Indoors Vs Outdoors

Riding indoors is not fun. It is
-Sweaty
-Hot
-Irritating
-Tedious


Riding Outdoors is fun. It Is
-Totally Awesome
-Totally fun
-A lot more social
-Exilirating
-Relaxing
-Not quite anagramitcal (I may or may not have made that word up)

So, 10 weeks ago I got chopped up. 10 weeks later I am now going for a ride outside. I can't wait. So, very, excited.

Anywho.... it makes perfect sense that after an extended period of being locked indoors pedalling furiously but going nowhere, that one would stay the heck away from all forms of indoor cycling.

For me, however, I have signed myself up for another two weeks of pure indoor bliss. I'll be stationed out at Vic Uni in Footscray where nights will be spent sleeping at 2500m and days will be spent with an hour back at sea level but with the heat dial racked up to 30 degrees and 80 percent humidity and I'll be trucking away at 70% of VO2. Should be, um, fun.  I figured a bit of structure would be good in getting back into the swing. Now  I think it might be a bit of a drag! But hey, it'll be easier than Qinghai lake...

So back on the bike means back on the blog. Happy times.

Jono

Round Two

Is here

Good luck to everyone at tour of Geelong. Stay upright and if you're lucky maybe it won't rain like last year!

Jono

Playing the PR game

Whilst I am restricted in playing a part on the road with the team I have been keeping my interest in all things orange going with some part time musings over on the team site.

First up is an interview with the recent 5 stage victor (some would say destructor) at the Tour of Gippsland, Steele Von Hoff

And yep, I need some photos to really spruce it up, but whilst using the team monicker I am not as comfortable with blatantly plagiarising as I would if it were just myself!

Enjoy

The Scope of the Matter

Sitting back watching the tour. Watching some fantastic racing and all I want to do is go and race my bike. But I can't! For at least (quite possibly more) 6-8 weeks I won't be allowed to ride my bike outside. Surgeons orders.

Wait, what?!?

Yep, that's right, in the last few months of laying low I have been chipping my way through some exams and once they were over it was straight down to the Avenue hospital for a quick left hip arthriscope and an excision of a lesion.  Nothing like the fresh grafting of bone to brighten up your uni holidays.

Nevertheless, I made sure to utilise the precision that I apply to my training schedule in structuring my surgery;

-Operation: 1st of July
-Tour de France: 2nd of July
-Add in TV downloads from the Coach (thanks coach) and Movies from the raging TT Lama and my couch time has been maximised.


But seriously, where did this come from??!?!

Well, it's been on the cards for a while. Having a few knocks to the ol hips and some naturally shit shaped hips to start with has meant that this was something that was likely to happen one day. Now its done I can get back to riding my bike

So what the hell does it mean?!?

Arthriscope: Key hole surgery, bone grafting/grinding/scraping and cartlidge repair within the hip joint.

Excision of lesions: quick open up at the front of the hip, move some muscle around, a quick chop here, a quick chop there and hey presto, new hip for jono.

So what now?!?!

The progression of recovery is roughly as follows;

- 0-2 weeks: feet up watching the tour
- 2-4 weeks: easy work on the wind trainer, some light rehab exercises, feet generally remain up
- 4-8 weeks: bit harder on the trainer, harder rehab, possibly some light gym
- 8-12 weeks: more gym, more rehab more riding
- 12 weeks+: Possibly cry at the chance of riding outside again

So I am absolutely chomping at the bit do some racing, or even some bunch riding. It's driving me nuts. But for the time being, patience is the key.

Cheers,

Jono

PS: A big, enormous, massive thanks to those (like my sensationally awesome team: Genesys ) who have been patient and allowed me to get myself sorted in a timely manner. And an even bigger thanks to my parents, who continue to wait on me during trying times. If I was a horse, they may have sent me to the glue factory by now. But hey, if bike riding was easy, it wouldn't be worth doing (may have stolen that quote from Davo)

Break in Transmission

Been a while! Sorry, but alas all my creative talents have been at their wits end trying to put some 'creativity' into essays on enthralling topics such as Industrial Relations in post unification Germany and post Mao China, and the roles of institutional investors in Corporate Governance. Just, so, exciting.

Anyway, what's been going on in super lazy dot points:

• I raced Tour of Canberra. I went as expected (not great![at this point in time]). The team went as expected (Freakin awesome!) and thus the team jets off to the next round of the NRS in Toowoomba with Nathan Haas kicken arse and the rest of the guys also putting the boot to the proverbial behind

• One thing we did do in Canberra, which was really good was a bit of a fun ride/general mess around and act like kids, with,  a bunch of kids.  Some of the local sponsors got word round so that when we rocked out to Stromlo Forrest Park the day before the tour started to cut some laps with a bunch of really enthusiastic kids. AJ even got the idea of setting up a tt course for the kids to race each other on, it got heated that's for sure!

• Other memorable moments include Shawry having words with a grumpy baggage handler who was throwing bikes around, and getting through three days of racing without any rain. 

• Coming up in the not too distant future for myself is a period of not too much whilst I navigate my way around some more thrilling exams. And not heaps more. I know, what the heck am I gonna talk about?? 

• Well for starters I am looking at some options to finally (touch wood) nail a few of the issues I have been having with my left hip. The upside to this is, the greatest sports doctor ever to walk the earth (Andrew Garnham), has sorted me out with a more than interesting hip rehab/prehab/general stability regime. Let's just say; Ballet, Dancers. Wow, geez, talk about flexible. My previous round of pilates work had me working in an environment whereby the coefficient of ballet dancers to non ballet dancers was, oh, say, 1:10. But now it's a ratio of Ballet dancers to Jono that's about 100:1. Brilliant.

All for now, stay warm this winter and enjoy the finish to the Giro! (I'll be busy thinking I can Dance.)


Jono

Win some free stuff!

Ok, long and short

IF you want to win a free pair of compression socks jump onboard with Zensah on facebook and 'like' them. Then follow the prompts. Easy.
http://www.facebook.com/zensahsports

In other news, I must confess, I had my socks on for the return flight from Malaysia (and they did the trick re 'cankles'), but I did have to take them off after a few hours of the flight there as for whatever reason (acclimatisation most likely) the plane was baking hot, so I couldn't hack any extra heat!

Malaysia was good fun albeit a bit flat but unfortunately the reports I wrote for our team  website from stages 3-6 all got lost in the wild world of the interweb. Given I have an essay to finish before I head off to oceanias in Shepparton I don't think I'll be catching back up on them unfortunately. I can quickly say the highlights (or lowlights) of our time were

1) Mark O'Brien's golf ball sized saddle sore*. Wow. just wow!

*Before editing this I spelt it 'saddle saw', now that would be a sight to behold...

2) Torrential rain, oh so much rain.

3) Bus transfers before and after stages. Not the most enjoyable, especially given the highly bureacratic nature of the race organisors. 10:00 start, 10k transfer, therefore 7:30 bus. Yeeaahh. Great. Then we get there and sit around for 2 hours then the buses return from the second leg (which we were not informed of) with all the Malaysians smiling thanks to that extra hour of sleep. Reminds me of Cadel's Spanish wheel change last year!

4) 10k neutral sections before stages at 15-20 k per hour. Yep, when you have a 220k stage coming up there is nothing more you look forward to than 30min of neutral. (sarcasm intended)

5) Starbucks. That's right, I went there.

6) Curry. Yum

7)  A block of cadbury given to us to lift our spirits pre stage.

8) Lots of space on our flights given the random 3am departures and arrivals.

Now it's back to the essay!

Jono

Malaysia

Some reports from the race are here, if they are not there yet, they should be soon!