Sunday, August 31, 2014

225/365


Vegan, sugar free, gluten free cupcakes..and they were epic. From Gweneth Paltrows book "It's All Good".

224/365

223/365


Lift broken at work. 5 floors of stairs. If only all lifts didn't work, the world would not have as many issues with obesity!

222/365


Beautiful stroll along the Torrens with my mum and grandma. These reeds in the Torrens were so tranquil.

221/365


Big table for brekky with kate after a 4km swim and short run....we deserved it :-)

120 km ride

This morning I headed out with some mates on an epic ride. As the dirty dozen ride is next weekend, I figured I should hit some decent climbs so I started with a solo mission up Mt Osmond. This hurt a bit. Then the ride continued to go up climbs unexpectedly as the week before the group ride hit one climb and a bunch of coast. So I ended up with Mt Osmond, Euro Norton, Windy Point and then Sheoak Rd with 20% grade in sections. 

Anyways, at the top of Mt Osmond at 6am the sunrise was beautiful. Such an amazing day to be out on the bike.


Saturday, August 30, 2014

Resin Rocks at AEAF

Super stoked on this news. Resin wins gold at AEAF for their "Two Left Feet" interactive mobile app, as well as Bronze for a viral web video of a "Dasyurus Maculatus" gone rogue. I'm super Stoked on this as it is one of the first projects that I was working as Head of VFX for the studio. For a 4 man team, holding up against larger studios like Cinesite VFX is damn impressive!

Dasyurus Maculatus

Back running again!

I'm back running baby. Two runs in the last few days, albeit short runs, but runs none the less! Stoked!
The physio gave me good news and some things to work on / think about. So now it's ramp up carefully for Murray Man, 9th Nov. :-)

The day my 365 project failed...

So I have been working on a 365 photo project this year, until the other day. I failed to take a photograph last Monday. I didn't take my camera to work, rushed home and then went swimming.
Upon returning from swimming we made dinner and were totally thrashed. I thought I gotta take a photo of dinner to do my photo for the day. Thats where it ended. I ate, showered and zonked out. I didn't even realise that I had forgotten till later the next day.
I had been disliking the project for a while as I didn't have the time to focus on it to do it well. Since I have failed and stopped pursuing the project, I have found that I am already taking more interesting photos, and I only take my camera when I want to. It's way more fun.
The rules I set myself for the project were cool, if you had a lot of time to work with them. The first part of the series in Vancouver and while I was unemployed in Adelaide are great. They adhere to the rules more or less, but also the rules at this stage of the project gave me ideas to seek out subjects.
Once full time work ramped back up and more intense triathlon training, I just ran out of time and motivation.
My goal for next year, and maybe the end of this year is going to be switched to making sure I produce one good photo a week. This gives me time to write about it, and choose a rally nice photo.
I hope you enjoyed watching.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Colleen's Masters Swim Club

Loving the swimming at the moment. Masters swim club, 5:30am at Immanuel College. 1.5 hrs and 4.2kms later I'm suitably thrashed to start the day. Lifes too short to not push it as hard as you can!

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

My trusty BMC

I've put a lot of kms on my trusty companion :-) one of my favourite rides being the triple crown in Vancouver. So stoked I did that ride while I was there! Now she has been relegated toy wet weather training and commuting bike, but I still love her. After all she saves me the most cash and I also probable do the most kms on her too.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

I can't believe.....

....that I have ended up in the same place again a year down the track! One year ago give or take I recovered from achilles tendonitis. Since then I managed another marathon and have been very smart about not pushing running too fast and easing into higher training loads. 

Anyways, now, literally a week after signing up for IronMan and forking out a good part of 1k for that race entry, my achilles flared up. Now I forsee a good few months of recovery and easing back into running. So lame and disappointing given all the hard work put into preparing myself to be in a good position to start Iron Man training. Oh well. Shit happens and now it'll be a challenge to try and get back on board for Murray man in November and Iron Man in March. :-(

It's funny how shit just flips upside down!

