UPDATE!

Update

As you may or may not know, I am proudly serving in the Royal Australian Navy as a Marine Engineer. Well, the time has recently arrived for my ship to deploy. I’m going to be vague about those particular details, but needless to say I’m going to be away from home, and my amazing wife, Winnie, for many, many long months.

Excuse a few memorable moments with my amazing wife.....

Charles Bridge, Prague

The night we got engaged

The smile that melts my heart..

Happy Memories - 11-12-13

 Winnie, Happy Anniversary in Advance - I Love You xx

Langkawi, Honeymooning

Coco's on Perhentian.... 

Ok, now then... where was I? 

This year I’ve set myself many challenges and I’ve risen to them all. I’ve finally had my honeymoon with Winnie, run and cycled my way through personal goals, and given up unhealthy habits. As such, I believe it’s made me stronger – both emotionally and physically. Besides, behind every self-actuating, hard working and successful man is the real hero - the wife. Winnie has endured me through everything, and I love her more than she'll ever realise. To the moon and back, baby.

The physical side is easy: train hard, take your nutrition seriously, rest and maintain hydration to see drastic development. Emotionally, I’ve been on an interesting journey. The emotional journey has been phenomenal really. I’ve been separated from Winnie many times this year due to work and I’ve taken that on the chin. I’ve had my homesick days, but I’ve learnt to balance things. I’m even getting used to my new scruffy beard and new family nickname (from my nephew) “Pirate”!

I’ve continued with developing my understanding of myself. I’ve kept up with my affirmations and techniques learnt through Neuro Emotional Technique sessions with the Peaceful Warrior and Miss Maddy (her awesome substitute), I’ve meditated and tried not to take things too seriously. I’ve become strong through that training and that’s really prepared me for this deployment, my first ever.

In my preparations I’ve developed a healthy diet and a serious gym habit, which I’d say is a pretty good exchange for junk food, movies and excess drinking.

I’ve pretty much given up the use of the word “try” and I that’s helped me to become more accountable for my actions / decisions. Let’s not forget those immortal, embedded words of Michelle Bridges:

“JFDI – Just Freaking Do It!”

Sore is definitely the new Sexy, and it’s my mission to maintain this whist on deployment. I want to be a role model for health and positivity. My blogs, due to the nature of my work will be sporadic or released in bundles as we bounce around the Australian coastline (whenever that may be)…so don’t lose interest, and look out for my posts when they pop up!

Days 81-83 - Weekend Fun

Home at last. Friday afternoon was spent driving back up to Sydney. Friday night I relaxed, enjoyed my rest with Winnie and prepared for a big weekend of sport, fun and training.

World Cup Football 1

Saturday I planned to get up early, watch Australia vs Chile in the World Cup, then study, then train in the gym (a quick 30 minute session) with Winnie on her lunch break, since she was working all weekend.

I did all as planned. I'm liking sticking to my plans, it lets me see how organised I am plus I feel satisfied that I achieved all I set out to do.

Micro Circuit

30 minutes in the gym is not long to get a good workout, but never the less we gave it our best. It seemed logical to get a few pre-loaded barbels and head to the circuit/cross-fit area of the gym. There we proceeded to run 2 minute intervals of bicep curls, shoulder press, overhead tricep dips, push ups, sit ups, v-sits, lunges, squats, track-starts. After, noting the time we did 4 sets of the big rope, making waves with it for 2 minute intervals with 20 second rests between. After we raced the sled things - mine had a 25kg plate on it, Winnie was using an empty one. We were pushing, not pulling, the sleds up and down the astro-turf area. This was how we finished.

A micro circuit, I need to work on making the best use of time, but it got a sweat on us both and we got to spend some time together...which is what it is all about!

Roosters vs Knights

Saturday evening Winnie and I went to see the Sydney Roosters play against the Newcastle Knights. This was a pretty good NRL game. Sydney were losing, then in the second half they stomped all over the Knights. The Roosters ended up winning 29-12 in a really good game. The weather was pretty chilly, which meant lots of cuddles for the wife - again another reason to go to Friday night NRL with Winnie! Plus its pretty good entertainment....

World Cup Football 2

This morning I woke up extra early to set myself up to watch the Three Lions take on Italy in their opening game of the world cup. At the same time, my sister called me on FaceTime - we were then able to watch the game together. Is it me or is technology making the world seem a lot smaller - AWESOME! A devastating first game in terms of the result for England, but a few good lesson learnt. I look forward to the next game!

