On Sunday at our regular DISC training session, we did K1's for the sprinters.  I had a little help from Rachael Matties who started putting data into sprintTracker for me.

Here's what the data entry form looks like :

 This is only a small part of this application, but it's the one that will get the most use - we will use it to add data into an SQL (sqlite3 at the moment) database for all our sprinters times.  Yes, it doesn't do power (yet).  For now my goal is to have it able to store all our training data from both aboc and NTID Sprint sessions and allow us to analyse rider performances quickly.  Just getting the data into the database is the first step.  Once it's in there we can query to our heart's content.

So I've been busy - the application is written in a programming language called Python, using a GUI toolkit called wxPython and a database/object orientation toolkit called SQLAlchemy.   I'll be using matplotlib to generate charts and graphs, but that's another toolkit I have to learn to use and it'll take some time to get something useful out of it.  I'm very very rusty as a programmer, the last time I did any even vaguely serious programming was way back in 1996 and that was a horrid mismash of code at Westpac to maintain a DNS database written in Perl.  Ugly ... I'm not proud of it!  Anyway, sprintTracker will hopefully scratch an itch I've had for some time re keeping records of sprint performances that a conventional spreadsheet isn't powerful enough (or I don't know enough about!) to do.

Along the way I've had a shoulder injury that's kept me out of the gym, the doctors diagnosed it as a supraspinatus bursitis, which is an inflamation of the bursa (sort of like a bearing) around a tendon in my shoulder. It's sometimes known as a subacromial bursitis.  They (the doctors I saw) insisted I have a cortisone injection in the shoulder.  Cortisone is on the banned list both in and out of competition, and so I need to get a TUE for it, which is a pain in the arse but must be done if I'm to keep my racing licence.  Round 1 isn't that far away ....

On Saturday at Blackburn's regular track racing Emily had a spectacular tumble which resulted in a loss of a lot of skin and a trip in an ambulance.  Those of you that read this and know her will be relieved to know that she's not too badly banged up.  She's lost some bark and got some pretty impressive bruises and isn't the happiest of little Vegemites but so far, nothing major's shown up and she's in good spirits.  We're all very relieved for her, she's still gunning for the Vic Championships and the aboc family is united in supporting her.  Em's a very tough and motivated young lady and strong people are harder to kill.

This last two days have been mainly easy days, I lifted moderately heavy on Wednesday in the 'Haus (5 x 5 @ 150kg squats, 1 set of 10 130kg deadlifts, total tonnage 5,050kg) after Tuesday's spin session and on Wednesday night had a couple of short E1 rides for a total of about an hour and a half's riding.  Thursday was just an easy tootle to the LBS and back, no lifting and today was again around 45 minutes all-up E1 stuff. 

Tomorrow I'll lift heavy when I get back from the Baw Baw if I'm not too knackered from riding the motorbike out there. It's time to bump it up to 162.5kg squats again. I'll be trying for 5 sets of 3 reps, and depending on how that goes will up the deadlifts to 140kg.  130kg was hard, but I think I can manage 140kg for 10.  We'll see about that anyway. If it's not done on Saturday I'll do it on Sunday after Lucie and I go for a kayak paddle ... My arm's slowly getting better after the bursitis incident on Monday, I guess I'm starting to get old though, injuries take a bit longer to heal and mystery injuries crop up without explanation.

Speaking of lifting ... I'm a bit ashamed to say I was a bit bored on Thursday and watched a bit of 'the biggest loser' (the biggest loser is the person watching that rubbish... never again).  They had the punters all lined up in a semi circle with Olympic bars on their shoulders - except they weren't on their shoulders, they were way back off their necks on padding.  A big no-no when squatting heavy - it increases the moment arm around the lower back and increases the risk of lower back injury because to keep the weight over the lifter's feet they have to lean further forward, and they'll slump sooner or later and put a huge dynamic load on the lower back.  To make matters worse, they were doing it to failure and they were loading up the weights while the punters were holding the bars.  This made for asymetrical loads and twisting on the lower back as the 'trainers' (dangerous idiots) pushed the weights around while the punters were holding them up.  You wouldn't dream of doing that to experienced and strong lifters, let alone this bunch of untrained gumbies.

