Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge

This weekend my flatmate Conor and I did half each of the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge - 160km in all. His partner Steph (no relation to my sister) came along for support.
So the day started out very early. As we were staying in Ohakune with a 1:40 trip to Taupo we left at 5:20. Early start but we saw a nice sunrise.

After some mucking around at the start in Taupo I eventually found the correct bus to get on and off I went to Kuratau. It was a very cold day so I spent time sorting my bike out and reading my book. Conor had told me he was expecting to do his half in 3 hours so I was just starting to get ready when I started seeing riders come in the gate. So I hurry my preparations and see Conor coming in the gate while I'm still only halfway ready and a long way from him and my bike.

After a bit of rushing around I got the transponder, got to my bike and got on the road.
The first half went fairly well. I was passing lots of people (mostly solo challenge riders who started a lot early than the relay riders). There were a few nasty hills but getting the top and getting the view across Lake Taupo was amazing. The resulting downhill ride down to Tokaanu was very fast. I got 55km/h at one point!

From that point it was pretty much flat going but I got left by my lonesome without a bunch to call my own - which was pretty hard work especially when my shoulders and neck started telling me how hard they were working... It was at about this point that Conor caught up with me, and then took off at great speed.

Fortunately I found a nice bunch I could keep up with and drafted off the back of them for while until I decided it was time for me to do some pulling so I went up the front and dragged the lot of them into the next bunch along. Using aero bars at the point was really useful.

The next part was the dreaded Hatepe Hill. That thing is well known in the Taupo course as being the hardest hill. The thing is basically the steepest hill that is actually cyclable and goes on for 2.5km of pain. At one point I was doing 6.5km/h and wondering if I would actually fall off. I heard from a fellow rider that he did see a guy simply stop and fall over into the grass!
Fortunately I managed the hill without stopping and then had the downhill to worry about. It starts easily enough which was alright but I was in a lot of pain and going rather slowly. Eventually things recovered and at the bottom of the hill I was going 63.6km/h (no really!). Then it was just pure pain and determination to get to the end. The last 16km were rather rough - somewhat leavened by signs that said "This is the last hill." Then the next hill along said "This really is the last hill." Then the rise just before the finish line had a sign, "This hill is a bitch.".

It was very, very nice to finish. Final result: 140/546 male relay teams, 230/1804 all relay teams. Conor's time for the first 80km was 2:20 (unofficially) and he finished in 5:01. I did the second half with a ride time of 3:18 (ignoring the small amount of time my speedo wasn't working). The official time was 5:45:31.

Overall, it was a great event. The support you receive from people literally just sitting on the side of the road cheering you on is amazing.

Quoted without permission

(Yes, I know, I'm even quoting my own sister's blogs without permission.)

I've been reading Bill Clinton's biography, My life, recently and I came across this quote which I thought was useful.

I had also learned that winning elections as a progressive requires great care and discipline in crafting and presenting a message and a program that gives people the confidence to change course. Our society can absorb only so much change at a time, and when we move forward we must do it in a way that reaffirms our core convictions of oportunity and responsibility, work and family, strength and compassion - the value that have been the bedrock of America's success. Most people have their hands full raising their kids, doing their jobs, and playing the bills. They don't think about government policy as much as liberals do, nor are they as obsesed with power as the new right conservatives. They have a lot of common sense, and a desire to understand the large forces shaping their lives, but can't be expected to abandon the values and social arrangements that at least enable them to survive and feel good about themselves.
From Clinton, William: My life: Alfred A. Knopf: New York (2004)

I think that passage quite well describes why the Labour party almost lost the last election. Labour has implemented a large amount of social change fairly quickly and the curious thing is that people who it is meant to help are starting to complain about it. This is what I say in talking to various people before the election and I could never understand it. However, Clinton's words seem to explain it rather nicely, don't you think?

I found an interesting quote on David Slack's blog, Public Address, attributed to Llew at Sunnyo.

Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just take the rotten apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy to pick up...

The apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right man to come along - the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

Share this with other women who are good apples, even those who have already been picked.

Now Men...

Men are like a fine wine. They begin as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the shit out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

Oh, and when is The Amazing Race: Family Edition actually going to get out of the United States? We're two episodes in and we've made it, what, 200km? Repeat after me: The U.S. is not the entire world.

Concert, cycling and Serenity

The concert, you'll be pleased to know, went very well. The cold I'd had, on and off, for a week managed to hold off and not stuff my vocal chords up. I was a bit tense at the start but everything relaxed after a while so things were good. In rehearsal, I decided that doing Le temps des lilas from memory was probably not a good idea so I did it from music. Weirdly, that seemed to make it worse as the counting problems seemed to increase. Nonetheless, my accompanist and I covered it up so no-one noticed - I think...

Some friends and family joined me for dinner at Juniper (great restaurant) which was very pleasant. Turned out that my friend Alex Hood was there as well. Wellington is a very small town.

Unfortunately, come Friday my voice all but disappeared - and it's still not back as I write. I suppose the 80km bike ride I did on Saturday didn't help. However, I really needed to do it as it was the last chance to get a long bike ride in, and a ride at target distance, before Taupo. Next weekend I've got the first triathlon of the season. It was a very hard ride because Wellington decided to turn on a very strong northerly. Riding north up the east side of the Miramar Peninsula going at about 15km/h was very painful. Getting home was great! Of course, then I had to do a quick turnaround, pick up my sisters and get to Courtenay Place in time to meet friends, eat dinner and see Serenity.

Eating a pile of food at Khmer Satay House in the food court was just what I needed. In fact, it's quite nice being able to eat a pile of food after a hard effort.

Serenity is great! Go see it. No really, do, you'll like it. Just trust me.
It's best described as a sci-fi western but that sound bite doesn't do it justice. It's about a small group of people who happen to crew a ship which transports goods around the universe. Those goods might or might not be legal so they tend to get chased a lot. In this case they have a highly trained operative chasing one of their crew.
The movie is interesting because it's mostly character led. Instead of the grand heroic gestures of movies like Star Wars the characters often face fairly difficult moral dilemmas and have to ask themselves some deep questions.
For those that may not care for such philosophical questions the movie does have attractive actors (well.. very.. the engineer can come visit me anytime...) and lots of action. Seeing a slim girl taking on a whole heap of really evil bastards is rather heartening. Being a former prima ballerina is certainly an advantage for stunt work.

So, with my voice still dead, I've spend most of this lovely Sunday inside. Such is life...

Okay, okay...

..so I've been really lazy and haven't made an update for a month.

So, what's happened since my last post? I played with my volleyball team in the Business Games. We did better than last year - which wasn't hard considering we didn't win a set last year. In fact it was rather frustrating. If we'd got our heads in the game, and if it weren't for some bad reffing, we might have come second in our group, or even first.
But that's what sport's about so roll on next year!

The weekend after that I went up to Auckland for a few days for my mother's birthday. Wouldn't you know that she's 21 this year? No, really! Caught up with most of my Auckland friends and then flew from there to Queenstown.

We had our annual work conference in Queenstown this year. The last two conferences were in Rotorua so it was nice to finally see Queenstown. And what an amazing town it is. A huge blue lake nestled between mountains on all sides and with development at only one end. The conference sessions were so-so. As always they tend to focus more towards sales than delivery. However, it was great to catch up and relax with friends in a beautiful place.

Anyway, the next exciting thing is the concert on Thursday night. I just spent the last hour or so revising the songs and attempting to ensure they stay in my memory correctly. At my music teacher's suggestion I recorded my singing from memory and played it back with the sheet music. It's actually the first time I've done that and I'm not all the pleased. The bits that are supposed to be smooth and legato really rather aren't.
More work for me, huh?