3:30am alarms usually mark the start of a significant day. A long drive to the Alps, a flight to Bora Bora, or perhaps a reminder to leave the after party you’re at and get yourself home for a few hours kip before church tomorrow. In my case none of these were accurate but something equally significant lay before me, my first mountain bike race. It coincided with about my fifth ever mountain bike ride, and it would be my longest by some way, a 100km ‘century of dirt’. Delicious. Shortly after waking I checked my phone to find bad news, my partner in crime had been taken down by a stomach bug. The same man that has laughed stomach bugs...
Breathing is the most fundamental aspect of life, however it’s widely overlooked and often taken for granted. Maybe because it’s an unconscious action we do over 25,000 times per day. Think of breathing like eating – we need it to live, but don’t always do it well. According to James Nestor, the author of ‘Breath’, “breathing is the missing pillar of health”. Learning to understand and control your breath can have a significant effect on your physical and mental state. Given the current climate, has there been a better time to focus on stress management? Through various breathing techniques and practices, we have the ability to improve our stress response and performance - pretty cool! If you’re looking to develop...
Last Thursday (11th June) I set off for my first lap of Centennial Park at 3pm. I finished 24 hours thereafter. The Stats: Total Distance: 710km Riding Time: 22hrs10mins Potatoes Consumed: 2kg Riders Who Joined Me (no more than 10 at anytime): 50 I had the pleasure of all seasons in one day/night. With sunshine one minute, and torrential rain the next. Without the support on the day, I wouldn’t have gotten through some of the dark moments. It just shows what you can achieve when you have a network of great people around you. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their kind donations. As I write this I have raised over $12,000 for the Black...
On Saturday 18th April I climbed Mt Everest. I didn’t have to use oxygen. Or crampons. And I didn’t even wear gloves. I did it on my bike, by cycling up and down a single 1.1km hill, 137 times. In total I covered 315km with 9,117m of vertical ascent in 18 hours. “Everesting” has become the ultimate endurance challenge in the cycling community. The simplicity, monotony and brutality of it alluring around 3,000 people to have now joined the club around the world. For me, it was something I’d pondered on doing for a while but without too much purpose. It took a fairly major event to push me finally to load up the sherpa and make the ascent. The...
Goal: Qualify for Ironman World Championships Result: Fail (for now) 11 months ago I crossed the finish line of Ironman Western Australia knowing things needed to change. I’d finished in 9:58, about 20 minutes away from qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, but that 20 minutes felt like a million miles. Up until 20km into the marathon (which follows a 3.8km swim and a 180km bike) things were all going to plan, but then my body went into shut down, my legs slowed to a shuffle and I even said aloud “I don’t want to go to Kona”. And there it is, the reality of the mental battle of endurance sports, there is never that moment you train...