Could they do it in any more of an unsafe manner?  I'm not sure ... That was a pretty comprehensive catalogue of things not to do when holding a bar on your shoulders.  They got away with it ... But it was terrible.  So very irresponsible.  They should have had them progressively deadlift greater weights or something if they wanted to do something like that, at least a failure wouldn't risk blowing a back to pieces so badly. They'd just not be able to pick the bar up.  Shame on you, whoever came up with that stupid and dangerous stunt.  Lifting isn't a dangerous activity if it's done properly with good instruction from people who know what they're doing and with progressive and managed overload.  These idiots, on the other hand, threw essentially untrained people (who were no athletes) into a situation where they had to hold a (relatively) heavy weight in a biomechanically poor and dangerous position (padded out from their traps) while it was loaded up to a failure and twisted and pulled while they were doing it.   If I did that to anyone I was working with I'd expect to go to gaol for gross negligence when they got hurt.

Anyway ... Tomorrow I'm off to take photos of the lads racing the Baw Baw, I'll be at Winch Corner where it's an ~20% gradient.  Good luck to you all doing it. Pay no attention to the chalk writing on the roads! I've also been in touch with the bloke who built one of the AIS's sprint training ergos (the 'Wombat') and arranges wind tunnel testing - watch this space, we may have some slots to get into the tunnel and test sprinters for aerodynamics.

13 people turned up to ride with me tonight at Blackburn for our first spin session for the winter of '09.  The lazy, fat sprinters did :

2 x 10s HCLR:2

3 x 10s MAX sprints:5 (2nd one seated)

2 x 10s HCLR:2

The enduros did E2's and E3s etc for 90 mins, lazy sprinters, 40 minutes.

My first MAX I hit a new PB, and a significant one.  My previous highest wattage was around 1387 back in September '08, I got a 1473 watt peak tonight.  Woo Hoo!  Almost 100 watts more than last year.  The bursitis didn't seem to be an issue on the bike, which was good.

This afternoon, after a morning's moping about, Dino and Em came over for their PowerHaus session.  I had to give it a try.  My target; 160kg squats (5 x 5) and 120kg deadlifts (1 x 10).  Got 'em!  4,000kg squatted, 1,200kg deadlifted for the session for a total of 5,200kg lifted. Em and Dino also PB'd volume (squats) and intensity (deadlifts).  A good session indeed for all involved. Now it's protein time!

While I was moping I made some new chocolate-chilli icecream, this time with 86% dark chocolate.  It's in the freezer and I'll try it tonight. Mmmm....

I wasn't watching the Roubaux last night, I was sleeping.  I woke up at about 2am, with a very painful left elbow. Painful enough to wake me up and I sleep through anything!  Huh?  I don't remember hitting it on anything or doing anything odd or unusual.  The kayaking wasn't hard and doesn't involve much elbow bending anyway.  It felt like a nasty bruise on the outside of my elbow (the bit you can't see).  It was hot and very tender to touch, and no matter how I moved it would not stop hurting.  Hrm.  Got up, checked the 'net for a local doctor who was open on a public holiday. While I was at it I checked cyclingnews for the result, no luck again for Big George Hincapie, but Tom Boonen ... wow.  Three wins for Tom. This morning I trundled off to see the local quack (open on a public holiday, good-o).  He takes one look at it and says 'Bursitis'.  Huh?  What's that?  He gave me a script for some anti inflams and an antibiotic (the heat, probably an infection).  It's ok to use it, he says, but not if it's painful, and it should be ok in a week.

Not a bad time to get an injury I guess, next weekend I'm going to take photos at the Baw Baw and this is mainly a strength phase of training and I think I'll be able to squat and deadlift without too much trouble. It's more annoying than anything.  On the way back from the quack Lucie and I stopped in at the local stupormarket and grabbed the ingredients for tomorrow night's first spin of the winter.  The clubrooms are probably still jam packed with junk that we'll need to move out to make room for everyone. At least with a dodgey elbow I can get everyone else to move things!  Small victories .... Ha!

