Still searching for the best way to cope with the cycling to and from work. I tried following Sal’s tip, but that was not an instant success… Cycling to work in the morning was OK. Just over an hour, nothing bad. But after the long morning ride the ride home proved to be very hard! Unexpectedly hard I may add!

For some strange reason I just had porridge in my legs… Nothing. No energy at all. Very weird… have felt that before, but mainly after very long rides, or rides followed short after heavy exercise… Well, we can’t really justify sitting behind a computer for 8 hours as heavy exercise, so I was a bit puzzled… Yes, was. Because today I took the short ride to work and the same thing happened on the ride back… Felt totally buggered… Strange…

I might try a bit bigger lunch tomorrow! Why not! I have been such a good boy ignoring those lovely Dutch croquettes during lunch. Tomorrow I will go wild and see what that brings me!

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It seemed a wonderful plan. While getting my broken spokes fixed (3 broke in my rear wheel in just one week time!) to get new tires at the same time. A bit smaller, because the ones on my MTB were just huge and chunky. Good for offroad, but just a lot of effort on the road. The classic zooming sound was kinda pretty, but besides that there was just a lot of rubber rubbing off on the road.

So smaller, proper road tires seemed the most logic way to go. The guy in the bike shop did warm me… it might look a bit funny. Small tires under a big bulky frame… I couldn’t mind. Put ‘em on! But then I went to pick the wheel and tires up on Saturday afternoon, put them under the bike again and… Oops… That does look funny! :-)

Well, funny… ridiculous is definitely a better word! I will make a picture tomorrow, so you can judge for yourself! It used to look something like this: Bike with big tires.

And now it looks like this:

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So far cycling to work is proving to be somewhat of a mixed success. In the morning it’s just great! It’s quite a short ride, just about 15km or 40 minutes, easy and safe parking of the bike and I can shower at work, so no problem at all. I do start quite early, but that’s mainly because I like to finish early. Especially when cycling home and afterwards having to shower, do grocery shopping and cook, it just takes up a lot of time and it’s nice to leave for home a bit early.

But that’s the morning… in the afternoon it’s a different story. I take a little detour on the way back, through the dunes and that makes the ride about 10km longer. Still, cycling 25km shouldn’t be any problem. It’s just a bit more then 50 minutes, but every single day I start to feel quite “empty” after about 35 minutes…

Don’t exactly know why, but my best guess would be a simple lack of energy… true, around 1700 I do get a bit hungry, but it’s quite rough on the bike. I have breakfast just before I leave in the morning, and a normal lunch at noon, so that should prove to be a problem… even introduced a couple of “snacks” (apple or Liga EverGreen) before I leave, but that hasn’t helped much so far…

Not sure what to do now. Probably will just try to keep cycling and see what works best. Maybe a bigger lunch, a later breakfast, more nasty snacks? Or maybe it’s just getting used to the fact I am on the bike so often now. OK, the rides are a bit shorter then normal, but still get a good 1 and a half hour of exercise every day.

And normally I would always praise and follow the classic “one day on, one day off” tactic, especially as numerous times that has proven it’s success… or actually I should say, not following that philosophy led to problems, so that might be the case now as well… I guess time will tell. Maybe it’s just because I am only moderate and am expecting to much! ;-)

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Yes, cycling to work for me must be cursed. Well, at least a little… tried 3 times, failed 3 times. First time last Friday. Got up early, but from my bed I could already hear I wasn’t going to cycle that day. Very heavy rain, thunder and lighting… I really wanted to cycle to work, but not that bad I considered going through that kind of weather! I would try again on Monday.

