Triathletic Toddler

Run at race pace, repeat, then cycle, vary the intensity, some hill climbs, some flat grinds and then into the pool and pump the water, hard. Check the bike, get the transitions right, race tactics sorted, gear, nutrition, hydration, stay well, don't overtrain, don't under-train...

While training for an actual triathlon is intense in its own right, coordinating work, family life & the actual training is the behind the scenes triathlon; only considerably more intense. Just like a triathlon you have to work at each element to make it fit in with the others or they all fall into chaos. And so goes my life of living at the edge of my capacity. It's been a lot of fun, though in the past few days I've found what it's like just over that edge, my body has spoken and it said 'too much' so I've been forced into relative rest for a few days (you see you can never really truly rest if you're serious about triathlon). While you can rest from training it's a lot more tricky to rest from work and family especially as the growing toddler (above) doesn't know what stop means (a bit like her daddy). Now confidently walking (and swimming of course) she is taking her own directions, sometimes on her tricycle making her technically the triathletic toddler.

And now my race is just 5 days away. It's been a long road and I've done the best I can for the time and limitations I have, I think. But it's not over yet, there is still more work to be done and a race to be won, or at least to be pushed to the edge. And then I will really rest, and the rest will be sweet, fleeting, but sweet.

Faster Higher Stronger Smarter

It's been a long time between posts. It's not like nothing's been happening because it has, so much so that I've seriously had no time to even think about posting. There was a brief shot on location in Hollywood, some political lobbying in Washington DC and a little bit of altitude training in between. Amélie has started running around, and saying words and doing things that make as stand in awe, or just laugh, a lot. Our house is undergoing renovations, so we are living in a construction zone, but the progress is awesome and I'm looking forward to the finished product.

I'm training as hard as ever, actually possibly harder, to the point of trying to manage the pain as much as the training. Training smarter. But the pain gets less and less, and the fun more and more. I found myself at the pool after training the other day surrounded by all manner of beauty in the form of elite athletes and surf life savers (the iconic ones). In the showers.

Fun indeed.

And the fun promises to continue. Racing, training and a great summer ahead.

Drinks on the deck set to be a new and improved regular event as the summer heads on in.

I can feel it now. I can feel it in my legs now too - a huge inter-city cycle and later run today mean it's time for a nice, long rest.

Keep well until next time.

Utah Rocks

sunrise: monument valley

We've just crossed from Utah through Arizona and into Nevada heading back to Las Vegas. The sun is lowering on the horizon and I can't wait to get back.

We've been exploring Utah's national parks where the USA's 'everything is bigger here' continues. We had a ball. Non stop exploration and activity, but that's not about to stop. I've been told Utah has America's cutest men, but the cutest we saw were European men in the parks. I've subsequently been updated that you have to go farther north. Sigh.
We sure did see an abundance of grey nomads in their RV's the size of trucks. Actually I'm sure many of them WERE trucks. Anyhow, I'm glad we can tune into Vegas radio and tone down the country song quotient which is fun for a while, just.

There's a surprising amount of nothing out there. I thought that was a typically Australian thing, but there were an abundance of huge mountains, deep wide valleys, monster canyons and great roads with not much else along them. Great for getting away from it all. Not so great when you need fuel!

I ran at altitude in Bryce Canyon national park today. I was the only person running and got loads of attention for it. Stunning scenery is a good distraction when you're hurting. The training for Noosa must continue.

And so as the sun sets in the west, Las Vegas awaits. We have a stack of activities planned and I can't wait.

(note: this was written in transit a few days ago)

The Road to Noosa

Run, Cycle, Swim. And repeat.

I have days when I love running, days like Monday when I feel my legs twitch with abundant energy, ready to get out there and pound the pavement, grass and sand. I arrive home to a sunny warm day and get into my running gear, pop in my earphones and off I go, the last stretch along the beach with waves rolling in making me feel like I'm in an ad for something. Something good.

And then there are the days when my brain says "must do the required number of sessions for the week" and my legs say "get stuffed". Invariably the brain wins, and the legs suffer to be tortured with the addition of cycling to the mix. At the end though the somewhat prolonged shower is heavenly relaxation.

Cycling is reliably fun. I'm used to the lycra cycling gear now that I never used to wear and which makes me look like a pro. I'm also used to the Frenchman's chant "be careful on the road" usually following more reports of people who have crashed their bikes. Tightened helmet and flashing lights I'm off; and when not I'm cycling on rollers in my living room with considerably less gear, but all these points of pressure have given me new understanding of neuroanatomy and I'm very thankful that the rather regular genital numbness is only transient.

