Labels

I've finally gotten round to indexing my blog. So now if you want to view all posts on a particular topic, just select the appropriate label. I've broken the posts down into the following :-

• Beer
• Bikes
• Cheese
• Food
• Life
• Music
• Running
• Skating
• Travel
• Work

Which isn't a bad selection of things to be writing about. Life is good :). Was in two minds about splitting out 'Beer' and 'Brewing' but can always do that later if need be.

Most posts are linked to a couple of labels - this one is linked to them all so you can have a starting point. Have fun!

Barefoot loop

For the last 6 weeks or so I've been slowly (very slowly) extending the length of my barefoot run. Up until now I've been doing an 'out & back' route but last night I finally reached a distance which would allow me to run around the block - a mental milestone* as it feels like you're actually getting somewhere

It's funny how long it takes - 10 minutes or so of warming up, 10 minutes wandering around outside waving my phone in the air waiting for a GPS signal, run for almost 5 minutes, stretch for another 15. But nontheless, I now consider myself enough of a barefoot runner to post this

*Actually 'milestone' is a bit of a misnomer as the loop is only 0.75km long. 'Half-milestone' is probably more appropriate.

Catching up with a few beers

Because I've been away a bit recently the brewing has been neglected, so yesterday I took advantage of the wet weather and spent an afternoon of beer-related fettling.

First off I bottled the 'Saison am' that's been sitting in secondaries completing it's fermentation for a few weeks. This just needs labelling and then I'll leave it to sit for a few weeks.

It's a sign of how keyboard-orientated I've become that writing less than 30 labels leaves my hand cramping 

Next I racked off the 'Saison Du Noir', which finished it's primary fermentation last week and has been patiently sitting in the fermentor. This was an experimental recipe with darker malts and as you can see it looks very different to my usual pale brews - in fact it's pretty much a porter (which was accidental) but brewed with Saison yeast (which was not).

Despite it's dark appearance it's also a lot weaker than my regular beers. Most of the time I brew using a 'partial mash' method where I extract sugars from grains (the 'mash') and then supplement this with the addition of pale malt extract, but for this one I reduced the amount of malt extracts. Unfortunately the mash didn't seem to be very efficient which will leave me with an understrength beer (about 3%). I thought long and hard about adding extra sugars in some form but eventually decided to leave it, and the result is fairly 'thin' tasting and doesn't match it's looks. We'll see how it turns out after a week or so in secondary and then a couple of weeks in the bottle.

That left me with an empty fermentor with a 'yeast cake' of Saison yeast in the bottom

Normally I'd either wash this away or scoop it out into sterile bottles and store it in the fridge. But the rain was unrelenting so I thought I'd make another beer and pitch it directly onto the yeast, which saves a lot of faffing around.

My initial ginger beer was almost gone and had been very refreshing in the heat, although it has been fermented to dryness which some people thought it a little 'thin' and sharp (don't worry Miff, Rach & Gordy -  I've still got bottles for your professional opinions). So I thought I'd expand on that recipe and combine two different summer beer styles. Initially I peeled 1.2kg of ginger, which because the ginger was superbly fresh gave me just over a kilo of clean root (missus).  

I blended this and added in 2 lemons, 2 limes, 6 cloves and some cinnamon bark. But this time instead of a kg of raw sugar I added 1/2 kg of pale malt extract and 1/2 kg of wheat malt extract (along with 1kg of brown sugar and 1/2 kg of lactose)

I boiled this up for 1 hr and added 2 chopped and partially deseeded birdseye chillies 10 minutes from the end. Then after cooling and straining I poured it directly onto the yeast cake. You could almost hear the yeast gnashing it's teeth and salivating in anticipation, and a few hours later the whole thing (wrapped up in a towel for warmth) was bubbling away nicely.

Bit of a one-dimensional photo - I'll leave you to add the once-every-five-seconds bubble of the fermentor and the all-pervading smell of ginger. 