Well, yesterday I did try. But didn’t get further then about 200 meter on the bike. After that distance I noticed my rear tire was surprisingly soft. Or at least not as hard as it was the day before, when I rode my bike on a little ride after fixing the unexpected puncture on my front tire and pumped up both tires in the process. So when checking the rear tire before pumping it up again, I could hear a little sizzling sound… F#ck… another puncture… And at 0645 in the morning not something you wanne fix right there and then. So I left the bike for what it was, and took the bus/train to work again…

After fixing the tire that night, I got up early again this morning for the next attempt! Quite motivated I got on the bike on 0630 (!!) and took off. And then disaster struck again… after 4km I heard something funny… psst.. psst.. psst.. psst.. psst.. Oh no! And indeed… another puncture… Just my luck… Only problem now was that the distance to work (probably at least another 13 or more km) was a bit to far to walk with the bike… so there was no other option to return home again… *Aarggg* So after cycling for 15 minutes I had to walk back with the bike for 45…

Well, I guess there is no other option then to just keep trying! Some day the curse will be gone and I should get there without any problems! :-)

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While I was searching the web for information about VO₂ max for my last post about the Polar fitness test, my eye was drawn by another method to measure your level of fitness: The good old Cooper test.

Strange, because as a kid I hated the Cooper test. Every year we had to do that test a couple of times during our football training. I could never be bothered. But now, on a cloudy evening in August, for fun, I went running for 12 minutes to see how my fitness level would reflect in the Cooper test. Oi… Times do change! ;-)

Yes, main reason for doing it was that I wasn’t to proud of just being moderate… I thought I would at least make average… anyway, with the Polar fitness test there is not much you can do about the outcome of the test. You lie down and wait. 5 long minutes. Not my thing. So when I came across the Cooper test, that would be an ideal way to prove the “Polar fitness testing method” wrong!

And proving it wrong I did! :-) *HAHAHA* not that it was healthy though… Almost run the entire 12 minutes “in the red” with my heart rate around 98-99% of my maximum… After 6 minutes I got the first signs of pain in my side, and about 30 minutes after the run the Osgood-Schlatter on my left knee started seriously aching again and hasn’t stopped doing so ever since… But now to the positive thing, I manage to run 2670 meter in 12 minutes! In the Cooper test results, that gets me in the “Good” category!

But, if we look at the correlation with the VO₂ max data: VO₂ max = (distance - 505m)/45. I get to a VO₂ max of 48! And looking that up in the table I get to the average I wanted! :-) Even get to the doorstep of good!!!

Only thing that could be a bit dodgy is the way I did the Cooper test… I was under the impression it was just running as fast as you can for 12 minutes… so I tried to sprint the last minute, but when I just read a bit more about the test, it states: “The test is meant to measure the condition of the person taking it and therefore it is supposed to be run at a steady pace instead of sprints.” So not sure if my run qualifies as a “steady pace run”… but well, as I am judge, jury & executioner in this matter, I let myself get away with it! ;-)

My cooper test result (between numbers 1 and 2)

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I have had my Polar heart rate monitor (a sweet Polar S720i) for about 3 weeks now, and yesterday I finally got brave enough to read about the fitness test feature that came with the watch. I knew the thing had a feature like that, but tried to deny it for a bit, no being sure about my current fitness level and some heavy testing to determine my fitness level might not work very motivating in these early stages of owning a heart rate monitor and still being happy with it.

After all, it was truly a great investment! Not essential I guess, as I don’t need a heart rate monitor to tell me I am struggling while trying to use a to big gear while climbing up a little hill… I mean, just listening to my breathing, or swearing will tell you that as well! :-) But it’s definitely interesting to see the graph afterwards, even more so combined to the speed and altitude.

Only the fitness test was nothing like the intensive interval testing at maximum power for a number of times… nothing like it. The fitness test was laying in bed for 5 minutes! Well, I am good at that, so when I finally had the guts to read about the test, I decided to do it straight away! :-)

Was a bit disappointed about the result though… the result of the test is a number, and what that number means you can look up in a little table that tells you how fit you are… before I did it, I was hoping/aiming for a number that would reach to “average” fitness… I didn’t make it. I only got to 41, putting me it to one category less… moderate. Although if I can maintain this level of fitness for a couple of months, I will automatically advance into the “average” fitness category when it’s my birthday, because the number-ranges relating to fitness level differ with age.

