Should I stay or should I go.

Our good weather forecasters told us that the morning would be clear then start raining again Saturday afternoon. Well it was grey & misty when I was thinking of going but thought maybe I should wait & see, stay inside & watch some more back to back Jackson hits on C4.

Finally around 8am I thought it looked promising so headed out & expected it to clear up. Well that never happened & the misty rain closed in & for the 2nd hour of my ride it was wet & getting worse. On the upside, it wasn't cold so that made things just a little more enjoyable. Had a great but cautious ride around the Tauranga area. Great fun getting on the new asphalt on the Expressway & watching the speed. Have been stuggling over the last few months with the weather & other commitments to get any really big bike k's but hopefully over the next few weeks I can at least be consistent & get a 2+ hour ride in most weekends.

Finally getting home dripping wet I changed & headed down to the pool for a quick 2km splash & dash. Spent the rest of the arvo inside with 2 boys who kept telling me they were bored & a wife trying to tell me all about her Uni exam, that she barely understands let alone try to explain it all to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm interested it's just quite complex.

The rest of the week has gone pretty much to plan. I did miss my interval run on Thursday to attend the kids school parent / teacher interviews. Once again they tell us they have no concerns for either child which is awesome. Now hopefully this continues for thier entire schooling. Liam appears to have picked up some his Dads traits, but so long as it's only the good one's.

This next month is just around the corner & all things going right I have a couple of events I'm hoping to enter. The first one is the Gold Town Duathlon Waihi ( being held @ the mine ) 19th July. This event is being held for the 1st time so if you can get along & support it, do so. The 2nd event is the Okoroire 70km bike ride. This event is always popular & attracts good numbers, even if it does rain most years.

Now the last couple of days have had me thinking. Love him or hate him I'm sure we'll all miss Micheal Jackson's music. Which made me think. We've had Elvis, now Wacko, who's going to be the next King. Is there currently any solo musician who might have it in them.






I think NO !!!

Shortest day

There's not going to be many daylight hours today so thankfully it's a lovely day. Being the shortest day must be a good thing, as we can now look forward to Daylight Savings only 14 weeks away & warmer temperatures. Kathy & I really hope next year isn't this cold as we build for Busselton.

Back track to last weekend & we had a great weekend in Auckland whilst Kathy was slaving over the books at Uni. The kids & I went up the Skytower on Saturday afternoon then had dinner with Kathy's sister & her 4 kids. Noise , noise , noise !!!!

Sunday we met up with a friend I worked with at Fuji Xerox in Auckland & also a budding Triathlete, his daughter & went to Kelly Tarlton's. The kids love anything to do with animals & this was no exception. Being able to see King penguins is pretty cool, freezin infact. We were there when the keeper fed the huge Stingrays which was quite unreal ( gave me a few tips for this summers open water swimming ).

Great weekend & then the drive back home. This is the only reason I actually went with Kathy was to drive home.

The rest of the week has been good on the training front. The normal hill windtraining session was good, morning run felt good ( apart from the temperature ), interval run on the treadmill was a little more successful than last week, good swim, & I got a small ride in on Saturday afternoon.

Spent Saturday morning down in Whakatane at the Monty's Revenge race being support for an athlete work sponsor.

Swimming this afternoon then the week rolls around & we do it all again.

Why ??????

To lose weight, go faster on the bike, run faster, to be a good role model, you enjoy it even when going gets tough, or does this sport become addictive unlike playing soccer, rugby, netball etc.

For each individual it is slightly different but the common thing I think is the bond between triathletes unlike team sports. We're all mad !!!!

Another week goes by, QUICKLY

This week has flown by & we get another week closer to half way through the year. I'm sure as a kid the weeks & months never went by so quick. It used to take forever for school holidays to roll around, & school work just dragged on. Now you just need a couple of busy days at work & there seems to be no time left in the week & everything gets behind.

I finished off last weekend with a good 70km ride on Sunday morning, so that ended a great weekends training. I then took Kathy's swim squad on Sunday arvo.

This week saw the freezing cold weather be replaced by humid warm rain. As a result of the heavy rain I didn't get my long run in on Tuesday morning so replaced that with a short ride on the trainer whilst watching 20/20 World Cup Cricket.