Views

Don't want to accuse the client I'm with at the minute of being out in the sticks, but this is the view outside their office...

just a little hotel

I'm in Sydney again, this time out in 'the hills' area. Staying in Baulkham Hills, working in Rouse Hill. It's a small and intimate hotel..
The hard bit will be not exploiting the time difference and sending spoilers about the reality TV show we're both sadly addicted to back to Liz. I can't believe they served that up!

Aural crack

Die Antwoord are a rap / rave band from South Africa who released their first album '$0$' as a free download a couple of years ago using a pc computer. They became an overnight internet sensation and this year have taken it to the next level with a new album Ten$ion and it's accompanying single 'I Fink U Freeky'.

I'm not sure whether the band is a high-art meets low-brow project, an extended joke at the expense of it's fans, a cynical attempt to boost their sales through the addition of an unnecessary shock factor a la Marilyn Manson or just a bunch of musicians pushing their boundaries and following their muse down whatever twisted alleyways it chooses to lead them. Either way it's music that reaches inside your brain, grabs your frontal cortex and doesn't ever stop shouting into your inner year.

The clip below probably isn't safe for work and definately isn't something to watch with kids around. It's probably also worth skipping if you don't like 90's styled rave, rap, bad language, bad haircuts, bad tattoos, rats, snakes, gangster posturing or South African accents. If anyone is left, welcome to your new internal soundtrack.....

Go on Marin - just one more listen.....
   

Birthday weekend

It was my birthday last week, which is why we were down at Burleigh Heads for a long weekend. We had a hotel by the ocean, so the balcony was a great place to open presents

 and have birthday 'cake'

 The Burleigh Surf Pro was on and on Saturday the crowds weren't too bad so it was easy to get a clear site of the action

Although we found the time to head over to Currumbin beach (and their surf life saving club) for a change of scene

 

The next morning we got up early to beat the heat and went for a walk around the Burliegh Heads headland. The final of the surf competition was that day, so we sat and watched some of the finest surfers in the world freesurfing as a warm up.

 Oh and a guy on a long board stealing some waves too.

Burleigh Heads is around 15km south of 'the Matrix' (or Surfers Paradise as some call it) and you can see it looming in the distance, but the vibe in the town is still calm and relaxed

 The headland itself is a small clump of local rainforest split by a couple of tarmac paths

with some stunning viewpoints - Looking south to Currumbin beach below. It was weird - all the people we passed walking up from here were older couples, families or people struggling to draw breath. Everyone that passed us from the Burleigh side was young, fit, toned and athletic. I wonder if they have a residency test? 

 There were some stand up paddleboarders enjoying the early morning waves rolling into the river mouth

 although the serenity was probably broken by the guys in a boat jumping the same waves

 Back at Burliegh the surf competition wrapped up with Julian Wilson winning, Josh Kerr second and local legend (and ex-world champ) Mick Fanning third

 Julian seemed pretty stoked, with a cool trophy and a cooler $15,000 cheque

 It's weird for anyone from the UK to think of surfing as being a popular spectator sport, apart from the obvious joys of watching idiots wade out into near freezing Welsh waters on a rainy Easter weekend and complete for blown out 2' waves in the rain. Over here it's much higher profile, and it's funny watching these guys get mobbed by ranks of muscular tattoo'd fit-looking blokes queuing up for autographs like kids at a Justin Bieber concert

The next day we sadly had to go home, but we broke the journey with a game of putt-putt (aka 'crazy golf') on a jungle course

I took this photo from the safest place on the course - the hole

Not actually true, Liz potted 4 holes in one and I was lucky to scrape victory. It was fun though - they even had real life lizards in the holes

After that we checked out a sand sculpture competition - the theme was piracy

and then sadly it was time to head home. Great weekend though - thanks to all who sent presents & best wishes!  

Dropping in for a coffee

We're at Burleigh Heads this weekend and we've just had breakfast at a restaurant in one of the finest positions I've seen...

We had the empty table you can just see next to the window. You could feel the spray from the ocean when the waves were breaking. It's also the Burleigh Pro Surf competition this weekend and our hotel is just a very short walk from the beach so expect many many photos to come.....