In the first 3 categories (very bad, bad and my moderate), the advice they give it is: “Increase the number of training sessions for a better health and shape”. Outch… especially as on another page they give an indication on how much time it takes to improve your fitness: “If you want to improve your shape, on average you have to exercise at least 6 weeks to notice a difference in your VO₂ max.” Oh my… guess I will be busy the next 12 weeks (3 months!!!) if I wanne reach average…

I could maybe praise myself lucky with the following: “Less fit people will notice a difference quicker then fit people, who it will take more time.” *HAHAHA* now I am starting to feel happy about just being moderate! :-)

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Football tonight. Ireland - Holland. Friendly match, not very interesting but still I got surprised! Pleasantly surprised! And the match hadn’t even started yet. Thing was that one of Holland’s football legends, Faas Wilkes, had died earlier this week and to honour him there would be a minute of silence before the match.

That by itself is not a unique thing, as a minute of silence happens more often when famous football people die, but what was very impressive was the way the Irish crowed reacted to it. While the players were standing around the middle circle, the Irish stadium speaker told a little story about Faas Wilkes. Who he was, where he played, etc. just a small story. And the amazing thing was the reaction of the Irish football supporters, the reacted with a loud applause! For a man they probably never heard of (as he is mainly a Dutch football legend…) they still the showed great respect. Goosebumps!

Even the minute of silence after that was as quiet as can be. Impressive. Not seen often these days to have supporters like that! So even though Ireland lost quite chanceless with 0-4, they still provided the most beautiful moment of the match. Just before the match.

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Cycling in Australia was mainly focussed around 2 simple words, repeated uncountable times: keep left. Yes, my greatest problem wasn’t wind, bad roads, hills, rain or whatever, but it was keeping to the correct side of the road. At times it was quite obvious to stay on the correct side of the road, but on small roads, cycling paths or roads with little traffic I sometimes ended up on the right side of the road… not good and to prevent that I had to keep saying to myself to keep left!

When I did kept left, cycling in and around Canberra is mainly great fun! As soon as you get a bit out of the city and end up on the highways, the cycling pleasure goes down a bit. Riding on the shoulder, full of stones and dirt with cars flying by at 100km/h, doesn’t make very relax cycling. But besides that, it’s quite nice!

Except for a ride along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, it’s never really flat. Small hills provide a fun ride. Plus there are some challenging rides very close to the city as well. Take Mount Ainslie. Definitely a challenging climb with 2.5 km at an average grade of 8.6%… and knowing there is a small steep bump in the beginning of the climb and after that quite a long “doable” stretch, means that the end of the climb is much steeper then the average 8.6%… But then, with just a 2.5 km climb, it’s very doable! Even Sally “wiggled” her way to the top for the first time ever! :-)

The weather wasn’t that briljant for cycling the time I was in Canberra. With 12 degrees and without my cycling gear on a to small bike it could have been better. Although I must say I was very happy I could borrow Sal’s and her sister Pip’s bike to go for some rides! Already looking forward to take some rides in spring or summer. Black Mountain and Mount Stromlo will prove to be fun rides!!

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After the amazing diving experience we thought we had enough. We could have added an extra day to the dive course to get our Advanced Open Water certificate, but choose not to do that and just relax the last day in Port Douglas before going home. Well… that was the plan… As the Australian football team was playing the Thursday evening, what made it our Friday early morning at 0500 and we got up to watch them qualify for the next round, we were wide awake at 0700 and wondered what to do with the day.

The Low Isles had been mentioned before, because one of Sally’s friends (I think it was Robyn, the girl wonder) had recommended that place to us. So after a very short debate and a concluding “yeah, why not!” we booked a spot on a catamaran at 10 to take us to the Low Isles! And even though it might not have been planned, it still turned out to be quite a relax day.