The rest of the week went pretty much to plan & have done a couple of Gym sessions, just over 2 hours on the windtrainer & an interval run on the treadmill. Being the first interval run I had done since the 10km race I stuggled a bit with the 16km/hr intervals but I'm sure I'll get back into it next week.

The weekend has now rolled around again & the kids & I have joined the wife & travelled north to Auckland. She will head off to do her Uni studies whilst we hopefully do enjoyable stuff & catch up with some old mates.

Will get out for a couple of runs hopefullly. Had hoped to bring the bike but the weather was shocking when we left home that I didn't want to stick the bike on the back of the car & get it covered in grime & road crap, so I left it tucked up in the garage @ home.

Solid days effort

Got out this morning for a 4km hill repeat run. Not a long run but good all the same. I then dropped the kids off to a Birthday party at noon & headed for the pool. Managed to do 4km of drills & freestyle. Never swam that far in one session so was quite knackered in the shoulders.

Got home & the day was still fine so headed out on the bike for 1 1/2 hours & managed 50km. Just cruised around the greater Tauranga area so I could be home in time for the kids to get dropped off after the party.

Here's a list of events I've currently got on the to do list in the next 6 months,

26th July Okoroire Fun Ride 70km

15th August Waikato Draught Tough Guy & Gal Challenge

28th November Wattyl Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge ( maybe ?? 2 laps, 360km )

6th December Tinman Triathlon

19th December Rotorua Half Ironman.

The Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge may not happen but I'll still put it down as something to keep in mind. Will need some serious biking miles under the belt to enter that one.

Well time to rest up for Sunday's long bike ride.

Global Warming

For the last few years we've been bombarded with talk of how the planet is going to rise in temperature, ice sheets will melt & sea levels will rise.



Well I think they should come & spend some time down here in NZ because this weather is sure making it hard to get motivated & get outside & train.



I think the easiest discipline for training at the moment is actually swimming, as it's alot warmer in the pool than out. You've just got to get there.!!



So here's hoping for a fine dry weekend so we can do some quality training.

Mount Joggers 10km Run

The 23rd running of the Mount Joggers 1/2 Marathon, 10km & 5km fun run was held Sunday 31st May. The day dawned crisp & sunny. What better way to spend a Sunday morning than with the family all doing an event together.

The kids & Kathy were doing the 5km fun run together & I was out to give the 10km run a good nudge & hopefully a PB.

With a nice start time of 9:40am it was game on. The course takes you down the main beach of Mount Maunganui then turns back on itself & then around into Pilot Bay & then heads onto the Mount base track in a clockwise direction finishing at the surf club. From the start I managed to sit in about the top 30 in the race & that's where I stayed for the entire race. Now one of my goals was to catch the rest of the family who started 10 minutes after me & were also having to go around the Mount in their 5km run. I caught 2 of them where I thought I'd catch them but 1 of the kids was not to be seen. I found him within 100m of the finish ( a good couple of minutes ahead of the others ). Goal 1 complete.

2nd goal was obviosly to run faaaast & get a PB. I felt like I went out a bit to hard but you do that in a race so now it was just a case of keeping it up. The on road parts felt fine but did stuggle on the last hill around the Mount. Happy to say I achieved my goal with a 45:15 minute run.

Now for the last part of the morning & the most exciting bit for the kids. To see if they could win a spot prize !!!!!! Even with all the redraws that happened we still got nothing but the kids were still happy.

Lazy afternoon then finshed the day off with swim squad. A good 2000m swim in which the kicking drills did hurt.

It's now time to ramp up the cycling miles & just keep the running ticking over.

From the beginning

As most of you would know, my good wife Kathy has been blogging for some time now. Well I thought seems I have finally given myself a major goal of getting to Ironman Western Australia 2010 that I would join you all.

I haven't been doing this Triathlon game very long as it was Kathy's sport & I wasn't allowed to join in & compete knowing that I would be faster & she'd get grumpy. So I sat on the sideline & supported through the good & the ugly then eventually started doing the shorter events & finally the Rotorua Half Ironman December 2008.

We somehow manage to both get out & do the training which requires a very structured lifestyle, juggling 9 year old twin boys, fulltime jobs, Kathy's coaching after hours, kids Cub Scouts & I even manage a bit of keeler yacht racing.

That's enough of all the boring stuff.