Inderjeet Pabla

Life has been extremely busy last few months with there being only 24 hours in a day and so much to do. While work takes almost all of Monday to Friday, I have been able to devote the evenings to my general fitness, trying to sweat it out in the gym. While I am not particularly fond of weight training, I have been hitting the treadmill on fairly regular basis (THE ‘Three Things‘).

I started running about three months ago and I could barely run for five minutes at a stretch and I had to stop for at least five minutes to catch my breath. It is really amazing what you can achieve once you put your heart and mind to something. I have been talking to my colleague who is a good runner and does about 70-75 kms per week. With continuous tips from him and my willingness to stretch myself as much as I can, I am now able to run 11 kms in about 70 minutes (I do slow down a couple of times all right!).

The pace averages to about 6.5 minutes/km which is not too great but my emphasis has been on the mileage as my goal is to burn the excessive calories so the distance ran matters, and not the pace (at least for me).

One of the problems of long distance running, as I have come to realize, is the niggling injuries here and there, the body starts to complain if you do not get proper rest or if the diet is not right, which is the reason I have been out of practice all this week. I was looking forward to run The Human Race, which I think I will have to leave for some other day. Will keep trying though.

…I need to concentrate on:

1. Watch what I eat (and drink)
2. Get some exercise
3. Follow 1 and 2 religiously before it gets too late

I, along with a few friends, went to Wilsons Promontory last weekend. For those who do not know, Wilsons Promontory is the southern most part of the Australian mainland and boasts of beautiful beaches with white sand, mountains and stunning scenery.

The Prom, as it is popularly known, has a number of camping sites which are required to be booked before you actually go there and start camping. For those not-so-interested-in-camping, alternative accommodation is available at nominal rates at Yanakie (the nearest town to Prom), Foster and Fish Creek etc. There are numerous activities that you can undertake depending on your interests. Some of them include but in no way are limited to bush walking, mountain climbing, surfing, diving and off course - beach cricket.

On our way back the next day, I thought is was only wise to make the best of the opportunity so we went to Phillip Island as well. Lucky for us, there was a motor show at the Phillip Island MotoGP circuit and we feasted on some of best cars I have ever seen loaded with all the accessories you can imagine. However, on the other side we were too early to get a glimpse of the world famous Penguin march as it only starts around 9pm and it was not possible for us to wait for so long as we had to be back by evening. May be next time.

Here is the link to some of the pictures.

With only 200kms south east of Melbourne, Wilsons Prom is a perfect getaway for the weekend and have some time off from busy city life.

- Bike ride in the morning
- BBQ with friends in the afternoon at Studley Park Boat house
- Magpies vs the Lions in the evening (Collingwood won, YEAH!!)
- ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ late night show (Jack Sparrow is funny)

Priceless.

After hoping from one site to another in search of a ‘not-so-expensive-but-decent’ bike for about a month, I finally managed to get a 24-speed mountain bike from www.melbourne.gumtree.com.au. All of AU$90, it is quite good and is in perfect operational order.

My first ride was not so long as I felt like taking a break after every 10 minutes which was partly due to the fact that I have not been upto much recently and partly because of the roads in Melbourne going up and down hill.

This Monday onwards I will ride to work rather than taking Connex trains which have most recently been marred due to break failure incidence.

Just another reason to start riding to work.