Fast Eddie Wilson's busted a collarbone at a country xmas carnival, with what looks like a decent compound fracture.  Get well soon Eddie!

I managed 5 x 5 @ 157.5kg squats on the 26th of Dec, which was good. They're getting really hard towards the end of the work sets.  I'm going to do one more set of 5 x 5 at that weight before moving up to 160kg.  I extimate my 1RM to be around 180kg at the moment based on doing sets of 5 and using tables from Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning.

According to Mark Rippetoe's charts in PPfST, at my weight, 108kg (237 lb) for the squat, 396 lb (180kg) makes me a very strong 'intermediate' lifter, close to 'advanced', so I suspect at least in terms of squats, I'm now strong enough, and need to start to really focus on power and leg speed, which means standing starts, rolling jumps and lots of motorpaced high speed work. My cleans are pretty feeble and my technique is terrible at them, I may need to shift focus onto them in the 'haus too, and get some guidance with them from Anthony Dove at the Mermet early next year.

My shoulder's improved, I did a couple of k in the pool yesterday with no discomfort, including some sprint work, so that's a good sign.

We're going to be heading off to Mt Sterling for new years with mountainbikes for fun and to check out the rumours of some new XC mtb trails. After that, it's only a month 'til round 4 of the BSSS and it'll be more training on the bike than in the gym, I'll probably drop back to 2 days a week in the Powerhaus and more cadence and acceleration work on the bike at the track.   Dino's setting himself some new goals and I have to do the same, I've done one of my season goals, which was a sub 13.5s flying 200 at Blackburn.  I'd like to be able to ride a 13.2 there and sub 13 at DISC by the end of the season, in time for the Blackburn club champs.  I'd like to win a few more (so far, only one!) rounds of the sprint series, I qualify well but haven't been successful much in actual match sprints, which is a bit disapointing, but it'll come with more speed I expect.

Everyone else is coming along very well, Em and Krissy are getting stronger in the powerhaus and it's showing with their track times. Dino's flying, Nath's off at the xmas carnivals doing wheelraces etc.

I'm relieved, after a couple of quite painful days hobbling, today my ankle felt ok, ok enough to consider a strength session.  In the mail on Monday I received my new video camera (Sony VX2100), and then today, a tax refund cheque, a new book (Might as well win, by Johan Bruynell, famous for directing US Postal and Discovery to 7 Tour de France wins with Lance Armstrong and one with Alberto Contador) and an invite to my old school's 20 year reunion.  Along the way a very frustrating SCO UNIX install in VMware finally started to behave itself a bit.  Not a bad couple of days, despite the hobbling around and missing training at DISC on Sunday.

So when I finally got a spare 30 minutes, I put on the lifting shoes and headed out to the Power House. I've put some lights in at last, and can use it when it's dark.  I had a go at some unweighed squats, and felt ok.  Warmed up on a few sets of 20kg, 60kg and 100kg.  Felt good.  Ok, we'll try for 5 x 5 @ 142.5kg .. got 'em!  Work set tonnage was 3,562.5kg.  My form wasn't 100%, so I'll repeat the lifts at the same weight on Thursday, but I'm happy with that.  I didn't have time for any other lifts.

I didn't leave myself much time to recover from the squats before tonight's spin session, I finished in the Power House at about 5:50, and got picked up to be at Spin at 6 (thanks Bev!).  An hour later, warming up on the bike with a healthy turnout at the spin session, we had 18 of us tonight, that was good.  I quickly found that while I could clip in, clipping out was not so pleasant, twisting out of cleats with an ankle sprain .. heh .. ouch.  Enough moaning .. I managed to hit 1332 watts in the first 10 second max effort, not a PB, but ok, given the closeness of the squat session.  I might have a play with timing of that, to see if different times between strength work and bike work has a significant impact on peak wattage.  Had a bit of a chunder at the end of our lactate efforts, but more of a retch than anything chunky. No carrots anyway. They hurt, those efforts, lots of blood lactate, very high heartrate ...  We had a good session, the enduros all enjoyed, if you can call it that, their work for the night and there was enough food to keep even Tom happy.  Luckily Vanders is overseas .. he normally eats everything!  I'm sure he's a latent sprinter hiding in an enduro's body.

