1km down

Just got back from the pool, where I reached my first goal of 1km; not a bad improvement from dead after 500m a couple weeks ago! Next stop, 2km!

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 | Posted in Life | No Comments »

Swimming

When I was growing up, a significant amount of my time was spent in a pool. In fact, I trained every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for a long time. On each of these days I’d swim 2-3km+. And I was pretty young at the time – didn’t have long adult arms to help me get through the water. However, after breaking my collarbone and moving to Auckland at 13 years old, I never really got into it again in the same way.

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty unfit, and it has kind of come to a head with snowboarding this year. While I had a blast and was generally able to last out a weekend relatively intact, I would always be pretty exhausted at the end of it. I tried going for a run once or twice this year, but generally gave up as it was hell on my knees; especially since my left knee hasn’t been quite right since I injured it. I’ve also tried going to the gym in the past to work on my knee and generally improve my fitness, but without fail I never managed to make it last.

And so I’ve decided to try giving swimming a go again.

I went last week and managed to pull off a massive (not really) 0.5km of laps, and so I’ve used that as a fitness benchmark. I went again last night and went 600m. I’m aiming to add 100m every time for the next 5-10 swims at least. I’m aiming for 3 nights a week. With any luck (and a lot of determination), I can hopefully match the stamina of my 13 year old self! If nothing else, it should hopefully improve my fitness (and help me drop the beginnings of a beer belly), help me sleep better at night, and generally feel better about myself.

I shall be posting an update here and there; watch this space!

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 | Posted in Life | 1 Comment »

Snowboarding

Short video of me making some fresh tracks in Turoa backcountry!

It’s filmed in 720p, so go full-screen, or click through to YouTube to get a closer look!

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Life | No Comments »

Handwriting

So, I’m sitting here, writing some notes for a meeting, and it’s just struck me how long it’s been since I actually wrote something with a pen. By write something, I don’t mean jotting down a shopping list or a phone number, I mean actually sit down and write 1000+ words.

I used to have bitch sessions when I was younger about how “grown-ups” writing was so hard to read. And I’m sorry to say, that my own writing has reached that very point. Maybe it’s because I’m a “grown-up” now (whatever that means), maybe it’s because I don’t read my own handwriting very often these days, hell – maybe it’s just because I have gammy fingers that don’t work properly any longer. Whatever it is, I am reading over my meeting notes, and they are barely legible. I can imagine that someone not familiar with my handwriting would have a pretty difficult time with it.

Good thing I can type, I guess!

Thursday, September 24th, 2009 | Posted in Life | No Comments »

Non-nerdy stuff

Well it seems that lately my blog has devolved into nerdy rants about programming and web design and other such things. I shall now attempt to write the wrong.

It is now nearing the end of the ski season, and (although I’m not 100% sure on the exact number) I believe I’m up to about 20 days on the mountain this season, which is not half bad as far as predominantly weekend trips go! My new board has survived relatively unscathed, with only a few superficial scratches. All in all I’m pretty happy with my purchase. It’s quite a big investment money-wise; if I put together all the money I’ve spent on getting my ass to the snow this year I could have purchased a half-decent car. I wish that was an exaggeration. Ahh well, it’s been a blast, I don’t regret it for a second! Unfortunately the snowmelt on Ruapehu is getting pretty extensive, it will only be any good for another week or two – unless there is a big cold snap – but I’m not holding my breath. The snow that is there isn’t particularly good, either; most days everything slushes up on-trail by about 11am, necessitating finding little patches of off-trail goodness.

Last week I went for some mid-week skiing Thursday/Friday, and stayed in one of the lodges on the mountain at Whakapapa – which was pretty damn awesome! Rolling out of bed, throwing on some clothing, and making the 3 minute walk up to the lifts is so bloody convenient. On Friday, a few places had some windblown pockets of fresh powder, so we decided to hike up above the lift-accessed areas a few times, and dropped into a couple of untouched bowls. There is nothing quite like fresh tracks in powder on a bluebird day. I can only describe it as epic. It’s runs like those that really make a season.

In other news, I’m listening to the new Muse album, and it’s bloody great. Get it. While I’m on the topic of music, I’ve recently jumped on the dubstep bandwagon. It’s quite a cool little upcoming genre, and it’s really grown on me in the last few months. I blame UP FM.

This post has zero flow; congratulations if you made it this far through all the waffle. My apologies. Did you catch the pun in the first paragraph? I thought it was quite clever. Yes I did.

Monday, September 21st, 2009 | Posted in Boredom, Life | No Comments »