Cloimb every mountain!!!

Try this one at home. If there is a word like climb that you can pronounce like Kath and Kim would ( eg ‘cloimb’) , then do it. It will become addictive. Fairly long time between drinks - I did want to confirm that Dee actually scaled Mt Kilimanjaro ( and Mt Lemangrut and Mt Meru for that matter). The weather was between -15C and -20C near the summit so Dee could only stay there for 10mins. I’ve sat through a most amazing array of pictures and movies since she arrived home today. It was a massive 42hr combined flight/stopover time to get from Nairobi back to Perth.

In the mighty jungle, the lioness sleeps tonight - she’ll sleep for a fair while I think! I’m very proud of my blond mountain goat. So much so that her Busselton Half Ironman team was named ‘Two Mountain Goats and a Fish’. That’s her next challenge (as if she was clamouring for one).

Its been nearly 2 weeks since the last update and I’ve ‘ballooned’ up to 81kgs. Its now 11weeks to go till Busso Half Ironman so I’d want to lose a steady half kilo each week from now on.  Yesterday, I had one of my hardest training days ( although I know I’ve had much bigger ‘distance’ days as part of my IMWA training). I started off at 5.45am cycling on the 13kg Colnago (effectively stuck in one gear as the two lower cluster rings are worn out and not usable). So I ventured from Canning Vale to Narrows Bridge via Kwinana Fwy path then I went West along Stirling Hwy, through Nedlands, straight across to Cottesloe and around Fremantle Traffic bridge through Bicton and Pt Walter, up to Raffles and then into city again on Freeway path into work for an 8.15am start.

This was really tough but I was essentially in ‘diesel’ mode as I have a tough 80km time trial on Sunday at Wandi. At the end of the working day, I cycled to Yokine for my Front Runner training - this was 10 x 400m efforts at a hard pace with 200m jog in between each effort. Bloody hard session- hey, get this, we have a 26yo lady who runs marathon at 3hr04m - unbelievable. Very lucky to have a big group of motivated runners. Hat off to women like Jo Youd who keep me honest with their pace and effort.

Anyway, after this, I still had to face a hard slog home into the wind to Canning Vale. This 110kms of cycling on the old ‘pure steel’ Colnago but my cadence was not exactly as high as it should have been. I have a new orange Tufo tubular tyre being fitted to my front Gravity Zero wheel. As I said, these wheels simply make me look as if I should be a quick time trialler - the reality is that all they’ve given me thus far is 0.7kph improvement.

I’ve stepped up my swimming somewhat and my last effort was 30 x 50m at Riverton Leisureplex. My last distance run was with uber time triallist Rod Mejias and we went out for a 90min run. He actually ran a further 20mins but seems very fit these days with his cross training. He is on board for the 80km Aust Time Trial Assoc effort at Wandi this Sunday and was only 10sec shy of a 40kph effort last year (I think in the Hopeland 80km) Its actually a very big list of starters for this Sunday (check it out on www.atta.asn.au ) - so much so that there is actually a reserve list of riders. A very well run organisation with ‘mouse’ ( Peter Meyer) and several regular helpers. It’s been very successfully run for 15 yrs.

 I’ll do the Bikeforce Southern River ride tomorrow on Ernie the Colnago so I expect to get dropped fairly early - character-building though.  Have a good La Premiere session to share with Dee tomorrow for Valentine’s Day - I’ve already given her the mandatory dozen long-stemmed roses today.

There are so many exercise options this time of year. Some of you may want to catch the action tomorrow 14 Feb at Champion Lakes for a triathlon. A lot of the Front Runner training group will do this. Robbie Dunn will do this then knock off a further 150kms on his bike as he enters his last 3 weeks before NZ Ironman. Best of luck to him - he trains hard and deserves a solid race.

I think it will be a Nando’s night tonight for dinner. Lunch was at Nicholsons Bar & Grill in Canning Vale. Have a good weekend of swimming, running, cycling, etc. (I actually have started playing a bit of tennis again and even after a 5yr layoff, was still booming the serves down. It’s a great game)

For those of you interested there’s a whole bunch of cheap airfares via Tiger Airways from Perth to Melbourne and return. (ranging between $69 and $99 one way)

Reservoir

CHRISTO