I like Mondays..its a day off training for me

This below shamelessly ripped /stolen from the Feltepix blog word for word/cut and paste...thanks guys and is about my younger son Ben...the really skilled MTBer..the one who rarely crashes, but when he does......its dramatic


"And we couldn't resist leaving you without a picture of Randall who managed to lay it over, on a fire road within sight of the cars. His comment after the crash was something along the lines of 'I looked back as I flew through the air and noticed that my bike was a fair way behind me...'

Laconic!

Dramatic scenes at work too as our health network sites in Healesville have been evacuated down to us in suburbia. My hospital is housing 20 nursing home residents for a minimum of 48 hours while the weather is bad and the potential threat from bushfires is high.

The temperature is not going to be terribly hot (32 degrees tops), but the winds are predicted to be gale force which means there could be ember attacks on places well away from where the main fires are still burning out of control. Healseville, from the appearance of the maps looks like the victim of a classic military pincer movement

No training for me tonight; Monday is my regular day off but today I'm also taking Phil to the airport. He's off on one of his motor biking holidays. He's been to India, Bhutan, Mongolia, Agentina, Chile and Patagonia. This time its Ethiopia.....! Alaska later on in the year.

Holding great form

This is my Performance Management Chart (from CyclingPeaks WKO+) for Jan and Feb only (see below why only 2 months) and I can't help looking at it with a huge sense of satisfaction for currently I am holding great form. The reason the slope is so dramatic, is of course 'cos it IS only 2 months' worth of data with a low starting point but I just hope I can keep it on an upward slant until the Nationals in 1 month's time. I am always in better form at this end of the year, finding training outdoors in the summer much easier than slogging away at the indoor trainer as I have to do in the winter. However that said despite the season (or actually with the smoke in the air, because of it) I'm currently doing 2 indoor sessions and am finding them much easier with my TACX iMagic ergo than with just an ordinary ergo...money well spent.

Ok..so the reason there are only 2 months in the PMC is because I have data from 2006 on and its all in one file and so I have to be very careful when sending them off to my coach that I don't send the wrong year's info. Soooo, I spent a very boring time creating separate month/year folders and dragging and dropping each workout into the appropriate one. OK so far? Yup...however..when I next opened up WKO+ it was empty...totally empty. After the instant panic of thinking I'd lost ALL my data I realised why there was nothing there. I didn't relish reversing everything so just released Jan and Feb 2009 data from their folders.

TRAC is now 1/3 the way through and continues apace with the fastest 5 or 6 teams having negotiated the floods in Queensland and are now risking Dengue fever in the Northen Territory. The rest are either mooching up the eastern coast..enjoying the Great Barrier Reef, the surf and the sun until they hit the floods or are stuck enjoying the hedonistic delights of Kings Cross in Sydney. The occasional team is still reluctant to leave Victoria but I'm giving them a motivational boot up the backside by doubling their latest week's score. We expect to lose a few teams as the hype settles down and so in 2 weeks time we are planning another lunch time get together with a talk on motivational strategies by the Psychologist on staff.

I've had quite a few comments about the scheme and also a few requests to use the idea. As I've said before, the concept is not new and only the name is my idea. We have learned from the experience and if we do it again will simplify the rules to allow absolutely any exercise rather than, as we have this time, only allowing exercise that could "take you up the road" ie not weights work. The following we would retain: teams of 4, team names, 40km/1hr of exercise, 15 minutes minimum/session and all scores to be in multiples of 15, the map with its team flags is also a great talking point.

Better get out to do my 10 x 1 minute max efforts. I was on my way out a while ago but on patting the cat realised it had been/was raining..weird. Sadly not enough to make a difference and we are expecting another hot and windy day this Tuesday. Here is the latest overview from the CFA of significant and big fires still going and this map is from the DSE with fires of all sizes.

And again, but closer

Victoria is known as the "garden state" but for how much longer will the garden be green?..well "green" is a relative word in this instance..pale yellow/brown at the edges/black is more accurate.

Yesterday, in a day of moderately high temperatures and a blustery wind we had another few bushfires erupt in the State with one much much closer to the city, in the remnants of what used to be a semi rural area. Upwey/Belgrave Heights is at the southern end of the Dandenongs and to it's south is a large broad acreage of scrubby bush land which as you go further south still turns into Lysterfield lake park, beloved playground of MTBers and site of the Commonwealth games MTB event.

The column of smoke was visible from work and home. The wind was pushing the fire south into the forested area but a wind change was expected in the late afternoon which, it was hoped, would help by turning the flames in on themselves. The change came as expected and apparently by 0300 this am the really urgent threat was declared to be over. We are expecting a hot and windy day on Friday as well, so the respite wil be brief.

People living in vulnerable areas are now hypervigilant to the dangers and to people behaving oddly but, as previously stated, it only takes one nutter.

Monday is always a rest day from training for me and today it is a (shudder) ergo session. I'd asked my coach give me a break from having to get up early to go the track and instead have to suffer on the trainer.....tut sigh....no rest for the wicked.

Training put into perspective

I suspect that not too many Melbourne cycling blogs will have been added to in the past few days since our focus has been more than somewhat directed elsewhere.

The horror of what is happening/has happened in the rural and semi-rural areas just a couple of km away from us is hard to comprehend.

The mix was all there..hot hot hot days, tinder dry bush (my lawn was so dry it crunched as I walked on it) plus high winds. Add someone with a warped idea of fun to the mix..cos in some cases arson is definitely known to be the cause...and you all know the rest. The general feeling seems to be that many were caught unawares, the fire moved so quickly.

I live in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, so any ride I do going out of town quickly takes me into fire prone areas. The fire damaged areas closest to where I live will be known to readers of this blog..not too long ago I wrote of a heave up from Yarra Glen to Xmas Hills..I spoke of riding into YG looking up to the ridge where I'd soon be riding..that's one of the areas now gone.

The 1 in 20 is so far unscathed..its part of the Dandenong ranges, a heavily wooded and also heavily populated area just a few km from my door.

Despite all this TRAC has moved ahead with the first weeks results in. Of the 80 teams involved, we've had scores from about 60. We're allowing a couple of weeks for the system to bed in before getting strict about getting scores in by Tuesday 0830! The furthest team are away up the coast towards Brisbane, the slowest still in Victoria. The vibe about the project is good with many compliments coming my way.