Key Fob Saviours

I've got a Series 2 Land Rover Discovery and it's getting on a bit. It still runs well, but last month the buttons on the key fob collapsed

I've been paranoid about the insides getting wet when I'm away from home, shorting out the electrics and leaving me stranded. I got in touch with Shane at TechnoBritish, my local Land Rover man, and he in turn recommended a product made in Perth by Polmex  - a silicon cover that pops into your keyfob and only takes 10 or 15 mins to install.

I ordered via Ebay and the package arrived a few days later, along with clear and easy installation instructions. I've just fitted them and they're great - and about $480 cheaper than getting a new key.

So if you own a Land Rover Series 2 and your key fob collapses, give Polmex an email. 

My shoes are awesome

Kitty asks

so obsessed with those...shoes?


i saw a guy wearing them in singapore and decided that i MUST have a pair, but jonny was all dismissive and, "they'd smell so bad." but... but! i love them! do they smell? WHAT ARE THEY LIKE? what is life like when you're that person who wears those shoes? when i saw the tourist in singapore i said, "he must be french."

can't you go barefoot running on nice grass? keeps you run-fit and allows for "grounding" or "earthing"...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XumPQLTzPWI


please note: i have family members who wear crystals and say things like, "i really like his energy," and they are all, "i'm just gonna go walk barefoot on the beach, i need to earth, you know?" so maybe grounding / earthing is one of those new-agey faux-physics-y things and it's all nonsense and i have no idea? it can't hurt, though.

The Five Finger shoes get a lot of questions (warning - clip contains rude words)

They're comfortable to wear and they feel good to walk around in but they're hard to put on, especially at first. You need to train your toes to go into the correct toe, and if you try to rush and pull them on quickly you end up wedging two toes into one hole - which isn't comfortable. Mine don't smell, but then again a) I've not used them much and b) I lived in a house with four other climbers for 5 years so I don't notice that kind of thing. There are lots of jokes out there about 'how do you get the smell out of your vibrams' so I guess they will get worse over time, although you could wear Injinji socks. They also dry pretty quickly so you could wash them regularly & easily.

 

The main problem with them is that you suddenly become 'that guy'. It's hard to wear them in public and not feel like you're an attention-seeking freak - or worse, French. I took them down to Melbourne a couple of years ago for Skate Melbourne and still remember the utterly disgusted stare a suited-up businessman gave me as I walked along Swanston St. 

 

They're also apparently the cause of a lot of 'barefoot' injuries. The sole is fairly thin, but still thick enough to take the sting out of running on tarmac. Which is good in some ways, but also allows you to run further than you would with no shoes at all and that can lead to injuries. You run barefoot with a different gait and use different muscles - more much work from the calf - and tender soles mean that you naturally limit your runs to distances that are less likely to cause injury (I'm up to 600m now! Woot!). Vibrams take away that feedback loop. I've read that if you can't run the distance barefoot, you shouldn't be running it in Vibrams.

 

Running on grass is also a good idea, but again 'they' recommend you start on tarmac as the feedback to your body is more immediate. You know if you heelstrike, very quickly, and you adapt your gait to suit. Sand or grass is more lenient. Besides, every time I've tried to ground myself & connect with the earth at out local park I end up stumbling into a patch of bindis, getting swarmed by inch-long ants or being bitten by something too small to see but which still leaves my feet itching for days. Over here, tarmac is safer..... 

