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2003-04-28 21:09:31 Source: Web
I'm still tired from the weekend! We went to see a friend's band play on Friday Night (The Cardinal Carnations). What was going to be a fairly laid back night turned into something of a marathon and I paid for it by sleeping through most of Saturday. Which wouldn't have been *such* a problem except that I then couldn't sleep Sunday night and ended up getting up 4.00 AM Sunday morning. So by the time the weekend finished, my body clock was knocked for six.
Amongst the confusion thoughm I did manage to bake som wicked cookies from a recipe my mom gave me and made a nice chicken stew with a mixture of root vegetables and with tarragon as the main herb, which I'm not used to using at all. Lovely! I'm going to have to experiment some more with tarragon!
So I'm dithering over buying a second-hand racing cycle at the moment. I'm going to go and check out one tomorrow which I saw advertied on the web. It's a Columbus Pinta Veloce, which I've looked up in a catalogue and found had a new price 2 years ago of around 800 quid, the second-hand one I'm going to look at is around 500, so that sounds like an OK deal to me! I really need to get a look at the components though and see whether anything needs replacing or not.
A racer should mean the following changes to my training.
1) Increased average speeds (I should be able to get at least an extra 5kph out of a racer over distances, hopefully more)
2) The possibility to train with my triathlon club (they all use racers and it's pretty much impossible to keep up on a mountainbike)
Also, to have any chance of competing at anything other than a "in-it-to-go-the-distance" pace I would need a racer. The thought has also crossed my mind that I might be able to aim for the big classic bike event here next year - Vättern Runt, which is a 300km ride around Swedens biggest lake, which is ridden by thousands of people each year. It seems like a hell of a grind (I would probably be looking at taking somewhere around 11-12 hours to complete it. Possibly ;-).
Unfortunately, because my knee is still no better and because Dave's recovery from his op isn't going to leave him enough time to realistically train for the London Triathlon, we've decided to give it a miss this year and aim for being in shape next year. Having said that I'm still hoping to be be able to do the Gothenburg triathlon. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll have sorted the knee problem by then. A visit to the physio today though didn't bring any fresh insight, so I'm concentrating on doing my exercises, stretching properly and I'm planning to get some new running shoes professionally fitted.
So that's pretty much it really. Yet another of my seemingly increasingly rare updates. While writing, I've been listening to the bizarre radio broadcast from this site. It requires Real Audio unfortunately (damn you Real for making such invasive software!!), but if you have the player, it's well worth listening to. Psychedelic exotica. Oh yeah!
2003-04-15 21:36:11 Source: Web
Still tired, but the weekend was very nice. We travelled 3.5 hours train journey north of Gothenburg to a town called Örebrö to see one of Lotta's relatives starring in her first musical - at the tender age of 13 ;-) The musical was "In the woods", which is actually by Stephen Sondheim and for a kids production it was really great! Having grown up singing in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in a junior theatre company, I really enjoyed seeing these kids giving it everything.
Hmm, reading through my last posts I see that I haven't updated a couple of bits of news. Firstly, I tried out the car I had borrowed from work - and I didn't really like it! It felt large, clumsy and unforgiving (I can get up a hill from a standing start in 3rd in my Ford if I really try!). Fortunately my car was repaired within 2 days thanks to the mechanic having a delay on the parts he needed for another job and being able to get hold of a 2nd-hand generator from the tip! It was done at a great price and returned to me in no time at all - that's the sort of mechnic we like eh?
Also, I've been keeping up (more or less) with the exercises prescribed by my physio and while I haven't been for a test run yet, I also haven't had any problems with my knee. Hopefully I can get out and try a gentle run tomorrow evening (if I'm not sitting at the office yet again!). My training schedule is now officially shot to hell. Hopefully I can start to get some structure back while the weather is cooperating!
One thing I have found the time for the last week is some climbing. I've been a couple of times with a couple of friends and it's been great fun! We've streched ourselves on an 8 metre wall at the climbing gym. One of the routes we've been able to scale, but the other two have been a bit too much ;-) I'm really gonna have to invest in some climbing shoes and a harness of my own. Next payday perhaps!
2003-04-09 20:05:36 Source: Web
Well, here I am, sitting at work, the time is only 21.00 so I guess I shouldn't be complaining. I mean I've only been here 13 hours! And I was only here 15 hours yesterday.
*sigh*
However the deadline we're trying to meet is for friday at the very latest, so it shouldn't mean that I'm required over the weekend.
Right now though, I want to get out of here and try out the new car I've borrowed. I've borrowed a car because my car has died completely! It looks like the generator has conked out on my I'm afraid. However it's sitting at the workshop waiting for the final judgement to be pronounced. With any luck it'll be something simpler. In the meantime though I get to borrrow a car from work - a Volvo S60, whch wouldn't mean much to me, but is a "very nice car indeed" (tm).
Haven't driven it yet - but will do within the next 15 minutes or so!
Cross your fingers :-D
2003-04-02 22:18:32 Source: Web
Cool article from Jonas Colting, one of the top Swedish triathletes:
http://www.xtri.com/article.asp?id=898&offset=0
Now *that's* what it's all about ;-)
As far as I'm concerned, it's not going to be any running for a while. I went to the physiotherapist the other day and we discovered the following interesting facts:
- My left leg (with the knee pain) is 1 cm shorter than the right
- My left kneecap is slightly inflamed
- And possible has some cartilage floating around under it
- My left quad is 1cm thinner than my right
I have repeat booking set up for the next couple of weeks, so I'm guessing some kind of exercise regime will be in order to get the muscles evened up again.