Everyone's gearing up to watch the Tour, there's a lot of home town expectations on Cadel Evans, who is going in as a favorite to win it. It's pretty exciting to have an Australian ranked so highly as a possible winner, whatever happens I'm sure he'll ride as well as he can and if the recent press is any indicator of the truth, he'll be graceful and decent no matter what the final result.  Many years ago now I was lucky enough to ride with Cadel for a few k's and while we didn't speak much, he was polite and a decent sort of bloke.  Camster and I were riding to watch a Bay Crit and tootling along Footscray Rd towards Williamstown, when we met up with Cadel and we rode the rest of the way together, as four of us (Cadel was riding with a friend).  Back then I was a half-decent B grade flatland roady and we (Cam & I) worked the front of our little bunch to speed Cadel to the crits as he was running late. It was kinda fun to be his domestiques for a few k. We'll be camped on the couch for the tour, cheering him on and also seeing how well the other Aussies go, Robbie again, who seems to have hit some form just in time, O'Grady of course, and even Baden Cooke is back, one to watch for as a bit of a dark horse in the sprints.  Bring it on, and go Cadel!

I got my strength work done this morning and was happy with it and looking forward to going up a gear tonight at DISC.   Then, time to do some coaching. Just after I had my human guineapigs in the Power House doing squats, dumbell presses and lunges (and they did evry well, both are rapidly improving their technique), I had to go and feed my real guineapigs.  I have two runs, one out the front and one around the back.  I had a big bowl of chopped carrots for them.  I usually feed the front ones first.

I stepped off the edge of the porch and rolled my right ankle, quite hard on what was maybe a loose brick.  I thought I'd broken it at first. I called Lucie and she came out and helped me up and upstairs, and we've compressed & iced (peas!) it, but it's quite painful on one side, I might have torn something, if it's not healing in a few days I'll have to go see a doctor.  No cycle training for me tonight at DISC. I'll have to hobble around on crutches shouting at people.  I can do that.  Enforced rest, not what I wanted right now, but C'est la Vie.

I'm going to have to do something about the front run, I might have room to put them all in the back run, which is very big and has easy access, with no big stepdowns onto uncertain ground.  This is the second time I've fallen off the edge, last time I got a scare, this time, an injury.

To put it in perspective this is no big deal :

On Sunday morning my achillies was feeling ok, so I chanced it in the power house.  Did deep squats ok, then lined up the heavy stuff for some 1/4 squats.  Not such a good idea ... felt the twinge on the 2nd rep, and that's it for squats for the day.  I did finish the session with some lunges and bench, but was Mr limpalong at DISC on Sunday evening.  Hoping it'll be ok to use tomorrow if I keep the weight low. Today I've been hobbling around.

I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised at the success that the Hawthorn Sunday Roast session is having.  I caught the last hour of their races and they had a very healthy turnout of riders and it seemed like a pretty good race.  The Llama was shattered before he did our session, but still managed to burn some more matches when we took over the track. It was great to see Mason, Mick and Will come along, Mason to see what it was all about, and Mick and Will had some fun and did some laps.  Nath's getting a lot of fun out of his new Hillbrick, he's thrilled with how stiff it is.

On Saturday we trooped off to watch the Olympic weightlifting trials for selection for Beijing, it was pretty exciting at times and the crowd really got involved when the lifters were doing big efforts.  I took the camera but it was very gloomy in the stadium and even at 3200 ASA my camera wasn't letting in enough light to get any reasonable shots.  I do have media passes sorted for this Thursday's 'Revolution 3' though, and it should be better lit.  My lenses are cheapies and they chew a lot of light.

Hopefully tomorrow someone from Trek will (finally!) get back to me on the sponsorship for the Summer Sprint Series.  I've been nagging them to make up their minds for a month now.  We need to get it squared away so I can start to promote the series properly.