The boat ride to the Low Isles was just a short one (about 45 minutes or so?) and the Low Isles appeared to be 2 small islands. One with mainly mangrove and the other a cute little one with a little lighthouse. As proper tourist-cattle we followed the big herd to the island which looked a lot different when covered with people in full blue body suits (to protect them from the sun, coral and hungry fishies).

Low Isles smurf

We brought our snorkelling gear and were excited to give it a go, as we were told there should be a lot of sea turtles around the Low Isles! And the stories were right!! We had to swim quite a bit out from the shore, but all of a sudden Sally spotted something weird in the water! A closer look proved it to be what we were looking and hoping for! A big turtle!!! Truly amazing experience! Ok… we were not allowed to swim with the turtles, follow them or get close… but I had to do all those things to get the following (fuzzy) picture:

Beautiful turtle!

But one little bit scared turtle was worth it! :-) Especially I looked like a big fishy myself underwater with my big eyes which looked even bigger through the mask! After seeing 2 more turtles we were getting cold and made our way back to shore, relaxed a bit more in the sun and took the boat back to Port Douglas in the afternoon. Because of the crowded beach and water the snorkelling wasn’t the best (again fuzzy water like in the busy section on Green Island) but definitely worth the trip! :-)

Low Isles	Lighthouse	Lighthouse again	Gorgeous view

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What a way to start a holiday in Australia. After arriving in Sydney, Sally and I flew up to Cairns to spend 2 weeks of holiday there. 5 days in Cairns and 9 in Port Douglas. Nothing planned really, except the accommodation, so we would see what we would do when we get there. First days were mainly relaxing and enjoying the weather and then we went on a day-trip to Green Island that came as part of the accommodation package.

And Green Island turned out to be something really special! We borrowed snorkelling gear on the big catamaran that brought us to the island and decided to try out the snorkelling in the “safe” area. A little part of the beach, guarded by a lifeguard for safe snorkelling. That was fun, but not briljant. As some many people were there, the water was very fuzzy with sand so the visibility wasn’t that great. But still we were able to see some very nice fishies. But after a walk around the island, we ended up at the walking-board to the boat. As there wasn’t much time left before the boat would leave, we had some doubts about snorkelling again or just going back to the boat. Luckily we decided to go snorkel some more! Because it turned out to be an amazing experience!!! There were no other people, deep clear water, some nice coral and so many different fishies!!! Amazing stuff!! At some point we were even swimming through a whole school of hundreds of fishies! So special!

With that great experience still fresh in our minds we arrived in Port Douglas. Again, first a couple of days of relaxing and then we got the idea to do a diving course. What better place to do such a course then the Great Barrier Reef?! So we signed up on Sunday and Monday we were in the classroom already. One full day of theory and the second day we stayed in the pool the whole day. Never thought you could get so cold in a swimming pool with water of 25 degrees… while wearing a wetsuit!!! The pool day was mainly very nerve-wracking. We had to go through and practise a number of exercises we had to do in Open Water the following 2 days and although they were not that difficult, just doing them once and not doing so well doing it, didn’t made me all that confident…

During the first dive in the (outer) Great Barrier Reef there was mainly one thought on my mind the entire dive. A simple: Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out… Hardly had any time to enjoy the under water world, was only focussed on surviving! :-) And couldn’t have been more nervous for the next dive when we had to do our special exercises… it’s just a lot different taking off your mask in a two meter deep pool then 10 meters down on the bottom of the ocean… Especially as I already had trouble doing that in the pool! :-) Used contact lenses for the occasion and with closing my eyes as much as possible, it worked fine!

With every dive I got a bit more confident, but wasn’t able to really enjoy the experience until after all the special exercises were done and we could just “dive” on our last 2 dives and just enjoy it. Those dives showed that it’s truly amazing to be floating underwater and see the ocean life like that. Absolutely beautiful!! Already looking forward to the next dive, wherever it may be! Well… at least somewhere sunny and nice, no point in diving in Holland with a visibility of about 30cm… :-)

So now I am a certified PADI open water diver! :-) Wheehoo! If you wanne give it a try, and you are in the Port Douglas neighbourhood, go see Marcus at Discover Dive if you want the same great instructor as we had!