So swimming and cycling only for a while. Dave's in with a good chance to catch me up again ;-) I'm just hoping that I can get some more running in before the season kicks off properly *sigh*.
2003-03-29 11:36:54 Source: Web
Well, it's Saturday lunchtime and here I am sitting in the office. I was supposed to be going away on a triathlon training camp this weekend. However events have conspired against me. We have had a lot on at work and I have spent over 3.5 days of the last week sitting in various meeting! That means I haven't been able to get much programming done and so when I started getting stomach pains every time I thought about the fact that being away all weekend would mean I didn't have time to catch up, I decided to abort and concentrate on clearing the decks instead.
I'm gonna try and get out and do some swimming and cycling anyway, but of course I'm a little disappointed. Also I went for a run last night (first for a couple of weeks) and the pain in my knee is still there. So I'm definitely going to make an appointment with a sports injury specalist this week.
Oh well, I guess that it's best for me to put my nose to the grindstone and get the work done that I need to so that I don't have to sit here longer than absolutely necessary!
2003-03-24 20:02:28 Source: Web
Let's see - it's been a while!
London trip - excellent! Spent time with family and my little niece is absolutely adorable!
War - not going to mention it!
Work - the same old same old.
Training - going well, though my knee is still giving me gip. Looking forward to a training camp I'm going to this weekend.
Homelife - just dandy, thanks for asking!
Well, that's about it for now! Back with a "proper" update in the much nearer (I hope) future.
2003-03-10 21:41:17 Source: Web
So I went running this evening - it started off pretty well, I was running my usual course which is around 5km. I got off to a cracking start and was looking set to break my personal best by quite a margin. However my left knee started playing up - enough for me to eventually limp home the last km. I don't think it's anything serious. I occassionally have my knee "click" a little and it's a bit painful to walk on for a day or so and then suddenly goes away. However it's a bit of a bugger. I'll need to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't become a regular occurrence.
Other than that, the training has been going pretty well. I've been swimmming between 3 and 5 km a week and getting in at least one run and a cycle ride. As the weather picks up I'm planning for the running and cycling to increase. I'm aiming most for improving stamina just now and hope to add in more interval and strength training (think "hills") after a month or so. I still don't know what my goals are for competition times, but I'll still only be placing in the bottom 50% for a sprint distance I would guess.
2003-03-04 18:12:25 Source: Web
Hmm - I suddenly get the feeling that my blog has lost an entry! Weird!
I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that the weekend was my 33.3333r birthday (a third of a century!). Lotta and I managed to book a package for a ferry trip to Denmark with two nights at a hotel in Fredrikshaven (North Denmark). It was a bargain price and the hotel was picked because it has a tropical adventure pool! Definitely our kind of place ,-)
The weekend was a great success - we took the ferry over on Friday night and managed to navigate our way to the hotel by car (not exactly difficult - we were probably less than 1km from the terminal!). We managed to find an OK pub the first night. On Saturday we drove up to the northern tip of Denmark, an area known as Skagen, which is kind of the equivalent of Lands End. The area is a beautiful summer spot where one can actually see the separate currents from two seas meeting in the water. When we got there though, strong winds were turning the -2C weather into something that felt more like -20C! I can honestly say that it was the coldest beach I've ever been on in my life!!! We'll be back one summer ;-)
Finally we got to swim on the Saturday after we had returned from our excursion. They had a pool with wave machine, a water slide and not least a barside jacuzzi! (Or should that be a jacuzzi-side bar!!). Wonderful!! We played for several hours before heading off to a nearby restaurant for some food.
Sunday was a chance to bathe again after checking out and before catching the ferry home. Thankfully the crossings in both direction were calm and we stocked up on beer and spirits on the way home.
Talking of bathing I have a swim training session in half an hour, so I'd best wrap this up for today and get ready! Pics of the cold beach to come when I unload my camera!
2003-02-21 14:10:22 Source: Web
Project Steve - supporting the theory of evolution! Unfortunately I don't have a degree of any sort, let alone biology related :-( So I can't be a member, but I'll be an enthusiastic supporter at least!
Talking of enthusiasm, I got back in the water last night after a couple of weeks of having a cold. It was an OK session, >3km with a bunch of interesting drills. I can definitely feel my swim stamina and speed increasing. Here's an example of one of the drills:
4x100m crawl, 2min/100m
75m, back, breast, crawl, 2:15 min
4x100m crawl, 1:55min/100m
75m, back, breast, crawl, 2:15 min
4x100m crawl, 1:50min/100m
Talk about knackering! I made 1:55 level on all but 1 of the 100m stretches and made 1:50 on two stretches (and under 2 min on the other two!).
The ice has melted enough for me to cycle to work again without breaking my neck as well. I'm planning on taking a long route home as well and putting in 15km or so this evening.
I'm working all weekend (literally!) We're doing a server upgrade tomorrow which will require my presence for 8 hours or so and then a few hours on Sunday to upgrade some client machines. The Sunday evening I'm flying to Stockholm to be in place for a flight to Basel on Monday for a meeting there. No time to sightsee unfortunately as we're then flying back to Göteborg in the evening. Phew! Hopefully I'll get some time to take a run or a swim during the weekend anyway!
2003-02-13 18:03:10 Source: Web
Bah! I've had a stinker of a cold since Sunday afternoon. Fortunately it's not been full blown flu (or tonsilitis as I first feared), but it caused one day off work and I've felt like crap all week. So no training, early nights and good food to try and get rid of the bastard ASAP! Now I'm just starting to feel like it's turning around and I'm at least hoping to be cold-free by this coming Sunday for the second part of my climbing course.