kinda annoyed by the spider cos over the years I've never seen one in there before - maybe they had always been put off by the smell ;)

One day at the camp, the outdoor temp gauge we had sitting in the shade hit 42.9 degrees at 11:30am and at 9am it had said 34 degrees! Once it got to the 42.9 degrees we all decided that it was ridiculous to be sitting out there in that kind of weather when there was a pub 20 mins away where we could have a few beers and eat some lunch in air con comfort :D The pub had prawn cocktail on their entree's!! I haven't seen this on a menu for soooooooo long that I just had to get it and it was great!! :D

New Years eve was awesome! Lots of people out at the camp area with lots of good music and good company - I think it has been my best new years eve in a very long time :D

New Years Day I packed up and headed to Rosebud to spend a few days with some family staying at my Nan's place. The last time I will spend time there and I am glad I went down there. It was great spending some time with my Dad's wife, Maureen, and one of my brothers, Aaron. It will be sad to no longer go to that place, but unfortunately that is life.

While I was there I got a few books off the book shelf and got a couple of photo albums which contains lots of photo's of me when I was young and even one of me in my old orange stack hat!! I may have to scan some of them at work next week.

So I am back in Melbourne and I said that when I got back I would tidy up my house, but unfortunately I have hurt my back again. It had started to get sore again before Christmas and combine that with camping and falling down a set of stairs it has become really quite painful over my right lower back - it hurts to stand, sit, turn, bend, etc. so I saw the physio today and I have been told I must rest and I am not allowed to do any lifting, I can bend only when necessary, no twisting and definitely no housework until at least mid next week and I am to do at least 15-30 mins of gentle walking each day and after a few days increase the intensity. Oh and no I wasn't drunk when I fell and yes I have an awesome bruise from it. One good thing about my back being sore again is that I know it isn't my cycling that has been causing it.

I took some photo's while I was away, but I really can't be bothered going through them just yet or being at the computer for too long, they should be up in a few days.

I am back!

The subject says it all really, I am back from camping, more news later.