Urban Max

After last years super wet race, this years race had super fine weather. Dekiru Yo this year featured YY as the running mate and things didn’t start all that smoothly, with YY turning up hung over from partying the night before which could mean a long day. We managed to combine the teams with Andrew/Julie, Tsalina/Luke and formed a huge team of six to race as well.

First stop this year was to meet at Sydney Aquarium. We boarded a cruise boat taking us to the start of the race, which was to run to the opera house from circular quay. Once there we set off to decipher the clues. This year’s race seemed to take us a lot further out of town than we expected, which meant more running for the dumb and more buses for the smart. Of course we were the dumb ones.

The checkpoints were Harry’s Café for a photo, followed by a wharf in double bay, Centennial Park, Mission Australia to use the Motorola Phone to take photo, Paddy’s Market’s and build a puzzle, Travel & Adventure expo to use the new Bluetooth headset, KGV to shoot some hoops and kick a goal, a boost juice to guess the taste of the flavours, Pyrmont Fish markets to find the Aboriginal Culture boat (major issue here, explain later), then over to St Leonard’s Climb fit to do some rock climbing, back to North Sydney to find the Rag & Famish (but no free beer), and then final destination in Glebe for a historical park, clipped and after also collecting donations of $10 from the public we ran back to the finish at Sydney University.

The race was hot this year and we ran heaps of it, due to stupidity. The biggest error we made was trying to outsmart ourselves and look for the Aboriginal Culture boat in its normal docking place of Circular Quay. So we basically ran Bridge street all around circular quay to KGV and then ran to the fish markets. Woohoo!. But after locating this we still felt pretty decent as we saw the race leaders at that point. But, alas we still had 3 checkpoints and they had 1.

But today was a fun day, especially racing in a bigger team. Managed to have heaps of fun which was great and also felt real good after the race, so my fitness must have improved heaps. Even ran back to Pyrmont from Sydney uni after the race and then got a quick shower and then drove up to Hunter Valley for Mel and Jehan’s wedding. The 3 teams managed to finish all together in a poor time but still lots of fun. Can’t wait til next year!!

Flying Monkey's, Sudoku and reading errors.

The TEVA race was again held in Belanglo State Forrest, but this year there was no rain. Nice cool weather. Dekiru Yo now features the talents from Jindabyne. Dan & Yuli had both made the trip down to race with us. Few other teams we knew were Just Trippin (Luke/Tsalina and Adam Chase) and Stir Fried Dragons in Black bean sauce (Cherie/Vonnie/ Yoo Yong).
The start was quite frantic with a prison break required for us to get 3 “get out of jail” cards and release our other team mates, this took a while scrabbling around but eventually we got out and were off and racing.

This race we all felt great, however once again we were destined to learn a valuable lesson again. Last year was , to bring a pump and spare tube. So this year we did that, but this year’s lesson was to READ INSTRUCTIONS PROPERLY.

At Checkpoint 10 we were doing really well in 3rd place, after overtaking team Just Trippin due to our superior Sudoku skills. We didn’t read the instruction of splitting up the teams and everyone doing different tasks. In the end this cost us a good placing but we managed to rally and come back to finish strongly.

Some of the memorable challenges completed by the team were Music & Movie name deciphering which Yuli and Dan absolutely smashed, Sudoku which was cleaned up by us in 4 minutes, building a sling shot and flying some monkeys, and sorting ourselves through a tight rope mess.

The last clue was the good old “GO DO BE” decipher code. After running into the dam, and getting the code we had to do a run of around 1500m and tell a volunteer the code of “GO DO BE” however after 15 minutes of trying to convince him that “GO DO BE” was the answer we eventually managed to get the answer he thought of “GO TO BE” so we ran home to the finish line and jumped for joy! (except the photographer had gone home)
Just Trippin managed to come home in 2nd place in the Mixed and 8th Overall to take the prize of the Shoes, while Dekiru Yo, finished 8th Mixed/19th Overall and Stir fry dragons in black bean sauce finished 38th Mixed/70th Overall. So overall was a great race and heaps of fun which is awesome, can’t wait to do more races. Its so addictive, if only the body could do what the mind wants.. ahhhhh dreams..

Dress Sense.

Have you ever been asked what your style is? Here is an extract from one of my favourite movies "Enter the Dragon":

Set on an old Hong Kong Junk as they sail toward the Han's Island. With an Irish fighter trying to assert his dominance, and the man, Bruce being super cool!

