A Trip to Solitude

Looking back time has slipped by, as it does so easily, when I was last on the Bibbulmun Track. Basically 5years has passed and life has certainly changed with two children and working remotely.

After the beautiful wife and kids have recently come back from a 14day camping trip over the Easter school holidays to see Uluru, Kings Canyon, Glen Helen, Alice Springs and return. The 4000 kilometer trip has reawakened the desire to feel some earth beneath my feet.

I'll restart the journey where I left off with my friends Megan and Simon at  Wearne Road (on Albany Highway). From there its a three night trip to White Horse Hills Campsite, Mt Wells Campsite and Chadoora, finishing at the Dwellingup Cafe. All up its a leisurely 69.8km jaunt which at this point is likely to be solo as neither Megan or Simon can break their work commitments.

I've chosen to try and go light.. I wish I could go ultralight but as a parent you have to justify your children not eating if I went too mad. As it is I've shaved a considerable amount of weight from my bag.. Currently it'll weigh in around 11.5kg for everything, which compared to the last time is approx 8kg lighter.

So what do you get for 11.5kg? I think quite a reasonable compromise. I can still remember my first hike with the Scouts.. external aluminum framed pack with the luxury sheepskin covering the shoulder pad that had been handsewn by mum at some point. The discomfort on the shoulders from the weight really made for a miserable trip. Fast forward to 2005 and a similar reoccurence but this time from my issued Army bergen though that was due to carrying two peoples gear.. the things you do when you're in love.

This trip not much more can be shaved other than a new bag (realistically could save a further 1.5kg) and I'm still waiting for a new sleeping bag to arrive which should weigh in at 1.2kg. How stupid does one person need to get for a few hundred grams?

This trip will likely be the first time I'll have been truely, remotely, alone in my life, 35km from the closest human and mostly free from telephone. When I stop and think that even this isn't that distant but its more isolated than most people would have been. I can already imagine that it might be a bit of adjustment necessary

Refusing the Sheep

A few years ago I found a quote from a guy named Og Mandingo. I had no idea who or what he was but it struck me and hence the name of the blog. The link to quote is here. At the time I was (and still am) very focused on triathlon and training along with life in general and the quote spoke to me about how it is really up to us about how we choose to live our life, the fact that if we want something it is us that needs to go out and get it, that no one (or anything) has the ability to create happiness for us.... and so I sweated and cursed and bled.

And now many years later I am embracing my Atheism and have seen this quote as a building block towards this. I have never been religious...EVER... I have been lucky to miss the taint. Both my parents had religion forced on them but they made the choice not to do the same to their two sons, that they would allow us to find our own path.

I refuse to believe we are not the controllers of our destiny or more importantly that some unknown, unproven deity is. From a pseudoscience point of view all things point to the non-existence of a God.

In essence I refuse to be a sheep of belief of a fairytale figure that rules peoples lives through threats and human interpretation of a story not even written at the time of that figures existance, that these same sheep believe we are only a few thousand years old, that in this vast cosmos we are the only sentient beings and that it is all for us.

Refuse the Sheep.

Another New Beginning

Its obviously that time for an annual update of my stunning lack of anything :D Things haven't been that dire really but there hasn't been any consistent push of physical exercise. Saying that for the last 5 weeks I've been running every second day and for the last 3 weeks I've been using my new TRX Force. Its been good, good enough to use it consistently for the three weeks and even better my core stability feels much stronger.

Disappointingly I've not lost a whole lot of weight, a couple of kilos at most, but I am going to not focus on that so much as taking measurements of bicep-chest-waist-hip-thigh.

Last night was the first measurement

• Bicep 49cm
• Chest 119cm
• Waist 116cm
• Hips 119cm
• Thigh 70cm

It could have been much worse, in so far as my waist is smaller than my hips.
My actual WHR is 0.974 and my BMI is 30.336.

So it correlates to say I am carrying more abdominal fat than I should or in the case of the BMI i am 0.336 into the Moderately Obese range.. always makes you feel happy to hear that...

Ok enough of the flogging, the plan is to try and get to my BMI (-1 BMI = -3.72kg) by my 40th birthday in December.. not looking too great at the moment but just keep trying, I'll get there. If I can manage that then it will work for my two other goals for 2013/14 - to do accelerated freefall parachute jump and to run a marathon.

Trigger Points

Off and on through out my teenage & adult life i've had some transient lower back pain. Mostly due to having a scoliosis  diagnosed when I was a kid but then again that might have been made worse thanks to a poor diagnosis of a slightly shorter left leg... this turns out to be complete bollocks... When I had a bike fit all the biomechanics were looked at and I have perfectly equal length legs.... all three of them ...

So anyway on the recommendation of a friend and some knowledge myself I purchased a set of Trigger Point massages from TP Performance the kit I got was the TP Ultimate Performance Kit. I'll probably look at getting the foam roller next month as that is good for core workouts as well.

I'll do some reporting on how it goes.

Alcohol...

Sorry for the lack of a regular update... had my brother and his family up for Easter. It has been a bit of a poor week for running, mostly because this is my week on shift and so far its been pretty average. This brings up the other part of my life... I'm a Registered Nurse working in a remote country town. This week we had two motor vehicle accidents in two days... both drivers were under the influence of alcohol but luckily no one else was injured. This led me to be awake for 29hours whilst dealing with one of the patients and waiting for the RFDS and so this effected my training a bit :D The two vehicles are in the photo below.

Other than that I'm been just doing my running... though I have basically decided to do a majority of the running barefoot. I'm still easing into it with doing a 2min run/3min walk.

Easter

What more can you say?

Headwinds

It was good to get onto the bike this morning. Was nice to feel the legs pumping, though there were a few dicey moments at the start whilst heading into a decent headwind. Not sure if it was just the right/wrong angle for the 80mm rims but I was getting buffeted around. Luckily it was only on the town roads and not on the highway where the 4 trailer haul trucks are.

If there is one thing I have learnt and thats to always go into the headwinds at the start of your ride, and it definately paid off today. There was a massive difference (24.35km/hr vs. 36.45km/hr).

I still managed to have to lie on the floor with my feet up as I wanted to vomit...