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Last Sunday I went to see a local football match in Copenhagen. Lyngby vs. Vejle. No big names on the pitch like the last game I saw in Barcelona, but as it was quite an important match in the Danish 1st. division. The situation on top:

So 4 more matches left and Lyngby had to win this one to stay in the race for one of the top 2 places which earns promotion to the “Superliga”. Quite amazing Lyngby made it so far, as it’s only their first year back in the 1st. division, after they just made promotion last year.

Lyngby is Mette’s favourite team, and ever since I went with her and Thomas to see a match, I can’t help by like them as well! First game I ever went to there was 2 years ago, when Lyngby played their first year in the 2nd division (Lyngby was set back to the 3rd division in the 2002/2003 season, due to financial problems). Lovely little stadium, still enthusiastic fans, open fire (not kidding!!) on the stands to keep the grill going for the famous Lyngby sausages and a lady that goes around the football stadium with a baby-stroller filled with coffee pots and cookies (not kidding again!!). :-)

Also the game I saw back then was quite extraordinary… Lyngby was 0-3 down at halftime, but still played 3-3 with the Lyngby goalie (…) scoring the 3rd Lyngby goal 5 minutes in overtime (!!!!)… Just looked up the game details, quite fun to see again and remember that fun day:

It was great to see that Lyngby has come a long way from that game. Especially the number of spectators (tilskuere) have increased enormously! 518 when they played 2nd. division two years ago and a stunning 4.826 in the 1st. division last Sunday!

The match itself was quite exciting! Lyngby had to win, Vejle would almost be sure of promotion when they would win. Vejle starts great and leads with 0-2 after 20 minutes… Lyngby fights back till 2-2 but just before half time Vejle get lucky with a clumsy Lyngby own goal. Barely 5 minutes in the 2nd. half a Vejle player makes are horrible foul and is send off. With 11 against 10 Lyngby plays to win, gets at least 4 big chances, doesn’t score and as more often in football the goal “falls” on the other side on a counter attack. 2-4. Game over.

Sad result, as I was clearly cheering for Lyngby, but they still have a little chance, and else they will go up to the Superliga next year! :-) Just one sad thing with the increase in crowd was that I didn’t see the coffee-lady anymore with her baby-stroller… Or maybe she is just at home at the moment recovering from a burn-out? ;-)

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Inspired by yesterdays heroes of Paris-Roubaix, I wiped the big layer of dust of my bike this morning and took the “steal horse” for a ride this afternoon. Inspired yes, but I was far from flying like Fabian Cancellara was doing yesterday over the cobble stones in the North of France…

I expected the first ride to be quite ok. I had been doing quite regular 2 times a week spinning in Barcelona, but that didn’t help much… I guess 30 minutes intensive spinning, with intervals, is still quite different from just cycling against a though cold wind for 30 minutes… Well, don’t have to guess here of course, I was the living proof today! :-)

So I returned after a short ride (just over an hour) slightly disappointed, but smiling as well. It was nice to climb on the bike again. A strange sense of freedom when riding (or in my case struggling) through the wind. Just me and the elements. Strange to believe a year ago I had already cycled more then 600km at this time! And Bastiaan and I were in serious preparation for the Amstel Gold Race. It will be hard to match the number of kilometres from last year, but the start is there! ;-)

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My time in Barcelona is running short. The last week has started. There is many things I will miss here. The sweet local people I got to meet, the weather, the city and last, but not least, the Friday afternoon spinning session with Pablo. Such a special event to finish the week! I have done a lot of spinning while I was working in Stockholm, but spinning in Stockholm was never as much fun as with Pablo in Barcelona!