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Colleen's Masters Group

When we first moved to Plympton I was struggling because I was in a routine of swimming at Norwood pool. I stressed out that I wouldn't find another pool to use, and hence my swimming would really drop off. Then I discovered Unley Swimming Centre. The most beautiful 50m pool, outdoors, just nestled into Forestville. Sweet, I hit this up for a few months and it was perfect as it was located right on my way to work.
Then I discovered that it is closed over winter :-( I just assumed that being hot old Adelaide it would be open all year, I mean Kitsilano Pool in Vancouver was colder at 5 in the morning in summer than Adelaide is here in winter...I thought, until this winter when I realised Adelaide is bloody freezing and that I would have absolutely no interest in swimming outdoors.
Anyways, I started moping about once Unley Pool closed as I figured I wouldn't be swimming all winter. Then I found iSwim at Immanuel College. A beautiful indoors 25m lap pool. I initially thought 25m pools were lame, but in winter beggars can't be choosers, and I have realised that you just do your training differently. More drills, more shorter high intensity stuff, and it forces you to learn to tumble turn :-)
Anyways, after swimming here for a while I discovered Colleen's Masters Group. A set training 3 days a week at 5:30, that is super similar to the fastlane sessions that I used to go to in Vancouver. It pushes me a lot and I can see I'm going to improve on my swimming quite significantly by swimming at these sessions. There's nothing like getting 4km in the pool done before work to make you hungry all day thats for sure!

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Murray Man Half Iron Man

Days after signing up for Iron Man Melbourne, my lovely wife, Kate, tells me that she is also going to do Iron Man. Yeah right. She hates swimming and hasn't tried to swim laps for a long time.
Anyways, a few days later she is still going on about it and has decided that she's going to do Murray Man. I say OK, but you gotta get in the pool first. We head down after work one day and I take her through a drills session at Immanuel College. She smashes out a good hour session.
We hit another swimming session and a few bike rides and she's killing it. Anyways, a week later I'm convinced that she is pretty keen, but expect a bit more training before making a decision. So, I fall asleep one night, totally pooched from training, and wake up to an email that she has signed up for Murray Man after I fell asleep.
So I have now signed up too, and we've been doing some training together, and it is just so awesome to train with my wife. I spend so much time doing sport that it is just amazing to be able to share this passion together. I can't wait for the race in November. It was amazing finishing Victoria, BC, Marathon together; I can't imagine how good it is going to be finishing a half iron man, and potentially a full Iron Man. :-)
Murray Man

Building My Own Tri Bike

I recently bought a used a Lance Armstrong Team Discovery Channel Trek Road bike frame at a super cheap price. At the time that I purchased this frame, I thought it was going to become my training bike with a cheap build kit. However about a month later I signed up for Iron Man Melbourne, and decided that I needed a time trial bike, so this frame now became the basis to my TT bike.
A whole lot of research ensued ionto how to build a TT bike and what is required. I have now ordered a full Ultegra groupset with TT shifters and brakes. Next I need to buy some aero bars, stem, carbon seat post and good saddle, then the most expensive part being new wheels. This is going to be a bit costly, but such a great fun project.
Hopefully the groupset is in next weekend, so I'll be hitting the roads on my TT rig in no time. WIP pictures to come.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Training and Injuries

I know I post on this quite often. But it is something of interest to me, and very close to heart. Over the last few years, endurance sports have taken their toll on my body, but I have also gained tremendous results from them.
The worst thing about injuries is the mental worry that is left behind. I find myself constantly feeling niggles in my right achilles. Anyways, one good thing about injury is that I have finally started to pay attention to my body and what it is telling me. Don't get me wrong, I could be better, but baby steps right.
Anyways, a few weeks back, 1 week after signing up for Iron Man actually, I had a 18km training run, and at 13 kms I got a good old pain in the right achilles. Stupidly I had been feeling something all run which I ignored, but to be fair, it felt more like a "I'm being paranoid pain", rather than anything serious.
Anyways I flagged running straight away. 1 wk off before testing it out again, then physio and a test run to decide whether to continue with the Marathon or not. The physio came up with some good advice, I followed it, and hit out a training run on Sunday the 2nd Aug. The rule was if the run went well, do the Marathon, if it didn't, don't be dumb, and flag the Marathon. Anyways the run went well, but for once common sense kicked in, and I decided to only run 15kms of the 35kms that I wanted to do, thinking it was silly to run so far after an injury scare.
From this run I pulled up fine, and the leg felt fine all run, but I realised that I like running so much, and Iron Man is so important to me that cancelling the Marathon was the smart thing to do.
Nonetheless, I got a solid 8 weeks of training in for the marathon in which I gained some great fitness which will put me in a great place for starting Iron Man training in September.
Now a few weeks on, I am running and loving it. Sometimes it pays to listen to the body ;-)

