This is a deceptive photo, because it feels like it has been raining and blowing a gale for way more than 40 days and 40 nights here in the Southern Hemisphere. On top of that, it will be about 12 weeks before we start to see the weather improve and spring start to arrive, AND no Christmas to break up the dark long winter! I much prefer the seasons the other way around!
This week also marks our last public holiday till October, making winters in the Southern Hemisphere feel really really long indeed!
We went for a stroll on Monday Queen’s birthday, public holiday) along the estuary. It was one of the first walks I did after my knee replacement and I remember the slightly uneven surface feeling really hard work. I can safely say my walk speed is returning to normal (almost) and I now no longer walk down even the smallest slopes like a geriatric! We walked for 90 mins – all relatively flat, however I was pleased to see that the knee held up great, and it was just my muscles that started to get tired. It takes a lot longer than simple rehab to restore the damage done by years of pain and loss of function while waiting for this knee replacement.
storm damaged boardwalk 
Estuary costal track
Sad to see that the boardwalk has still not been repaired after the huge storms we had a few weeks back, looks like the tidal forces were strong enough to knock the platform off its piles slightly, but it was still secure enough to walk over.
Work and Social Media separation
It has also been a crazy busy week at work, so I am pleased to have peace restored by the fact that I can turn the work phone off at the end of the night. It was the best thing I have done in ages to separate the two. I separated it all into two Facebook accounts, a personal and a work one, plus separate email accounts on both phones and separate phone numbers. I think that we seem to have come a full circle with digital media lately. When the endless ability to be connected to everyone was first realised on the internet, suddenly it seemed that everyone seemed to expect you to be available to be contacted multiple ways all day and all night.
With recent privacy related court cases involving Facebook and so on, I certainly have seen a change in how people use social media. It used to be a way to rant about anything and everything. It has changed drastically and many of my friends seem to have rolled back to the old way of doing things rather than living out life on social media. This has also seen a change in how businesses and staff in public service jobs respond to customers, I know a lot of people that operate two Facebook accounts and have two phones.
My next step needs to be restoring the work – life balance in a physical sense and restrict the amount of hours that I am available! Because at the moment it is not balanced! Oh the joys of being a business owner!
Fitness plans for the Aquabike race
Although I do not always achieve everything that I want to in my weekly training plan, I do always do the long ride, without fail. I am also working on a mix of distance swimming and speed work in swimming, again, I do not always achieve both but I can easily cover the 3km distance needed for the race so at this stage I am not worried.
As for the bike, that will be a much bigger challenge. At the moment, my goal is to gradually increase the length of the long ride. The challenge at this time of year is the amount of daylight we have, so my cycling has been indoors for quite a number of weeks now. In fact I think the last time I was able to ride my bike outside was actually over a month ago! I do admit the motivation to ride is much more difficult when you are always sitting stationary inside the garage!
Today was 3.5 hours: the longest training video that I have is 3 hours. So now I enter the realm of having to use more than one training video back to back! Ack! My aim is to keep extending the ride till I get to 4.5 hours, then start increasing the pace incrementally. At this time of year, that would be almost a whole day of daylight…. if the weather was ever to behave for long enough. I think my riding will be indoors for a while yet!
Any ideas for how to stay motivated when I actually don’t go anywhere, please comment below!
2.5 hours in 
bionic knee is fine! 
Kiwi cat guardian
Physiotherapy
I have actually been discharged from physio now, which is really awesome! I was paying a private sports physio who says he has now done all that he can, the rest of the fitness based improvements are over to me! So, the knee is no longer a factor, just me, my fitness and my determination! Let the games REALLY begin!