Pablo is the spinning instructor on Friday afternoon and the 23 people that fit in his class are there to start the weekend with a big smile. Spinning at Friskis & Svettis in Stockholm was fun as well, but so different. The crowed never got very excited when sitting on the bike. Here it’s a different world. With any good song, movement to go out of the saddle or when reaching the top of a mountain, people scream, whistle, start waving towels, or go crazy in their own way! It’s the best! What better way to enjoy your exercise!!! :-)

First Friday afternoon class I joined was quite a shock… was used to the quiet Swedish classes, so was expecting more or less the same but they almost broke down the house here!!! :-) But as often I can adjust myself quickly and by the second time I went I was screaming happily along! ;-) By now I found my way to the front row, where the most excited people are, and would never have thought I would make it through a very hard 45 minute spinning class smiling from start to finish! :-)

This Friday before I leave for home again will be my last class… I will go miss it for sure… But I will also enjoy it very much one last time!! :-)

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Seeing a Barcelona football match was a thing I was looking forward to a lot ever since I knew I was going to Barcelona. Last Saturday Mette and I saw our first match at the Camp Nou! And oh my, it was really great! Strange at some points as well, but in general just a great experience.

It started when getting to the stadium. There were 82.000 people to see the match (FC Barcelona - Real Betis Sevilla) and even though the stadium is huge, we still got to our seats within about 5 minutes… and were able to stop for a hot-dog along the way! There was no security checks what so ever. They checked our tickets at the first main gate and ripped a piece off. Then at the second and last gate to actually get into the stadium, we just had to use the bar-code from the ticket to open a little gate and we were in. So weird in such a big stadium! Not even being frisked or anything?!

The match itself was good fun. Barcelona mainly on the attack, but defending so badly that Real Betis got much more chances, but failed to make them so Barcelona never looked troubled. And it was truely amazing to see Ronaldinho play! Oh my lord… I thought he was quite good, but he was just SO much better!!! By far the best on the pitch. And by far the best I ever seen in real life. Just amazing. Every touch of the ball seemed so easy, yet so briljant. Passes, tricks, but also his movement without the ball… Just amazing. And without a doubt the best player on this earth at the moment!

Strange things at the stadium were the Barcelona fans… so unbelievably quiet!!! The have just 2 songs (Barça, Barça, Barça & Fútbol Club Barcelona) and some occasional but rare cheers (Ronaldinho, Ronaldinho, Ronaldinho or Messi, Messi, Messi), but that was about it… Really weird. And for some reason hardly any supporters wear the Barcelona shirt, or even just a scarf. We bought scarf’s just before the match, but way more then half of the people had nothing to indicate their love for the Barcelona football team…

But all in all it was a great experience! Already looking forward to go see another Barcelona match! :-)

Update (February 27, 2006):
Some highlights from the game I was able to capture on camera! Please don’t complain about the quality… I don’t have a magic zoom! ;-) Pictures of the game and Camp Nou will follow later. Stay tuned!!!

Briljant play! (11.8 MB)		Ronnie goal (9.9 MB and watch your neck!!!)

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All the exercise I had done in the year so far, consisted of just one gym-class with the seniors, early January, and one squash match a couple of days after that. A bit to little to say I am in great shape at the moment… So as the current school-schedule allows lots of time for exercise, I joined a local gym, LA Fitness, last week and already started to make the most out of it, with going 3 times in the first 4 days!

Well, I can for sure not keep up that frequency, as after just the crosstrainer and bike on Tuesday, running and Body-Pump on Thursday and intensive spinning on Friday, my body is currently (Sunday morning now) still in serious pain… Especially the Body-Pump proved to be killing for my upper legs… But a hot bath and taking it easy yesterday and today, should get me back in the gym on Monday!

It’s especially great as going to the gym fits so well in the current daily rhythm. School until 1300, still to early for lunch or to start home work, so gym from about 1400 until 1530, then lunch and maybe a little siesta followed by the homework. It sounds busy, but everything goes in the normal Spanish pace… tranquilo, tranquilo… :-)

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