Week 6, Halfway and learning to fly !

Today is the day I hit the halfway mark and how good am I feeling?! This week I was worried I would lose some intensity but if anything I have stepped it up. My training is going great and my healthy eating is better than ever with big thanks to the guys at Hexey, they are definitely saving me from stress on those full on busy days. My results on the scales were twice as good as my previous 2 weeks with a lose of 0.7 kilos and I am really happy with how things are going so far.


I mentioned to Chappy, one of the trainers from Shift60 the other day that the one thing I missed and craved the most was Pizza, Crust, Half, Gralic prawns & Half Peri Peri Chicken pizza to be exact. He explained to me why this might be. Scientists did an experiment many years ago using rats. They had little vending machines filled with numerous little balls containing addictive substances and each time a rat wanted one they had to push the button 1 more time than the last for another one. So say for example a rat wanted a sugar ball they hit the button once and 1 would come out but say he wanted another one he had to push the button twice then if he wanted another one he had to push the button 3 times, and so on and so on. He was telling me the statistics on some of the highest hits which were Salt, about 350 pushes of the button. Sugar, about 450 pushes of the button. Cocain, about 550 pushes of the button. But the highest of them all was a ball that was a combination of Sugar, Salt and all the other nasties that go into pizza and guess what the score was... Wait for it... 1250 pushes of the button. That rat was willing to push the button 1250 times just to get one little ball of guilty pleasure. Now me being the smart arse that I am I turned to him and said "just imagine the arm workout the rat was getting right there, he must of had some bloody big guns". But it really put things into perspective.


Friday rolled around so quickly and wasn't it a beautiful day. I was out having a fun little surf on my SUP (stand up paddle board) in the afternoon when I got to thinking. Doing these Super Fun Saturday Sessions have been so instrumental in keeping me sane. They give me something to look forward to each week, are something different, always physical and a lot of fun. The other plus side is they keep me from thinking about having a beer on a Friday and by the end of them I'm usually to tired to think about a beer on Saturday night. Its really easy to fall into a vortex of back to back booze filled weekends. I'm so stoked that I found the 12WBT, it's given me a whole new lease on life!

Friday @ North Bondi = Bliss

Saturday morning started with my usual Shift60, Full throttle class but I had another fellow 12WBT'er come along for the ride. It's Melissa's first time on the 12WBT program and I could see by her glowing smile she was loving life. She ripped right into the class and gave it everything she had. When she sent me the below picture on twitter after the session I was so proud of her. Good on you Melissa, hope to see you back there next Saturday !

Melissa's stats after Shifting for 60 !

I had to bolt out of the class 10mins earlier to get to work at Bondi. Hoppo had rostered me on to do the jet ski water safety for the first ever, 12km Bondi to Watson's Bay paddle race. It had over 200 competitors on all sorts of ocean craft like Ski's, SUP's, OC1's and even surf row boats. Hoppo was racing on a ski with his good mate Tommy. They took out their double ski division and were the 4th craft to cross the line. Not a bad effort for a couple of 40+ year olds !

Race Course

Hoppo and Tommy powering along

Kailan on the other lifeguard Jet Ski

From work I had to bolt again, I was off for my date with the circus ! This weeks Super Saturday Fun Session I was teaming up with my good friend Amelia Burton and her mates for some high flying antics at Sydney Trapeze School.  Apart from being one of the greatest Australians I know, Amelia is very flexible and athletic with more competitive drive than soon to be 11 x world surfing champion Kelly Slater so there was no way I was getting lured into any "who can do the craziest trick" bets. My goals for the session were to hang on, have fun and not get hurt. We had the best time learning tricks and achieving things we never though possible. The crew at The Sydney Trapeze School are friendly, helpful and a very talented bunch, they take their safety very seriously which is very comforting to know when your standing 10 meters off the ground about to launch yourself into the sky on a trapeze. Its something I reckon everyone should definitely try. I think its pretty safe to say I won't be running away with the circus anytime soon but Amelia on the other hand just may have found her calling!

After a good nights sleep I was back down at Bondi for work at 6am this morning. The Sydney International Food Festivals, Breakfast on Bondi was kicking off. What an amazing experience. Sydney siders were welcome to join celebrity chefs Bill Granger and Hayden Quinn along with some thrilling didgeridoo players and a 50 piece orchestra to have breakfast on the beach as the sun rises. Unfortunately the clouds were being party poppers and we didn't get one, Bondi's famous for. The huge crowd was still buzzing (except for the ones waiting in the coffee queue's) and everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. I also got to meet some lovely ladies from the Sydney Chapter of the 12WBT gang. I forgot to ask them what they were having for breakfast but I have no doubt it was healthy !

Busiest I have seen Bondi @ 7am in a while !

Heading into week 7 I'm going to do a 800m time trial in the pool, It'll be good to see how close I am to achieving my goal of breaking 11mins. In the weights department I'm also gonna ramp it up by trying to lift heavier weights with less reps. I really wanna bring the thunder in the second half. Bring on the next 6 weeks, I'm coming to smash you.


Happy Lazy Sunday everyone !


Reidy