The pool however is a stress free event, no concerns, no worries, I can't get enough. Love it, it's my superchilled element. Needless to say, it's the area I least need to be in preparation for this triathlon that rapidly approaches.

I have a laundry basket filled with sweat-scented shorts, shirts, singlets, towels, bike gear and hyperchlorinated swim gear. There are a collection of grease stains on too many of my clothes, showing up along side young Amélie's food bits at times when I least expect them.

Despite the super-training I've been increasing in weight. I expected to lose a few kg but have gained 3.5 . But I feel leaner than ever.

Oh, and my brother's training is also going well, which means I have to train harder! I'm the underdog right now but I need to make sure I'm not after the race! I'm not sure I have the numbers I need just yet, but I have until October 31st. The road to Noosa continues.

Stone Age Gay

I've become one of those old people!

In the past few weeks I've discovered I'm doing things I only thought old people did. I start the car and find ABC Radio playing, the once-popular 2Day FM with it's nauseating gossip and overplayed K & J-O has been usurped by diverse ranges of subject matter a wide range of music (not always my choices but at least diversifying) and intelligent DJ's. Oh and politics is actually interesting, at least more so than the details of which celebrity did.... oh who cares.

I'm enjoying father's day - as a father. And I'm supporting my parents probably more than they support me, which is at once confounding and liberating.

I'm also celebrating anniversaries that have numbers like 15 in them. Bloody hell, 15 years with The Frenchman! Bring on 15 more I say.

I'm also finding the years going a whole lot faster, am buying safer cars, am managing home renovations, again, and training for mid-life crisis triathlons with one eye on the prize, and one eye on managing the joint aches and pains that seem to be hindering my launch at the said prize.

And I'm loving it.

I see the younger editions coming out, and envy the bodies that have a surprising absence of wrinkles and folds, but not the self confidence issues, financial crises or relationship dramas to follow.

Youth is wasted on the young it's true, but life as an old fogey ain't so bad.

telephone frustrations

We've all had bad experiences with call centres, and I'm certainly no fan, but there is a book of telephone etiquette for the everyday phone owner / telephone receptionist just waiting to be written...

Voicemail: "I can't come to the phone right now, please leave a message after the..."

It's your mobile phone - it's in your pocket / backpack or somewhere very close to you.

Try: "I'm not answering this call right now..."

Voicemail: "My phone is switched off at the moment, so please leave a message"

It rang 10 times before it diverted... it IS switched on.

Try: "I often ignore my phone, please leave a message, I MAY get back to you."

Answerer: "Can I put you on hold for a moment? "

Me: "Actually it's urgen... [chiming 'hold' music cuts in].

Preferred option: "I'm putting you on hold, I'm not sure when I'll be back if ever" or "Please hold, I'll be exactly 13 seconds" and be exactly 13 seconds.

Voicemail: "Please leave a message, then press hash, spin around in a circle, press 2 followed by 4 followed by 3, press hash again, repeat your message and..."

Try: "Don't even bother, just hang up now."

Oh, and while singing voice messages can be a lot of fun, especially when you have multiple household members taking part, it doesn't always sound so fun when your doctor is phoning to leave a message about those test results. [yes yes, first hand experience for these]

Of course, if the person on the other end is the guy in the photo above, one tends to not notice all of the above. Lucky buggers.

With one exception: taking a call while you're in with your doctor (ie me) and continuing a personal & banal conversation (in fact anything that's not life & death) is very uncool regardless of how ruggedly handsome you are.

Anyone else with telephone peeves?

Extreme training

With just over 10 weeks to go until Noosa Triathlon I'm stepping up my training. I have a lot of improvement needed in my run times and a little extra speed in the cycling too, with my swimming yet to return to its normal standard (so I'm working on that too). So far I've been getting faster - esp in the running, and my calves are paying for it. But it's nice to see some stepwise improvement. I would like to make those steps a little bigger though... so I'm increasing everything. Surprisingly I've also gained some weight despite getting leaner - I guess those legs need more muscle for all that extra activity.

The weather is strangely warm here at the moment too - daytimes are like mid-spring which makes training easier and it feels like everything is locking into place. Now if I can just manage to run sub 4minute km's...