A Little Run

This morning, post football, I headed out into the wind and rain to run another long distance training run. I was aiming for 25km. I planned to run from my house to La Perouse, around past Bare Island, and then up Anzac Parade to Maroubra....and back the way I came.

This was a tough run, the wind was sapping my energy, the rain made me feel heavy. Then there were the long hills, short steep hills and half way I realised I had only had a smoothie for breakfast! Lucky I stocked up on electrolyte gel products this weekend.

This run I was trialling a new product, called Clif Shot Bloks. There's 6 in a pack, thats the equivalent gel of 2 liquid gel sachets. I used 3 bloks during the run, staggered over the 158 minutes of running. I did as recommended and sucked the yummy black cherry flavour gel blocks and chewed little slivers as I ran. This reduced the workload on my gut as I ran.

Post-run I smashed a protein shake with added L-Glutamine, and chased it with an electrolyte gel. This was another new product, made by Torq Nutrition. This gel was recommended to me over the weekend, so I gave it a try. It was wicked, great tasting, easy to swallow, less thick than any of the gels I've tried thus far. The real benefit was the less-artificial tasting flavour, which was Rhubarb and Custard. I was very impressed, and my stomach has had no signs of being affected by this or the Bloks.

 My stats for the run were interesting.  Average Heart rate was 148 bpm, the average pace being 6:04 minutes per km and the time, 02:38:58. My speed / pace was a lot slower than normal, but there could be many reasons why and I'm not too bothered. I burned something close to 2500 calories, and needed to eat a fair amount before I felt satisfied tonight!

Days 60-62: A Well Earned Rest...

Home. Where My Heart Is....

This weekend, seemed to take forever to arrive but I guess that's the way it goes when you're waiting for something awesome to happen. For me, this weekend was about going home to see my wife, and spending quality time with her. Being a serving ADF member means that home time really needs to be all about the quality, since the duration is never all that long....Devoted to my wife, and making every moment count, I planned to spend every second having fun, and that's why I've been quiet all weekend!

We did the usual, visited various yummy restaurants and ate (carefully in my case) delicious meals. A regular haunt of our is Ayam 99, which is the best Indonesian food in Sydney...in my humble opinion! We also, got to try some new places too. Winnie is bound to blog about them on our other blog Eat.Travel.Dive, so I'll not steal her thunder!

The best part, not including the amazing time spent with my wifey, and also with family too. We hung out with IronRay, Queen Filsie, and Winnie's parents. More amazing than that, however was the various amazing, yummy raw/vegan/suger free/dairy free treats that the Winster prepared for me.... now that is awesome! For recipes check out our other blog... 

There were Chocolate Fudge Bites, Healthy Snickers and Blueberry and Orange Zest Cheesecake.... Did I say these are all healthy! OMG I know, right? AMAZING!

Who could resist this?

Time to Train Together

Winnie and I actually like to train together. We bounce off of each other, we keep it fun and we always share the "pain". Saturday afternoon was no different, since quality time also means that we train, or go to yoga...We chose the gym before dinner.

Shoulders and Abdominal Smash - so I run my darling wifey through an endurance workout, and after 90 minutes of hard work, she rated it an 8/10 overall. I'm happy with that. The workout however, did get a bonus mark too. You see, Winnie has decided she wants to build her upper body strength and core strength to enable her to do hand stands. We ended our workout with 3 sets of against the wall type. Winnie was very anxious about doing this, so I assisted her in getting up then guided her through it. We're a pretty awesome team, I know this because she reciprocated in ensuring I didn't knock the wall down on my turn. I can get into the position, just have to throw myself in!!! My third set was what Winnie called "hollow back" which is apparently an achievement...

Shoulder press up (mid push up)

Hollowback?

Anyways, time for bed. I have a big week ahead - hopefully culminating in graduation from this course I've been on since January..Plus, another week of endurance training.

Oh, and I'm thinking of signing up for the following fitness events, if you wanna join in let me know...I'm sure training and doing will be fun.

1. Sydney City 2 Surf (14km Run) - 10Aug14
2. Sydney Marathon (42km Run - but there are other distances) - 21Sep14
3. Husky Olympic Tri (Swim 1.5km, Bike 40km, Run 10km, Sea Posting Permitting) - 02Nov14
4. The Cole Classic (2km Ocean Swim, Sea Posting Permitting) - 01Feb15
5. Husky Half Iron Man (Swim 2km, Bike 83km, Run 20km, Sea Posting Permitting) - 22Feb15
6. Port Mac Iron Man.... or Melbourne.... ??