Some personal stuff's been keeping me occupied and unable to commit to meetings with riders over the last week, but we're hoping that things will settle down in a few days and life will return to some semblance of normality.

We're hoping also to get some carpooling happening for more races etc, Blackburn's running a multi-day tour at Eildon in early July and it makes sense to share cars and fuel costs etc.  Let me know if you're interested.  We should really have a carpool section of the website to make it easy to arrange.

I haven't done any running for a long, long time.  Way back in 1996 I played my last game of rugby, over in Perth for UWA, and then I busted a knee and decided running sports weren't such a good idea (busted the knee ski-ing, not running).  It's day one of the strength and conditioning course, and we're outside, and the drills we're going through are speed drills.  These guys are all running sports people, so .... it's running stuff.  Ok, I'll give it a go.  We do a few bits of some agility drills to 'warm up' (if you can call it that) and I do ok at them, old rugby instincts still work for playing tag.  For an old bloke with no running in his legs I'm not disgraced.  Then it's time for speed drills.  We do some rolling start efforts, running along at a jog then sprinting for 40 meters, walk back and repeat.  I'm not the fastest of the group, but feel ok.

Then we do 6 x 6 second standing starts on the 30 I think?  Something like that anyway.  I'm slow at these, close to last of our group, and getting some fatigue in muscles not used to working this way at all.  During one I get a small twinge in a quad, but it's ok.  Last one .. and about 5 strides in I feel my left achillies quite suddenly.  Ok ... That's not good!  I don't think it's anything bad, but it is quite tender to touch down one side of the tendon and walking (and stairs!) produces a bit of a limp as the tendon hurts when stretched.  I can get almost a full range of motion out of it and it doesn't feel swolen, and while I could ride last night at DISC during our warmup I didn't want to push it with any sprints so I ran the session from the floor, and gave the guys some time behind the motorbike (who crashed it?  It's bent!  Very unsettling to ride ...).  It's sore today but I'll take it easy for a few days to see how it goes, with some regular stretching etc.  So no lifting tomorrow I think, I'll just do an easy set on the rollers to tick my legs over for a bit.

We did catch the last 20 minutes of the HCC 'Sunday Roast' at DISC on Sunday, and saw Shane using his Summer Sprint Series honed sprinting skills at the end of his 120 lap race to win it.  I only had time for a brief chat with the V-Train but he seemed happy with how their racing had gone and was pleased with the turnout.

Also on Sunday the aboc MTB team rode at the second Chase the Sun enduro round and aquitted themselves very well.

Not much other stuff to report, the S&C course was good, but I felt a bit lacking, although once I get the workbook finished etc I'll have the qualification, it's really only L plates for a S&C coach, the information was covered quickly and with not a lot of depth, and the practical stuff was rushed and I think quite incomplete, but it was only two short days (9-4ish on both days) and there was a lot of material to cover.  Dean Robinson was our course lecturer and he's currently the S&C person for Geelong (AFL) and has a background in of all things rodeo riding, as well as both codes of rugby and weight lifting.  Quite an interesting bloke.  Very passionate about what he does. I think the level one cycling coach course better prepares a prospective coach for actual work in the field, despite being more general, but maybe that's the nature of the beast.

Time to scour the 'net for good ways to treat a strained achillies ...

This morning's velodrome session got skipped.  A combination of overall fatigue, a bit of a cold, swollen knee and an injured left elbow means I took the lazy option and slept in today.  HTFU!  Yeah ... I'm off to see the quack on Friday to get a niggling elbow injury checked out and also get the knee looked at.  I had a reconstruction 11 or so years ago and it may be that it's starting to deteriorate.

Funny thing, the doc is less than 100m from home, so I just dropped in to make a booking, and my medicare card is two years out of date.   Shows how much I see doctors I guess!

I've got a few backed up training programs to write, so I'd best get a wriggle on, and if I feel ok, will do some weight training with Vanders this evening and maybe jump on the ergo for some HCLR and/or sprints.  Suck it up and see what happens ...  Club championships are this weekend, and I'd like to get a sprint result worth writing about.

