Thank You

I started this blog on November 16th, 2008. One year later, there have been 187 posts, 247 comments and quite a few visitors. In fact, the numbers of views has risen from 25 in  the first month to 6889 in October. It’s been a pleasure sharing my various adventures and misadventures with you over the past year. I’m glad that some people out in the world wide web have found them informative, interesting or amusing.

Not sure what the next 12 months will bring. Hopefully I’ll visit some beautiful places, meet some interesting people, learn a few kanji, and take a couple of really good photographs.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Triathlon Biker

Triathlon Biker

An unfair advantage…

Last weekend I went for a bike ride with my friend Tom. He was visiting from California, and as a keen cyclist wanted to get at least one good ride in while he was in Okinawa.

The problem with riding with Tom is that he is simply too fast. (Tom has ridden at 66 miles an hour while facing backwards on a recumbent tandem bicycle!) To give me a fighting chance, Tom started 40 kilometers away, riding my old heavy mountain bike. When he reached  my house I joined him on my road rocket and we did a 70 kilometer loop up to Nago City and back.

It was a great ride with fantastic weather, and we were both able to maintain a similar pace.  The joys of an unfair advantage.

Ready to start (after Tom's 40km warm up)

Okinawan Bus Driver Kills Boy

From JapanUpdate Okinawa’s weekly English newspaper:

City bus strikes, kills bike-riding youngster

Date Posted: 2009-06-25

A seven-year-old boy is dead after being run over by a Nanjo City bus Monday afternoon.

Nanjo City Police say the fatality occurred as a city bus driver on the Baten Branch run in Tsuhako, Sashiki area of Nanjo City, on Route 331, encountered the young boy on a bicycle in front of him. The bus driver reportedly tried to get the youngster, Kousei Chinen, to move to the side of the road, and tried to pass him. When the bus driver sounded his bus horn, the noise surprised the elementary school student and caused him to lose control of his bicycle.

Chinen fell from the bicycle, and beneath the bus. The driver, realizing what happened, stopped the bus about 100 meters from the accident. A passenger aboard the bus ran to the youngster, saw his school nametag, and called him “Kousei chan, Come on, please. Can you hear me?” The boy was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died less than two hours after the accident.

The bus company says the driver has a long record of safe driving, more than 20 years. The company says he was an expert driver, but police say they’ll now investigate.

 

This whole article amazes, angers, saddens, infuriates, but does not surprise me.

 

Blast your horn, run over a kid and then stop 100 meters (300 feet) later!!! Expert driver!!!

 

Some of the worst driving I see on Okinawa is committed by truck drivers, bus drivers and taxi drivers. 

 

I hope the police send a photo of the little boy to every truck, bus and taxi company across the island. 

A presidential fitness dvd

On March 7th several friends of mine did the New Zealand ironman triathlon. John, Isla, Charlotte, Anna and Perry all swam 3.8 km, rode 180.2 km then ran 42.2 km. Impressive and inspiring stuff, but I am not even close to doing a full triathlon myself.

I  recently began my very own “get fit with Jed Bartlet” program. There are numerous celebrity fitness DVDs on the market but this one is a sure fire winner. Follow the simple steps.

• Purchase the The West Wing box set. I got mine on Amazon in a special sale for 75 dollars. (HMV in the UK had it for 50 pounds)
• Set up bicycle in front of computer on trainer. (I am using a friend’s 1up trainer)
• Get on bicycle and pedal away while watching all 45 DVDs
• Purchase new trousers because legs have doubled in size.

I am nearly at the end of the first series, and really enjoying it. I think my legs are getting stronger and my back is slowly getting used to being in the aero position. When the university term restarts and I begin my Ishikawa – Nago commute again I will find out if it is having any effect on my time.

 

Political Pedal Power

Seat of Power

Over the last month I have done my 40 km bicycle commute 4 times. My time dropped from close to 2 hours to 1 hour 38 minutes for the ride there, while my fastest ride home was 1 hour 30. (The university is at the top of a hill.)

I’ve learned some important things about riding:

• When it’s cold, riding faster warms up your muscles but the wind chill means you are still freezing.
• Most car and truck drivers are very considerate and give cyclists a wide berth. However it would only require one idiotic / sleepy / distracted driver  to make a real mess of your shiny bicycle and limbs. Defensive cycling is an necessity rather than an option.
• Riding in the rain is fun the first time, but the novelty wears off fast.
• There is an infinite number of varieties of asphalt, and a cyclist can feel every nuance through their bottom.

Fizik Arione Tri 2 saddle

The stock seat that came with my bicycle had a rather annoying squeak, and was not specifically designed for a triathlon bike. I am now however the proud owner of a new seat that is lighter, more comfortable and squeak free. One other criteria was that I didn’t want any leather or suede on the seat. In the end I chose a Fizik Arione TRI 2 saddle, it felt good for a brief spin on the trainer, but I’ll get a better evaluation after a long ride.

First 10 km run.

