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Yesterday we did the McConnell road circuit again. Josh, Mick and I headed out into the bush for this ride together. Josh had a new bike he was keen to test, a Mongoose. It performed well for him, but he is very light weighting only 60 Kgs. The only thing I was worried about was if the gearing would be low enough. It was so good in fact he rode up all the hills that Mick and I walked up!

The circuit starts at the drive able end of McConnell Road where you park your cars. Heading down into the bush you get a series of up and downs that are fast and fun and a good warm up. Turning right you then start to climb the ridge Here you find a forestry road and a small hill that has 2 very technical steep descents. Rutted and with loose gravel they make for a fun diversion. Josh performed particularly well leaving a nice rash on his bum when he decided to wrap himself around a tree after losing it. From there the long climb up the ridge is lung burning, calf burning time. I alternated between bottom gear and spinning as fast as I can while sitting well forward on the saddle to keep the front wheel down, and standing up and climbing in a bigger gear. About half way up I gave up and walked. Michael had also quit. Josh was on and off for the first steep bit but once hitting a slightly more gentle gradient he managed to ride to the top which finishes with a very short sharp steep climb. There we had a rest and bemoaned hills in general. However its all in good fun because the point of the climb is the downhill. And what a down hill!. The scene of a crash a few years back where I was awarded the mountain bike club trophy for crash of the year, This down hill has it all. Fast loose gravel to start with, then some fast rough packed dirt, followed by some steep technical sections with one and sometimes two wheels locked as you negotiate ruts, rocks, drop offs, tree roots and jumps. Mick almost lost it right in front of me as we took the conservative line down past one big steep section. Josh went straight over it and managed to stay on even through the rough bumps at the bottom. I took the wrong way through the bottom section and had to hit a drop off at speed to clear it forcing me onto a berm that had front and rear wheels threatening to go different ways, but releasing the brakes and just letting the bike go kept me on board. From there some fast downhill sections with some ruts and bumps that the front forks have no problem handling and a couple of good jumps at the bottom see you come flying back to the cars.

An awesome ride and only the second time Michael has done this one though Josh and I have ridden it many times.

I love having weekends off. I decided not to work this weekend and it was a great time.

I am going back to Thursday, because I took Thursday night off as well. After work I went to the park in the late afternoon / early evening with the kids. I dug a big sandcastle with the shovel including a tunnel through the castle wall. The kids had lots of fun playing this – and the games they thought up were amazing.

Friday night I also took off and we watched a movie together before I watched the tour De France with a mate.

We have been exercising using the Wii fit for 4 days now. I have discovered to my chagrin that I have very poor inner muscle strength. While I am pretty fit, and quite strong in my legs and arms I struggle a lot with my abs and waist muscles. They are very weak and I find it a very hard to balance on one leg for example. My twitch muscles are also not finely controlled. The Wii fit  program is making me focus on these exercises and they are hard. Today I spent 20 minutes exercising and one of the exercises was actually standing still as possible. I found that very hard and it is actually harder than it sounds – it hurts after a while using muscles you don’t usually use to keep still. Like wise balancing on one leg and moving the other leg is very difficult. I am enjoying the Ski Slalom, though I find I tend to miss a few gates here and there.

After scouring Brisbane by phone I finally located a possible Wii Fit. One store had one that had been set aside for a customer – they were going to ring and see if they still wanted it. It was my lucky day. As I arrived to pick up the Nintendo Wii, the chap said he had manage to secure the Wii Fit for me as well.

I rang 10 or 15 outlets yesterday to discover none had any in stock, yet all were advertising them like mad. Responses ranged from “we can put you on a list but its first in first served” to “we will guarantee you one by Christmas!”

I have started to realise that being 40 <> being 24 or even 34.

Yesterday I was up at 7:30 and off to an activity day for the kids. I was coaching discus for 4 hours to a bunch of kids aged 8 to 18. After that I went to the PE coaching class I run for 2 hours that involved a fair amount of running around. We drove home and basically the minute I got home I got changed and went straight back out to AFL football training. By the time I got home from that I was wrecked!. A long hot shower and a foot massage by Judith helped, but this morning I have some muscle soreness! Today is my rest day. Tomorrow I have basketball coaching and Friday I will be running long jump all day for a sports day - 126 kids to supervise!

I need to get a bionic body!