I still haven't ordered the extra weights for the Power House, got to find a spare $250 for 80kg of ballast. 

There's a couple of things that are keeping me a bit frustrated at the moment.  The obvious one is the rib injury - as Dino can empathise, it's bloody annoying.  Around now I was expecting to hit some form and start to be more of an influential rider in the B grade races at BBN track, but that's racing, and I just have to deal with it. I've been getting around a little on the new '08 Trek Fuel EX8 which is a delightful dualie, and makes riding with rib injuries possible for sustained times, but it's no substitute for getting low and flaying my legs in sprint training. C'est la Vie ... In the overall scheme of things it's really a minor thing.  I managed to at least start all three races at Blackburn on Saturday and even actually finished the Keirin (w00t! 8 laps!) despite not being able to hold the wheel at least I ended up on the same lap.

So that's ok, under the circumstances.  I needed to be getting some more real miles in to shed some of these excess kilos, but it'll come once I'm healed. I won't be walking up CRB hill next time at Hotham in February. That was a real wakeup call.

I'm disappointed in the turnup for the Trek Summer Sprint Series.  There's a bunch of reasons (Stu Vaughan was out riding his fixie to Albury(!) for example and teh Llama was at Bright doing some enduro thing) but still having only 7 riders was really not what I was hoping for. We were hoping to get a few good A graders (Eddie Wilson, Stu Vaughan, Barry Woods etc) and while Jeremy Mclay showed up we had no-one to push him and I think for him it would have been a bit of a flat afternoon.  All of us who've worked a lot to make it happen want to see more people actually racing the program.  There's a lot of people who're racing lower grades who would also have a great time, if only they'd just have a go.  All the feedback we get from riders actually doing it is overwhelmingly positive.  Just, they don't bring their friends. 

It's a small racing field and it has to be (30 riders max) so we're really sensitive when numbers are down, and if you're thinking of coming, we really need you to, and to bring your friends.  We've asked all the clubs to put links to it on their websites, and CSV told us they'd link it too, but they didn't, which isn't helping, and I know I need to get out to DISC on Tuesdays and Thursdays more and promote it with flyers and so on.  We've got a great team running the races, event photographers taking good shots, commentary (where we actually know the rider's names!), food, drinks, music and well organised races.  We get results and photos up within 6 hours of the end of the races. We're not competing with any of the other clubs with this, it's a niche and one that no other club is filling, it's timed to avoid clashing with all the local crits and even with some other club's training, Brunswick at DISC, for example, I'm sure more of the Brunswick people would love the racing, and their training finishes at 10am ... plenty of time ... and anyway, this is once a month, not every week.

So, please, if you want to have a go at this, it's great fun and we treat our competitors with respect and want to make the series a success, but we can't do it without RIDERS!  Come and have a go.  If you're unsure, contact me and I'll make time to get you sorted on track bikes and get you doing some practice match sprints (free!) - you can't ask for more than that.

It's been over a week, I don't really count Saturday's abortive attempt, but I got back on the roady last night and managed a (soft!) 30 min 150watt session without much pain, and today I rode to work.  Not 100% by any stretch, but at least I can get on a roady and hold position without too much pain.

I managed to ride to work too, but the ride home was pretty umcomfortable.  Seated pedaling is ok, standing (take off from lights etc), not so much ...

Apart from the much deeper abrasions on my left elbow and knee which are still oozing and gooey, I took off the mefix from my other bits of roadrash this morning and have fresh new skin.  Mefix works a charm.  I expect the deeper abrasions will take another few days at least, they were deep grazes, concrete has some considerable grinding power! I think it's safe to say that the roadrash guide works.

Round 3 of the TSSS is this Sunday.  Liz Randall's hour attempt is tonight.  Work's crazy (got to get most of the old Vivitec websites moved to my server by the end of this week!).  The Fuel EX8 should arrive at the shop this week too. Got to also fix Vander's MTB after it fell off his roof on the w'end. Busy times!