Election Boredom

Today is (Federal) election day and I can't wait for it to be over. There has been more coverage on the mechanisms of the campaign than on the policies themselves. I feel like we're being educated on spin. The chosen topics for debate have been BORING, nauseating even and often irrelevant. Gay marriage / relationship recognition has been publicly approved, but both major political parties are ignoring that and won't support it. We are electing the whole government but it seems like there are just 2 presidential candidates. I'm just really scared we will get Tony Abbott as our new PM, who has declared himself the lovechild of prior PM John Howard & MP Bronwyn Bishop... ouch. He claims to be gay friendly - but is as likely to support anything that promotes equality for the gay & lesbian community as he is to skip a photo opportunity.

Anyway - all Aussie readers of superchilled - please vote responsibly.

My First Aussiebums

I'm converted! Its been years in the making but finally this week I ordered online and purchased my first ever item from Aussiebum. There has been a hint of summer in the air and a scent of decaying speedoes in the bathroom so onto the site I went, selected a pair I'd seen in the flesh (or on the flesh...) earlier in the year and a few clicks later, a day or two for mailing and today it arrived. Awesome packaging, very well made and a perfect fit!! So I'm very happy. I just need to test them out in the water now, and then wear them in races to win in style!

So to celebrate the scent of summer and to move away from the politics that has been featuring here lately here are a few more Aussiebum samples. Oh, and the ones I bought are somewhere in this post; but I'm not telling which...

Greens: the ad they should have

41 seconds

From the TV show Gruen Nation (nee Gruen Transfer) where they had an ad agency come up with an ad for and anti the greens... this is the pro one - and I love it. Unfortunately the ABC won't release it to the Greens to be used in their campaign. So here it is on the web.

Australian Democrats : I wish they got more airplay.

Democrats release GLBTI action plan: click for details.

At least someone is looking at our community as an equal part of Australia, not a minority to be kept at bay. And in this Federal election despite majority community support for gay & lesbian rights, none of the 2 major parties is interested in true equality.

I'm not quite sure why the Australian Democrats fell out of view, but they're still there, and should be a greater part of the Australian political climate than they are right now (in my opinion). The have always been strong supporters of the gay & lesbian community and remain so as detailed in today's press release. They have a stack of great policies (which are a little more sensible than the Greens', who are also similarly gay friendly, obviously) and are SO much better than the main and so conservative political parties who are putting me at once to sleep and in a state of heightened anxiety. As a gay man having Tony Abbott as a leader is really scary. I like that he exercises regularly including doing ocean swims - but that's about it.

I think we all need to vote for people like the Democrats & the Greens who treat the gay & lesbian community equally with the rest of the community, and at the same time write to our local members and aspirants to tell them that we need better representation. And not just token representation.

Links

Democrat GLBTI policy

Greens LGBTI policy

Labor GLBTI policy: nil

Liberal GLBTI policy: nil

1. on the grass 2. In the gym...

1.

Where the bloody hell has all the time gone?

I had visions of loads of posts - a renaissance of kinds, which has obviously stuttered somewhat. I've been cycling, swimming and running, as per the plan, and then things like work, parenthood and logistical variances eat into all the other time in the day. And when the weather is as stunning as it was today - there's no way I'm staying inside. So I too was lying on the grass contemplating the beauty of it all today. At least for a while.

2.

Some readers have asked about the yoga video posted below, and there certainly is a little more intense man-to-man physical contact in there than one might normally expect in a traditional yoga class... which leads me to the question... Has anyone had more of a workout in an exercise class / training session than you initially expected?

Nude Yoga

It seems Nude Yoga is popular based on the emails I had following a post on the subject some time back. Recently I had an email from the maker of a naked power yoga dvd coming out soon. I can't say I know too much about the video but here you get a chance to check out the preview yourself.

Japanese Cuisine?

Wandering the Shinjuku district of Tokyo last week I stumbled across this sign for a restaurant (?). I thought maybe someone had scratched off part of the sign, but it was exactly the same on both sides. I couldn't read the menu but wonder what their specialty is...

Go Go Go

It was HOT, damned hot. The Northern summer has roasted & toasted me, and spat me out. And it feels good. Back in the Southern Hemisphere it's cool and I'm loving it. I feel like I've been warmed up to withstand the local cool, superhot here at superchilled. But it's extra so because I'm on a mission, one that I thought I'd no chance at. But more of that later.

During our travel...

Our luggage travelled better than we did

We discovered translations that made us question our safety

and some that made us laugh.

And then there were the ads that encouraged us not to smoke.

And that was just in Japan. There's more. And a restaurant that sells, well, I'm not quite sure what but it deserves its own post.