Well, thats the plan....am I crazy?

Days 24-28 Easter Burnies!

Easter Burnies

Well, what a weekend - spent with my amazing wife! We did heaps of fun fitness activities, and had lots of quality time together. I love my wife, she's my One in a "Minion"... lol :)

My Awesome-ly NERDY Wife!

Climbing

So, Good Friday, was really good. Winnie and I woke up, went for an early run, nothing crazy just a nice easy 5km run. I t was good to get a nice leg blast first thing in the morning. Took us just over half an hour (31:03) and we were running at a fairly comfy pace of 6:03 per km (9.9kph).

Nice Wake Up? Cool Running Pants!

After a nice breakfast (huevos rancheros) that I prepared for my awesome wife, we headed over to St Peters to the  Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym, for some climbing fun. We decided this would be an ideal way to catch up with Mr Hon and and his bro, so we met them there and got straight into climbing and catching up with whats been going on for us over the past few months.

I wanted to upload a video, but blogger seems to be struggling post easter...I will add to Facebook / you tube at some stage... or if I can Blogger - I may need to edit it to be a smaller movie.... sad face :(

Just so you know....The video I had put together was edited, but I'm not great at that, and was pretty shaky due to the Go Pro being on my hand (goodman handle) whilst climbing or belaying. 

Climbing Video Link

Between this climbing session and the last (pre NEOC) I have increased strength considerably, last time I struggled to do some of the climbs, and especially hauling my fat ass up the overhangs! This time, I made light work of most, but some tested me still. Winnie and Mr Hon made all the climbs look easy!

It was good to catch up and do something active at the same time. Good upper body workout, lots of sweat and a few slips due to sweaty hands.... fun fun fun!

Ocean Swimming

Saturday morning, Winnie and I met up with our Bruv - Ironman - and  went for a little ocean swim. Initially, we were due to swim at Malabar, but weird swells and rips made it look like a washing machine...interesting for my first proper ocean swim! So we headed over to La Perouse for a gander there... the bay, inside of Botany Bay, near to the cafe on the beach (the boat shed) was ripply but calm enough to have a go.

Of course, Ironman was in his triathlon swim wetsuit, whilst Winnie and I were in out bathers - oh yea I hit the ocean in my speedos! I swam, rather struggled to swim 1km, which was 4 lengths of the bay, in pretty chilly water (reminiscent of ocean temperatures in summertime in the UK) in 36:58 which wasn't too shabby - but way slower than my normal Cerberus pool lap speed!

It was good to get our training done early, so we could enjoy the new Captain America movie at IMAX in Darling Harbour. A great afternoon wind down!

Killer Arms

Sunday morning, well most of sunday was spend doing fitness and fun fitness. In the morning, Winnie took me to Maroubra Junction Fitness First (on a guest pass). In return, I pushed her and I through a long arm workout, using the cables and free weights. We worked triceps and biceps to death!

A short while after returning from the gym, we picked up Winnie's  dad to take him with us to Centennial Park. He set off on a walk around the perimeter whilst we went for a run. We did 8km (just over two laps) in 47:20 at an average pace of 5:51 per km (10.2kph). It was good to get the extra kilometres on my legs, and practice my slightly slower than normal pace for long runs... although Winnie thinks its slow due to running with her, but I disagree! I'm trying to get my pace and heart rate to be consistent on long runs - My heart rate didn't exceed 145bpm and my pace was slower, so next run I want to see if I can push my heart rate up a touch without going too much faster....I know what I'm trying to achieve.... I think!

Crank It Suspension Fun

After a light snack with the Fong-Girls (and Archie), I set up and started trying out our new Crank It Suspension training kit. Its basically a slightly improved TRX set up and so we did the usual stuff then Ms Pole and Winnie were doing some Pole moves using the kit, then Ironman was demonstrating some fancy strength moves... We were having quite a lot of fun, whilst getting an all over workout.

Ironman being Ironman

Me trying to be

Me doing a weird chest press..

When I got home my arms were throbbing, and I was feeling a pretty good ache to let me know I'd given myself enough. I dosed up on BCAAs and some aminos and ate some yummy food (sushi) with Winnie and her dad.  A great way to finish our easter holidays!

I like this, its got depth.