In hindsight, trying to race the Blackburn races yesterday was ambitious at best.  I did feel ok in the morning, could breathe reasonably well and I got my first good night's sleep in a week.  Aggregate points on offer ... and a desire not to let an injury beat me conspired to motivate me to have a go.  I'd also just (finally!) fitted the new cranks to the T1 and wanted to give them a try.  I've gone from 165mm to 170mm cranks (my road cranks are 172.5mm) and I figured keeping them close would be of some benefit.

I slapped the T1 on the tow bike and rode to the velodrome, felt ok on the 7.2FX, and arrived feeling fine.  Even a little strong, which was odd, after a week of absolutely no riding at all and a lot of work and an injury.  I paid my entry, said hi to the crew (Dino, Rob, Nath, Mick, Will, Emily et al) and did a bit of a warmup. I was in some doubt as to whether I'd be able to hold myself up in the drops, it's quite an aggresive position, but I felt ok.  Rolled around, this isn't too bad.  I might be able to race.  Did one effort laying off the back of the motorbike ... not so strong ... did one out of the saddle kick, and nuh ... instant pain.  Ok, I'll start each race, get my points and go home. 

Scratch race - watched A grade contend with The V-Train, and Bazz "The Wizard" did a great job of organising his leadout to take a close win over The Master, Jamie and the V-Train. Our turn in B, and I warn Dino not to follow my wheel.  I held on for the first 5 laps, did a 2 lap turn to keep a tempo going, then when a kick happened, I simply had nothing and it hurt too much to push.  DNF.

Next we had a 6 lap h'cap, I started, asked not to be pushed, and simply rode up the bank and out.  Ribs getting worse.  Getting over the fence, painful!

Last, a motorpace.  I think I got on for one lap, but again, too much pain.  Pull out, grovel over the fence and get a lift home with Lucie.  I didn't have the will to do the all-in, for which I'm very sorry - normally I'm a stalwart of it (it's a great way to finish the day and encourage a sense of community amongst the club riders) but it was just too hard. I left the tow bike and the T1 at the clubrooms and will pick them up this week.

It was a good day's racing for the club - 11 A grade riders, 5 (or 6, if you count me, which is iffy at best!) in B, 8 or so in C, lots in D and the kids grades were full too, a very healthy field and some really good, close racing.  Nath showed off his new wheels, Emily's coping with her move from F to E grade well (be patient, Em, you'll get there), Dino rode well but got cruelly dealt with in the motorpace, Rob made a few tactical errors but learnt a lot, and young Will Thomas rode very well indeed in C grade.

The plan was to go up to Bonnie Doon after racing, but I was too sore to sit in a car for 2 hours, so we got takeaway and stayed home and got a bottle of champers to watch the election, celebrated the demise of the evil man and the Greedy Party at long last. Hopefully Rudd will deliver some real action on climate change and not take us to war because Uncle Sam says so.

I'm going to try and get in to DISC tomorrow night to cheer on Liz Randall as she tries to set a new world time for the hour for her age.  Might warm up with watching The Flying Scotsman, which I now have a copy of, and set up a roady on a trainer so I can do some medium intensity stuff off the road while my ribs heal.

It's only taken 3 months ... but my new Truvativ Omnium track cranks have finally arrived.  Just in time for me to not be able to use them this w'end (injuries .. doh!).

I might fit them, and at the BBN track races this Saturday, start each race and pull out (the things we do for aggregate points ....).  I doubt I'll be able to ride much, but I can start each race.

Offtopic, I voted yesterday at the local AEC office.  It's always good to get that out of the way before the election. Last minute desperate political ads? Meh ... I've already voted ...

On the injury front, my skin is healing well under the Mefix, ribs are taking a while (it's only been 4 days I guess) - it feels like I've torn something soft, there's no pain except when I have to move or use the muscles on my left side.  Then, a very sharp pain.  If it was a break or bruising it would ache all the time as well.  A couple of weeks, I hope, and all will be well. 

The Fuel EX8 has been delayed - Trek are now quoting the 27th of Nov.  Just in time to be able to ride it, maybe ...

My housemate and fellow aboc'er, Vanders, writes today :