On arriving home an email arrived...

It seems I've won the lottery. Not a fake Nigerian one, and not a million dollars.

A lottery for a competition entry (bizarre but true) and the result: I'm competing in the Noosa Triathlon in October!! So I'm back in training - full on - until it hurts.

More to come.

Launch into USA

I want to know the places to go - the roads to crash on, the national parks to get lost in, the cafes to tantalise one's tastebuds in, the stores one can't help but melt plastic in, the Cities one must not die before passing through, the museums to sleep in, the Architectural wonders to sick my Canon onto, the humanity to lust after and the experiences to die for in The grand ol' U S of A.

That's right I'm asking you your most memorable experiences, places and all of the above that you'd care to share (GPS positioning most welcome) as I plan a trip to the place I swore I'd avoid during the Bush Administration and now have an obligation to fulfil and return to. It will be in the early fall (autumn for non USA-ites) and I'm very excited about the potential. Don't forget I love to swim, so swimming locations will be greeted with all manner of appreciative gestures.

It's your chance to tell me where to go.

I'm counting on you!

All dressed up with no place to race

As you may know I have been in training... (see One Step Closer ) Finally doing all training for all three disciplines of the triathlon I had decided upon racing in Noosa in October for my first (and rather large) event as an individual triathlete. My brother also entering the event in the same age category made it a must-do event and has given me extra motivation to train hard.

Entries opened last week, and as it's a very popular event we had both arranged to log on exactly at the time it went live, but the site crashed and entries rescheduled for this week. Same story this week, we log on - but it won't let us in.. try and try again (for hours) until FINALLY I'm in and I'm entering the race until I get to the screen half way in that says "entries now closed".

NO!!! It's not possible! I've been trying all morning, even had my brother trying for me until he had to leave his office. I've been training and getting equipment arranged and training tips and running a LOT - and running is not something I'm in love with. But no they've closed it - have all the entries they wanted. This really sucks. I'm so pissed off I don't know what to do. So pissed off I really want to tell them where to stick it, and so happy that I didn't organise flights and accommodation already as I'd been very close to actually doing.

It turned out my brother had another friend logging on for him while he was out of office. SHE got him in! So he's already won. And I'm trained up with no pace to go. Time to look for other races to start my triathlon career, but it's not going to be quite the same. Bastards!! So now I'm thinking of all the money I'll save and where I can go instead...

Sex and the City 2 - review

It began with sparkle. A LOT of sparkle, the New York Skyline, the glittered the high heels, jewelled couture and it kept on coming, literally into the dialogue. But unfortunately Sex and the City 2 didn't sparkle for me.

Having wandered into SATC1 a few years back not really expecting much I was quite blown away with a movie that exceeded the TV series in terms of cinematography, storyline and fashion. The characters had developed and in the end I'd been on a journey, albeit it a very glamorous one.

The Gay Wedding, the opening event in the movie was so over the top it was a caricature and not an especially positive one. It seemed to be trying so hard to be both correct and comfortable with the whole wedding concept that the natural flow with the well known gay characters was lost, and the feeling was more discomfort. Surely by now BIG would have met Carrie's best gay friend on enough occasions to be unsurprised with men flirting with him?

We head to the Middle East and it feels like we're in an advertorial. So many products placed, a walk through advertisement for a hotel that goes on and on and on and on... There are wardrobe changes that are so obvious, it feels like a fashion show. But I don't like a lot of this particular show. The sex scenes, while few and fleeting, did feature some particularly attractive men, but they were mere interludes.

Still there are the main characters who are at times warm and fun, but at times holding onto lines that really should have been let go in the 90's. We're taken on a cultural tour of muslim customs that is so cringeworthy it's embarrassing. There's nothing subtle here at all.

It may be a reflection of the truth, of how as we age we don't always do it gracefully or intelligently and how we don't always have everything under control. But while I had fun watching much of it, as the credits rolled I was remembering more the previews at the beginning and wishing I had elected to see one of those instead.

iconic drenching

In Aussiebum city today it wasn't quite the picture postcard day for wearing nothing much out in the open. Bucketing rain, kinda like you were pressing fast forward on the rain, but it still didn't ever stop. Except for short periods enough to get you thinking that was it, and then you'd be out in the middle of the open and get drenched in seconds with the next onslaught.

And doesn't the rain bring out the WORST EVER drivers?!!? I was hitting the horn well above average frequency at the bloody stupid people out there. Stay in bed people. I have things to get done.

Contemplating