Irish fighter: Whats your style?
Bruce Lee: My style?
IF: Yeah!
BL: The art of fighting, without fighting!
IF: art of fighting without fighting? show me.
BL: what here?
IF: Yeah.....
BL: don't you think we need more room?
IF: where then?
BL: On that island, we can take this boat.?
IF: OK!

Then we see the fighter get on boat first and Bruce lets out the rope and wins the fight!!

Anyway don't know what the point of that is, but was thinking about dress sense and dress styles. What style do you have. And I was thinking that My style is unique. Currently most people see my style as being Linebreaks (full length tights) and shorts. Usually when i'm working out I will have my Linebreaks on and if not people say "hey whats going on? you ok?"

After the workout I'd just go out to eat with them on and walk around with no care in the world. This is usually followed by all the gawkers scoping me out, most likely thinking damn he looks sexy, but probably thinking "look at that knob".

But it seems that the trend is catching on. After our latest jog, Cherie seems to have joined the elite athletes class and got herself some linebreaks, and last night she wore them as we went for a jog ot the city. However this time I didn't bring them cause I had beach gear. So after we finished we walked around the city which wasn't too embarassing for her, but then we needed to eat. So we decided on the fine dining place of Coronations Hotel (nothing that fancy) But as we walked in, I was wearing my boardies and T-shirt, Cherie insisted that I go in first so people don't see her in the linebreaks. You could feel her embarassment building!

I agreed but as she walked in after, the eyes came a looking! Everyone was checking out this funny looking girl wearing shorts, training top and full length tights! Was pretty funny, especially when the place seemed a bit fancy for a pub. Now if only I took a picture!! No wonder she wanted to get out of dinner so quickly!!

One person converted leads me closer to my quest to get everyone in Linebreaks!! SPONSOR ME LINEBREAK!!

The Great North Road.

Well it was a fine day today, sunny, blue skies, not a cloud in the sky. However it was also going to be hot.

The plan of attack today was to ride the Great North Road down in Wiseman's Ferry. The team to tackle it this week consisted of the Andrew's (Graham & O'Brien), Rich, and me.

Started the ride at 9:30am and the heat was pretty mild. However the first thing on this ride is a climb to start it all off. Was about 2km uphill stretch with a lot of water bars along the way. The pace was decent as we all started to warm up and then now at the top riding along flatish areas, we got to the first exciting section with Andrew Graham launching over the handle bars after dropping down a few rocks and fully clearing the bar by about 1m and landing on his feet. (8 out of 10 for dismount, but 10 outta 10 for landing)

After about 1hr and a bit of riding we had our first problem. Puncture. Easily fixed. We decided to patch the tube, they were pinch flats so we had to cover both slits. Obi had a new special fast stick patch which we used after trying to change one tube with an older patched tube. That didn't work so we had to try patch the old one. Eventually we managed to fix them and started to use the new pump that I got which pumps at either "high volume or high pressure"

Eventually we got the tube inflated and we were raring to go. We had reached close to the peak of the climb and now rode down another 200m and the intersection to head down to Clare's Bridge. Decision was quickly made to head down this track and then ride back up. It should take us 45 mins return.

emphasis on the "SHOULD". about 2 mins into the downhill and everyone ripping down. Graham swerves to the side and all you hear is PSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTT.... there goes the back tube again.. and its game over.. another few tubes and patches later we get it going.

Now finally riding down past the buddist retreat/sanctuary and down to Clare's bridge we stop and have a nice relax. Clare's Bridge is basically 4 mass stone blocks with no actual bridge. Looks kinda cool.
Finally after relaxing, enjoying the serenity, we headed back. It was a nice gradual climb and the pace was ok. But we still have one more moment of madness.

This moment involved a quick downhill section, and Rich decided to fly down the harder bit in the middle that everyone avoided and lo and behold carnage. Firstly front wheel straight into a rock and boom!! Rich over the handle bars and still clipped in. This resulted in a flat tyre and busted elbow. Well its come down to patching the tubes as all our spares were gone. But Rich's rear derailuer is having a problem and is not changing properly so uphill is a drag. Eventually tho we make it all the way back and the final down hill section begins.

This last section was pretty uneventful but heaps of small waterbars to jump off which was awesome. Only thing was one corner i took a bit wider than i wanted and almost ended up in a ditch. But all in all this ride is damn good. Hard start as you just go straight up but very enjoyable. Make sure you bring water tho, as its long and dry. Do it early too as it does get super hot.