Week 8, Gaining weight !

It's milestone week in my 12WBT and what a week its been ! Apart from completing all of my regular Swim, Weights and Shift60 sessions, I had a weigh in on Wednesday that went North. The scales have finally started to go the other way and I have gained 0.4 of a kilo which is good news for me. It means all the weight training I am doing is paying off and I'm putting on lean muscle. I also had some improvements in my fitness test when I dropped 15 seconds from my 1 kilometre sprint and extended my wall sit by 90 seconds. Although my push up count in a minute was 3 less than the last test, I put that down to fatigue from the serious chest and back weights session I had done the previous afternoon. All in all I'm very happy with how things are going and am looking forward to the next 4 weeks. 


Many people find inspiration from some of the greatest athletes in the world and thats totally cool but I don't think it's the only place. There is inspiration everywhere, I think it's just how you look at it. This morning I was coming in from a lazy Sunday morning SUP (stand up paddle) surf at Bondi. The sun was shining, water was warm and the waves were fun. As I walked back up the beach I saw one of the local guys, Stephen Ford, who is a legend dude and great waterman, taking an ocean swimming, beginners course. When looking at the large group he had in front of him I noticed there we people of all ages, shapes and sizes and almost straight away felt inspired. These people, for what ever reason were up early on a Sunday, down the beach, getting out there and having a go. None of them may ever win bronze, silver or gold so their only prize once they finish their first ocean swim is a sense of completion and self satisfaction and that really gets me stoked, I really love that and find inspiration in it !




Making poor choices about food when your tired is an easy mistake to make. Last Sunday I got very flustered. After a nana nap late afternoon I woke on the couch to find nothing healthy to eat in the fridge for dinner and was giving some thought to takeaway but just couldn't think of anything healthy at the time. Yeah I know some of you are saying, "Come on you can have at least one crappy meal" We'll you should know me by now, "all or nothing" and at the moment it's nothing! I ended up just getting a kebab and felt guilty as hell about it all evening. Then Monday the boys at Shift60bondi tweeted:

After reading the tweet I was like "Dam I wish I thought of that yesterday" but it gave me an idea. You can find healthy take away meals pretty much everywhere if you look hard enough so now I have started a list of healthy eat out options in the notes section my phone. I think it's a great way prevent me making silly decisions on weekends when I'm feeling lazy !


While we are on the topic's of inspiration, eating well and Shift60 I thought I would share the below photo with you all. The guy in this shot is Nicholas. Nicholas is the brother of DC and together they own and run Shift60. Both Nick and DC are constantly helping me with advice, inspiration and training tips to help me advance through my 12WBT. To see shots like this really goes to show that they know their stuff when it comes to the human body and how to train it right. Although I am pretty sure when Nick see's that I have posted this picture of him on my blog he is going to make my next few training sessions extra hard. Bring it on BIG BOY :)

Nicholas " Oooooh" Chapman

This weeks Super Saturday was exactly that, starting down at Bondi at 6am I belted out my fitness test and took the dog for a quick walk. From there I jumped on my push bike and rode up the very steep Wellington Street to Shift 60 and ripped into "Full Throttle" session. After the session a dude named Colin approached me and said he liked to read my blog, I was really blown away that he took the time out to tell me. Thanks mate, I really appreciate your kind words.

With the weather gods putting on their blue sky best, I decided to take my dog for a kayak paddle on Sydney harbour or my Super Saturday Fun Session. My friend Tommy Woodriff owns Oz Paddle down at Rose Bay. Tommy, who can be regularly seen training with or teaming up with my boss Hoppo on the double ski is one of the most respected paddlers in Australia. Now I haven't done a lot of sit down paddling in my life so Tommy gave me some tips before me a Daquiri dog headed off on a double ski. In the bay all you could see were people everywhere on all sorts of water craft enjoying the magical day, it was great. We (when I say we I should say I because Daq's didn't do much paddling) paddled all the way out to the point at Nielsen park, around Shark Island and back in. It was about 5km in total and I found pretty tough work out on my butt and lower back which Tommy told me later was probably because I was paddling a wide double ski and had to push a lot of water. It was a great way to be active and spend the morning, I highly recommend it to everyone.

Kayak Paddle

"What do you mean you want me to help out with the paddling?"

Sydney Harbour

Money might not buy happiness but it will buy you a big boat to have fun on !

Kids Sailing

Rose Bay

Big Tommy from Oz Paddle

Thinking I had done enough and was going to spend the rest of the day on the lounge, I went home, put some eggs on the boil and kicked back. No sooner had the egg timer gone off, my phone rang. It was Corey O and he yelled down the phone "Winds up brother, LETS GO PADDLING" so I was off again, doing a sprint paddle down the harbour. Ocean down wind paddling is so much fun and something myself and a few of the other lifeguards got into through a good friend of ours, ex Gold Coast lifeguard and 10 x World paddle board champion, Jamie Mitchell. Jamie is one of Australia's best watermen who probably spends more time in Hawaii than he does back here in Oz. After watching his amazing achievements and seeing how much fun and free it looked I just had to give it a try. First paddle in I was hooked. 8 months later I was booking flights to Hawaii for the 2010 Molokai 2 Oahu World championships. Some of the other lifeguards from Bondi competed also which made it one of the best experiences of my life. I put together a video from my trip to Hawaii. It's about 17mins long but some of the underwater stuff I shot with my Canon 5D Mk II is pretty amazing.

So Corey and I started our paddle at Watson's Bay, heading into the wind up to the nudie beach at Lady Jane. Corey said it was because he want to make the paddle longer but I reckon he just wanted to see some nude people ! We then paddled all the way back to Rose Bay chasing wind chops. Its always awesome but  this Saturday had a little element of danger. The harbour was packed with big sailing boats racing, these boats don't have breaks and if they're gonna crash into you your always going to come off second best. We did make it back okay but I had to hide behind a lighthouse for 5 mins while a fleet of about 20 boats missed me by meters ! Corey flogged me by about 10 minutes and was sitting on the beach with a cup of Tea and his feet up waiting for me when I hit the beach but I didn't care, it was loads of fun !

Down wind paddle

Boards are longer than the car !

2 x really short men

Paddling into the wind SUCKS

Corey loved it !

Saturday night the stage was set, myself and some of the other lifeguards were off to Wentworth Park Greyhounds to compete in our annual sprint race on the track for charity. It's televised nationally on Sky sports racing and there is quite a large crowd in the grandstand so pride is on the line and everyone wants to win. The last time we raced Maxi gave all the boys a hiding so we were all pretty keen to do better. Unfortunately this year was similar with him smashing us again but the real winner on the night was charity with Maxi donating his $500 prize cheque to his charity, Canteen. Its always a really fun night with the fabulous people at Wentworth park really looking after us with dinner and drinks, thanks a lot guys and gals. Special thanks also to the crew at Body Science for supplying us with some great compression wear for the race. We all seemed to run a lot quicker, including Maxi unfortunatly ! 

Bondi Greyhounds ?

Yak Yak Winner

Quick Greyhounds

Serious race reparation 

Some of the boys backed a few winners !

It's now 2pm and I've been working on this blog for the last 4 hours.Starting to get cabin fever so I'm gonna close the Mac and get out and enjoy this beautiful sunny Sunday. I will definitely be wearing extra sun screen today though after yesterdays scalding.

Pass the Aloe Vera please...

Thanks again for tuning in for another week, hope you all have a great day :)

Reidy