Top shop win

Owies work just won an award at Aucklands Top Shop Awards

Training May to Aug 08

a couple graphs summarising my training of late

Distance Per Week May to Aug 08

Time Per Week May to Aug 08

Ironman NZ 2009 – Fundraising

Hi,

I’ve set up a web page at http://www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/BrendanGray/

Come support me as I participate in Ironman NZ 2009 in an effort to raise funds for Breath4CF.

Spread the word – please forward this email to your email address book so that the Breath4CF really benefits from my efforts.

Thank you,
Brendan Gray

Londoners Urged To Dust Off ‘dormant’ Bikes

Londoners Urged To Dust Off ‘dormant’ Bikes – BikeRadar

To further develop cycling in the capital, the Mayor and TfL are investing a further £55 million in cycling this year – up from £36m last year. The money is being invested in cycle routes, cycle parking facilities, a bike hire scheme to make cycling accessible to all, education, adult and child cycle training, and cycling events.

Boris Johnson, encouraged Londoners to dust off their dormant bikes as he launched the capital's 'Summer of Cycling

WTF? That is fantastic. And this is in crappy ol’ London not Sport Billy New Zealand. Here in NZ we get a massive 1% of the total transport budget for the entire country.

<strong>New Zealand transport strategy takes baby steps</strong>

This week the Minister of Transport, Annette King announced that the NZ Transport Strategy’s (NZTS) combined target for walking and cycling is 30% of all trips in urban areas by 2040, almost double the present figure. To help meet this target, the budget for walking and cycling will more than double over the next ten years.

But CAN is questioning the government’s targets and timetable for change.

‘The government needs to increase walking and cycling much faster than at present if it is to achieve a more sustainable transport system within decades,’ says McKernon. ‘Baby steps are simply not enough.’

CAN has developed a 9-Point Plan outlining immediate steps towards meeting NZTS targets
There are 1.3 million cyclists in New Zealand. These cyclists alone account for about 5% of all kilometres travelled per year. As noted, dedicated funding for cycling and walking (combined) is about 1% of the total, and will remain so for at least a decade.

Come on, when the hell are the powers that be wake up, smell the exhaust fumes and realise the benefit to everyone in promoting safe cycling throughout the country. Every cyclist on the road means 1 less car. 1 less car means traffic flows just a little better – repeat 1.3 million times and you get the picture.

Let alone the health benefits, etc, etc. Hell if we actually gave our cyclists and athletes safe cycle routes then maybe, just maybe, NZ’ers might be that much stronger on the international sporting stage? Look at how well Spain did in cycling at the Olympics, in fact a lot of the Europeans. Their Governments actively promote cycling (with actions, not wishy washy words as our NZ government and transport departments seem to love to do) – look at the results!!!! Come on you idiots, why dont you go on one of those jaunts you love to do and go check out the excellent cycling programmes, routes, schemes etc over in Europe and bring them back to NZ, and while your at it, why not try and improve upon what others have done rather than reinvent the wheel as you usually do.

WAKE THE HELL UP!!!!!

NZ Cycle Safety 9-Point Plan Petition : [ powered by iPetitions.com ]

Guys, can you all do me a huge favour and get in behind this e-petition to improve cycling safety in NZ.

NZ Cycle Safety 9-Point Plan Petition : [ powered by iPetitions.com ].

Petition to: Hon Annette King, Minister of Transport & Minister of Police; and Hon Harry Duynhoven, Minister of Road Safety, Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand

Recent cyclist fatalities in New Zealand have shown that we need better infrastructure and behaviour on our roads.

I support the Cycling Advocates’ Network (CAN) 9-Point Plan for Cycle Safety.

Saturdays Long Ride

The long rides are getting there, slowly but surely. The focus at the moment is time in the saddle, not speed nor distance. This will happen in the months to come.

Saturdays long ride

Training

Well its a mixed bag really when its come to reporting progress on my Ironman training.

Cycling’s coming along some, with 4hr+ rides the past 2 Saturdays in the pouring rain and a 3hr+ ride the Saturday before. Riding to/from work most days has taken a hit from all the bloody crap weather we’ve had of late, so usually just a 1.5-2hr ride on Wednesday mornings before work and the odd ride to/from work. Now that spring is approaching, and the weather the last couple days has been great, I hope to increase the frequency of these rides.

Swimming has been very average, I’m sposed to be doing a couple swims a week but did nothing last week, and only 1 swim the week before. My coach had me up around the 3k a session mark but I’ve had that dragged back to 30min easy sessions as I’m so far behind on his schedule it aint funny. Got in a half hour swim today, distance is increasing as are the number of lengths swum at a time which is slightly encouraging.

Running wise has been ok, not great but not bad. 2x a week 1hr+ runs are the flavour at the moment, which along with the long rides, has my heart rate coming down to a much more pleasing number which gives me confidence the fitness is slowly getting there.

I guess the thing I gleamed from the last Ironman I did (IM Austria back in ‘06) is not to panic, just keep up the training and aim for consistency and frequent sessions.

Slowly but surely………

Fenner 3rd in World Championships

Congrats to our mate Mark on a fantastic result – great stuff mate. He’s been up training up a storm in Canada for a few weeks now in advance of the champs and thoroughly deserves this awesome result.

Fenner 3rd in World Championships

« Fenner’s Total Performance Training Blog

Just a super quick post as I am a little tired. After an epic race of gargantuan proportions I came in 3rd overal in the elite 24 hour world championships. With 2 laps to go I gained 2nd place and then proceeded into an epic battle with Jason English for the silver medal. Aussies got 1,2,3,4 and smashed the world the three of us finished on 16 laps in pouring rain and massive thunderstorms, climbing over 35,000ft in the process. A full report to come and with many thanks to everyone that helped me make this happen. I would also like to say a super big well done to the new Aussie World Champ James (Willo) Williamson mate you da man.

We’re back and its Tour time

After a week snowboarding in Queenstown we’re back in sunny ?) Auckland.

Whilst it was awesome to get away from work and we had a great trip, the snow was pretty average with only a good afternoons riding backcountry on the Remarkables. Next time there’s no way in hell we’re going during school holidays nor so early in the season. Having said that, unless they get some pretty good dumps of snow over the next few weeks it could well be an early finish to the season.

Check out the pix on Flickr

Now that I’m back I can get into some serious Tour de France viewing. We don’t have Sky, so I am just watching the daily highlights on the CyclingNews Tour site and sneaking off to mum & dads to watch it on Sky on the odd occassion.

I’ll leave you with this pix of the crazy tour devil man – he’s almost always out there, courtesy of Boston.com

Queenstown photo’s

are dribbling up on the interweb now, check ‘em here;