Yesterday I went out on my bike and, using the bike’s odometer to measure the distance, rode up the coast  for 5 kilometers. This morning I put on my old sneakers and my new Polar heart rate monitor (thank you little brother for my X-mas present) and jogged the 5 kilometers up the coast and back again. My first ever 10 km run.

My heart rate monitor gave me my total time as 1 hr 4 mins with an average heart rate of 165 bpm. Now I am sure that taking over an hour to run 10 kilometers is not a good time, but this just leaves me a lot of room for improvement. One thing I do need to sort out is that my heart rate monitor seemed to suggest that I should be training with a heart rate of  between 140 and 160 bpm. Unfortunately, for almost the entire run my heart insisted on beating at around 166 bpm. This resulted in the watch continually flashing and beeping a warning signal, the watch equivalent of Scotty shouting “I’m giving it all she’s got captain if I push it any harder the whole thing will blow.”

Perhaps a quick browse through the manual is a good idea.

Another new beginning (part 2)

Back in October I started teaching a couple of days a week at Meio University. It’s about 40 kilometers from my house to university and using the toll road expressway it takes 45-50 minutes door to door. The drive isn’t bad, but it’s a lot of time to be spending in the car, and quite an expensive commute. I decided that it might be possible to do the commute at least once a week by bicycle. I would save the money I normally spend on fuel and toll charges and I would get fit at the same time. So one sunny day, my friend Ken and I decided to ride from my house to Meio and back. I road on my beat up old mountain bike.

 

The old bike - a 12kg Australian Apollo Himalaya ladies mountain bike

We peddled at a slow but steady pace and took several brief stops at convenience stores along the way. It took 3 hours 15 minutes to get to Meio and 2 hours 45 minutes to get home. At this point it looked like the commute would be unfeasible.

The idea of doing triathlons, however,  was still in the back of my mind, particularly the bike stage.  A road or triathlon bike would reduce my commute time to a realistic amount, improve my fitness and just as importantly give me experience riding a bicycle unlike the mountain bikes I have ridden previously. I started to browse the internet looking at possible bikes. Most modern road bikes and nearly all triathlon bikes seem to be made of carbon fiber which makes them light and strong. The only problem is that the science behind carbon fiber structures is still advancing rapidly, while the criteria for determining the quality of carbon fiber frames is decidedly fuzzy. In the end I went with the old fashioned option of a metal frame but chose a very modern material – titanium. There are only a few companies that make titanium bike frames, but one company Litespeed and two of their bikes the Blade and the Saber seemed to appear again and again with fantastic reviews. ( In 1999,  Lance Armstrong, although a Trek sponsored rider, rode a Litespeed Blade re-decaled as a Trek bike for the Tour de France time trial stages – all of which he won.) Eventually I decided on the exact bike and frame size I wanted and then patiently waited for a used bike to appear on Ebay. In the end I bought a ex-demo model from the Cycle Smithy bike shop in Chicago and had it shipped over to Okinawa.

The new bike - an 8kg 55cm 2007 Litespeed Saber

Last thursday was my first ride to work on the new bike. I got up at 6.00 left the house at 6.15 arrived at work at 8.15 took a shower and was teaching classes at 9.00. The ride home was even faster taking only 1 hour 45 minutes. (Meio University is situated at the top of a hill) 

Riding the bike is great although I am not comfortable / competent enough to spend much time in the aero position yet. Slowly my fitness will improve and my legs will begin to push the larger gears. The annual Tour de Okinawa takes place next November which gives me a first goal. Beyond that who knows, but maybe in three or four years time it will be me standing on the beach in Miyako about take part in my first ever Ironman.

Another new beginning (part 1)

In April 2006 I went to Miyako Island to take photographs of the  Strongman Triathlon. I had no deep interest in triathlons myself, but as it is the island’s largest annual event I thought that I should get some images ready so I would be able to illustrate any future articles about visiting Miyako. A few of my Okinawan friends took part in the triathlon and I was impressed, if not amazed, by their strength, fitness and determination. This was a full strongman triathlon. Which means….

3 kilometer swim during which you are hit  / kicked  / partially drowned by 1500 other swimmers.

Miyako Triathlon Swim

Exit the water, rip off your wetsuit and stagger up the beach.

 

Miyako Triathlon transition

Jump on your bike and cycle 155 kilometers around the island while locals wave you on.

Miyako Triathlon Bike

Get off the bike and run a full marathon.

 

Miyako Triathlon Run

Arrive at the goal to cheering crowds and wave triumphantly ( or collapse / vomit / seek medical help )

 

Miyako Triathlon finish!

Time passed by but the triathlon remained in the back of my mind. Then this summer I realized I was already swimming a couple of kilometers each time I went for a snorkel at Cape Maeda (with a mask and snorkel and fins) I was still cycling around town on my rusty old mountain bike, and I was even jogging on most days trying to exhaust Bear my one year old chocolate lab. Doing a triathlon would simply be putting all three things together…