Letters from Mike

This week

Life

Highlight of the last week: getting away for a two day wedding/retreat with Jo, leaving the kids at home to fend for themselves. It was a lovely weekend in Flowerdale, where we relaxed, chatted to friends and just generally drank far too much. And when we got home the house wasn’t on fire, so that was good.

Training

Shit is about to get real. After a few months of “base” training (building aerobic endurance) I now need to start ramping up the intensity. And this means… intervals! Yay. I kicked it off on Monday with cruise intervals on the way home from work (4x ~10 minute blocks of at or near threshold), then hill repeats on Yarra St yesterday morning. For those unfamiliar, Yarra St is an (in)famous little street in Kew off the Boulevard that offers about 90 seconds of climbing at over 15%. Great for developing strength/force. But ouch.

This week

Life

Well I kind of dropped that ball a bit… After a solid start to my attempted weekly cadence, travel, work and then the Christmas break kind of got in the way. But I’m back now!

A lot has happened in the last five weeks. It is probably best summarised as “silly season”. An unexpected highlight was an impromptu trip to Torrumbarry on the Murray for a couple of days of camping and water skiing on the river. I’m really more of an ocean person than a river person, but it was great fun and the kids and dog spent pretty much the whole time in the water. Turns out Bandit is a great swimmer! And a great herder of people in the water who he thinks might be drowning so need to be rounded up back to shore…

This week

Life

Big week! I spent three days at the annual YOW developers conference last week (including a one day CTO Summit), which is always a great chance to step away from the usual rhythm of work and get your mind in a different place. And then on Sunday I flew to Malaysia to spend a week in our Kuala Lumpur office. It’s my first time traveling in south east Asia, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It turns KL is pretty westernised, but with awesome food. My hotel is at one end of an enormous shopping complex (with two “megamalls”) and the office is at the other end… so I am forced to shop morning and night!

This week

Life

Between work and bike riding (see below), there was not a lot of time for anything interesting on the home front this week, with the notable exception of 16 yo starting at his new school. They have an “early start” programme which gets everyone in for two weeks at the end of the year to start their 2017 classes, which I presume helps with getting administrivia, meeting teachers, finding your way around, etc. out of the way so they can hit the ground running in the new year. He acted grumpy about having to get out of bed at 7 am, but I think he’s actually secretly quite excited about starting this new journey.

This week

Life

Another crazy week in which Jo and I barely see each other, and barely have time to figure out logistics for each day as it lands upon us. Still, we seem to be getting through it without too many major SNAFUs.

Last night we managed a cheeky mid-week date night — Thai in our old Heidelberg haunt and then a show at HTC. The restaurant has changed a bit in the last 20 years, in decor and staff, but still delicious no-fuss Thai food.

This week

(An occasional missive from Mike about what he’s doing at the moment.)

Life

Family life has been pretty much “business as usual”, with Jo returning to more or less normal capacity. Eldest child has mastered the clutch and had his first drive in traffic, which apparently went well.

I am trying a new thing in my ongoing attempt to shed a couple of kilos in time for Three Peaks: eggs for breakfast. For the longest time my breakfast staple has been muesli, berries and yoghurt, which is great but the carbiness leaves me hungry by mid-morning. So I am experimenting with a couple of eggs, spinach, yoghurt and cheese (zapping the microwave for two minutes) as an alternative. To make sure I’m not missing out on the fruit, I can have the berries and yoghurt (sans muesli) for dessert in the evening. It’s going ok so far, but I haven’t done any big morning rides on two eggs yet…

Schools are about more than just education

I went to a funeral yesterday, for a middle aged man very like myself. Happily married, young kids, active life. In his case, a life cut short by an arbitrary accident. (Seriously, hug your loved ones folks, every day.)

But this is not about the funeral or the man, this is about community. What struck me about this funeral was the number of people from Steve’s life who were there because they teach his kids, run the schools his kids attend and know Steve’s family because their kids are classmates. Not just close friends and current teachers, but also the principal of a large high school, the past principal of a primary school and current and past teachers, right back to kindergarten.