Needs more Viagra in the potting mix

The barefoot running posts and funky running shoes have stirred up some questions that I want to answer. But I'm mid-brew right now (a saison d'nuit) so thought I'd lighten the mood with a tree I saw down by the river yesterday :)

The evil blue roller of extreme uncomfortableness

Everybody over 30 who works out in any way will have their own favourite 'alternative' therapist, and mine is the team at Osteoworks in Kangaroo Point. Over the years John White & Rebecca Edwards have used their osteopathy talents to help me cope with backache, neck pain, scoliosis, hip pain, shin splints and even a thoracic hernia. They also have a kick-arse massage therapist on the team - Peta Payne is both an excellent skater and a masseuse who has worked with national and international sporting teams. Kick arse she does - if you request a remedial deep tissue massage she slips a strap of leather between your teeth to stop you chewing the upholstery on her table. And as well as being very good at their jobs they're also all lovely people, which is good because if they weren't so nice you'd probably end up punching them to stop the pain during treatment. So if you're suffering from muscular aches & pains, give them a call and see what they can do and say hello from me*. Unless you're the regular US or Russian reader of this blog, in which case a it's a bit far to go. But please add a comment on how you found me - sadly I suspect they're just web-bots.

Anyway, I visited Bec on Tuesday to get my knee looked at. It turns out it's not particularly my knees fault, more my feet, legs and hips have become a mess of tangled tightened muscle and overstretched tendons, and that's putting unusual loads on my knee. Running will do that to you (I blame Nike). Bec started to loosen everything up using what felt like trigger point therapy, finding knots of twisted muscle fibres and leaning heavily into them with pointy elbows & fingers whilst I stared into middle distance and mentally retired to my 'happy place'. It may not be pleasant at the time but it really makes a difference when it's done.  

She also recommended the use of a foam roller at home to keep everything loosened up.

Blog readers will now be divided into two camps. Some will be looking at the photo wondering what it is, whilst others will be hiding behind the sofa hardly daring to look like a kid watching Dr Who meet the daleks for the first time. The idea is that you lay on this innocuous looking thing and roll your tight muscles back and forth across it. It's not so bad on the front of your legs, but most people who ride, run or walk will have a very tight Iliotibial band (IT band) which is on the side of the thigh. I'm supposed to roll for 60 seconds on each side, but currently I can only manage one full roll before I'm whimpering in a corner & planning to throw the thing over the balcony.

*Note - Bec doesn't agree with barefoot running on tarmac & concrete, so if you do see her keep mum about that bit ;)

Barefoot running

'Born to Run' was an interesting read. The basic premise is that the high injury rate in running is due to the use of heavily padded running shoes. These mean that people are able to run with a heavy heel-strike, which in turn puts excessively high stress loads on the legs, ankles, knees & hips. Heavily engineered shoes were only introduced in the early 70's by Nike and people were running for centuries before then, so ironically those expensive technology-laden shoes could be causing more injuries than they're fixing. The answer? Barefoot running.

Of course it's not as easy as that. You can't just take your shoes off and run, as most feet have been softly pampered over their lives, although admittedly less so in Australia where thongs and waking barefoot are more common. I've been doing some digging around and I've had some suggestions from other runners, and the important thing is to very carefully transition into barefoot running. To the level of 'run 200m on concrete or tarmac and see if it hurts the next day. If it doesn't, increase the distance to 250m. If it does, rest until you feel OK and then run 200m. Repeat.'. That's the kind of exercise regime I can cope with.

It's a weird feeling running barefoot but it's quite gratifying. You very quickly adjust your gait so you're striking on the sole or toe area with your foot under your body, you increase your cadence to match and you become very aware of the road ahead. It's also incredibly quiet, instead of the flap flap flap of normal running shoes. My longer term plan is to continue to run trails once a week and slowly increase the distance I'm covering (in normal trail shoes), but also to try to include one or two short barefoot runs a week to improve my running style - and just because it feels good. I'll post up how I get on.

There are various shoes on the market which are 'minimalist' and which are supposed to either help in the transition to barefoot, or alternately give a slightly padded alternative. I already own a pair of Vibram 5 fingers which are very funky looking shoes - I got these as lightweight shoes to wear so I could walk around after skating

These would make it slightly more comfortable to run on rougher surfaces, but for now I'm staying barefoot as apparently you're more likely to develop a safe running style when there is nothing between you and the world below. Although I'm hoping to work up to a trail run in these later in the year. I'd leave yowie tracks.