220/365


Friday! Thank f%$k! Heavy work week. The team pumped our some amazing looking work. So stoked! Ready for a weekend to refuel and smash out some more amazing work next week!
On the ride home I was about to cross the South Road overpass on the bike track that I ride everyday, but had to stop to take this pic. I always love the pattern of the lights, but tonight the sky and the lights just looked so rad, so I paused on my ride to capture this. Sometimes you just gotta stop and look right!

219/365


Dinner at Kates parentals. On the way home we noticed the gas prices were the lowest they've been for a while so thought we should fill up. I took the opportunity to take a photo of something different. After such a crazy work week it was awesome to have dinner with the in laws, just being nice to chill and not have to get home and cook ourselves.

218/365


Our dried herbs. Once again, ridiculously busy day at work and totally thrashed from swimming in Colleens Masters swimming group at 5:30am at Immanuel. The masters swim group is a 1.5hr drill session with about 4 - 4.5 kms of swimming at a pretty high intensity. The arms will be feeling it tomorrow.

217/365


Early morning in work, looking out the office window. It is an awesome location for the office, providing a lot of inspiration within a short walk. Also providing a lot of incentives to spend a bunch of cash a bit too easily ;-)

216/365


Crazy day at work, but the project is looking rad! This was about all the creativity I could conjure up. Sorry.

215/365


Kates first Choir recital. It was awesome and I was so proud to see her up there singing. I took some photos for the group too. My parents as well as Kates parents were there to support her :-) The performance was followed by munchies. I can't believe how old people swarm on free food ;-) As good as seagulls I tell ya.
My old choir teacher from yr 8, Mr Sils is the conductor and it was a laugh catching up with him again after about 15 years.

214/365


In Adelaide it always pays to look up. I was dropping Kate off for choir rehearsal on Hindley St and I glanced upwards from the car while I was stopped. All of the upper levels were beautiful old architecture like this. I loved the vibrant color and the classical columns and arches. It almost momentarily took me to Jerusalem :-) Following this I waited in the Sports Med waiting room for a hour, got into the appointment 45mins late, seen for 10 mins and charged $59. Assholes. To be fair they seemed to fix the problem with the advice they gave. Then I was off to the rentals for lunch :-)

213/365


The new steed. She rides like a dream. Super stiff carbon frame allows you to really lay down the power when you need to!

212/365

,
The view of our shitty little backyard area from our window on this bleak cold Adelaide winters day. The bonsai are laying pretty dormant, thank god cos I've been so busy as you can tell from my average photos, that I would not have had the time to prune them at all.
With more light in spring when they start growing, hopefully I'll get out there and do some "gardening".

211/365


It's been a crazy busy week at work. What a relief to have Kate cooking dinner tonight! Wicked scrambled eggs, rice, soy. Stoked!

210/365


The makings of a healthy lunch and breakfast. Yep I like green and am totally digging cabbage at the moment.

209/365


Another isue of my one year wedding gift from Kate. Early morning reading. Keeps the stoke for the bike going while the weather outside is shit and cold!

208/365


My favourite marker. Gepps Cross Market. So many characters. It's so vibrant, the produce is so fresh and it's always so cheap. It's always a fun morning and I have usually done a big run before hand so I treat myself to a bunch of fresh fruit for brekky. It's always fun trapsing the aisles for a bargain with Kate, going by the rule of thumb that if it's more than $3 per kg, we wont buy it :-)