After a slow and interrupted start to the year, the last few weeks have been pretty good and my training has been progressing well. I've been aiming for three weeks on, 1 week off - so three weeks of increasing amounts of work, then an easier, recovery week - and it's been working well so far. I've another 'on' week this week before my second 'off' week since getting my knee sorted out.

I'll be spending most of my time in France and Italy climbing which is pretty tough to prepare for here given that there are no decent mountains within range of Sydney. The closest are the Blue Mountains, but they're still a two hour drive from my place and the climbs are still nowhere near as long as those in the Alps. I've had a think about it and figured that the best thing to do is to ride long efforts at a certain power but at low cadence. My current FTP, or best average power for one hour, is around 290W, so a good rule of thumb is to climb at around 80% of that, or around 230W. Given my weight and available gearing, I'm likely to be climbing at a cadence between 70 and 75rpm, so I've been doing longer rides at the weekend aiming for sections at 230W+ at a cadence around 70rpm. In a 4.5hr ride on Friday I did a solid 2hr continuous section in the middle at an average of 234W and average cadence of 73rpm and felt OK afterwards. I'll build on that as the weeks progress.

I've started back on interval work as well the last two weeks and my knee is holding up well to that which is a big bonus. At the moment I'm only doing 5 x 5min intervals at 280-290W but I'll increase the duration gradually to give my knee a chance to adjust slowly. They're still bloody tough!

My weight is fluctuating between 85.5 and 97kg which still leaves 7kg to try to shed before getting to France, so I'm going to have to start being really disciplined with food over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to buy new super-light wheels for my bike which will make a difference as the ones I have are solid, heavy training wheels. A new bike would shave off 2kg or so, but I don't have a spare $5000 at the moment so that will have to wait :-)

Anyway, it's nice to be able to report some decent news for a change and to string together a few consistent weeks without complications, so long may it continue. The best news is that I'm already as fit and as light as I was the last time I went to France, but I still have eight weeks to get fitter and lighter.

Not much positive news to report recently. Training hasn't being going well, with my knee issues recurring out of the blue at the end of January, after only a couple of weeks training. My right kneecap was scraping on cartilage during the ride, which was painful in and of itself and resulted in swelling and some mild pain for a few hours after a long ride. Not good, and most annoyingly, the last time I went to Marmotte, it was the left knee which was acting up.

I booked an appointment with Blair Martin to get an updated bike fit and a physio's perspective on what was causing the problem, only to find out that I'm not using my arse properly! Cue fart jokes and the like...

It seems that I'm not using my gluteus medius, which is supposed to be used to stabilise my pelvis/upper body while on the bike, leaving my gluteus maximus, quads etc. to actually put power to the pedals. Since I'm not using it, my gluteus maximus, quads, etc. are doing dual duty of supporting my body and putting power to the pedals and, as my body adjusts to this awkwardness, the point of 'failure' is my knee. Ergo, I need to do some arse exercises!

After a few minor adjustments to my position on the bike I felt much more balanced on it and left with a few pre-ride exercises to do to activate my gluteus medius (the idea being that it gets used at the start of the ride, and with each successive ride it remains in use a bit longer) and a few post-ride stretches to do as well.

So, after that enforced break from training I was keen to get back into it, but was warned to take it easy; no hills, no intervals and no indoor trainer. A week later, one or two minor tweaks to position and I was feeling good and wasn't noticing any knee issues on the rides anymore. Just when I thought I could move to the next stage and add a little more distance, I come down with a cold/chesty cough. Since the general rule of training while sick is that it's not OK to train if the cold is in your chest/lungs, I've been off the bike since last Friday as well now!

Comparing my training from my last trip to France in 2010, despite being way better prepared in November, I'm now in about the same state as I was in 2010. The only positive to come out of all of this is that I've been fairly diligent with food intake since Christmas, so I'm now 86kg instead of the 89kg I was in 2010. I went to France in 2010 weighing 86kg, so at least I have three months to drop a few more kilos. After all, climbing is all about watts per kilo, and at least I've been able to improve the kilo side of the equation, even if I've been unable to work on the watts.

Anyway, my cold has almost cleared up, so I hope to be back on the bike tomorrow for an day ride at least.

As well as getting out on the bike, I've decided to get back in the pool, albeit purely as some recovery sessions from my bike rides. I'm also aware that all the exercise I'm doing is leg-based, so my upper body isn't doing anything and going for a swim is infinitely preferable than hitting the gym to lift some weights. I'm not training for any swimming events or following a structured plan, just aiming to get in and swim a few easy laps on a regular basis.

That being said, I want to get to the stage where I can complete 40 x 100 FS off 1:45, averaging 1:30. That's a reasonable "all year 'round" level of swim fitness as far as I'm concerned, though a long way short of what I used to be capable of! Still, that's the initial target and I'll re-evaluate once it's reached.

The plan is to do two swims a week and to just get in and start swimming 100s off 1:45. No warm-up, no drills, no messing around. Just in, swim until my arms are wrecked and see how I go.

I did my first session last week and it was a bit of an eye-opener! I took the first 100 nice and easy, concentrating on getting some feel back for the water and ended up with a 1:22. I was pretty happy with that and figured things might not be so bad after all. However, the second 100 was 1:29 and I was starting to feel it in my biceps/lats and after six I needed to stop for a rest :) My arms were wrecked, as if I had been lifting in the gym and just had no energy/pwer left. After a couple of minutes break I managed another four 100s, then another break followed by a final two 100s for a total of 12. If I'd managed 12 straight through I would have been happy enough, but the two breaks put a dampener on things.

Second session was today. I resolved to take things a bit easier on the first few 100s, so swam a 1:29 for the first one followed by a few around 1:31 or so. I got to six and felt OK, then felt a bit better after 10 and suddenly all was well and I knew I could swim many more. I decided to call it a day after 20 having averaged 1:32, though I still felt reasonably good. I just didn't want to totally drain myself and end up skipping my bike ride in the morning.

Still, a rapid improvement and felt a bit more like a swimmer again. Next session is on Thursday which will hopefully be more like today than last week.

With all the running around getting finance and documentation together to buy the apartment, followed by time spent doing work on the place and being available to let tradies in to do their thing, cycling has taken a back seat since November. That was annoying as I'd built up a decent bit of fitness to handle the 180km+ of the Gone Ride Return and had hoped to build on that leading in to Christmas. Alas, it was not to be, so once again I begin a new year in a relatively unfit state as evidenced by the graph below.

The blue line is a measure of bike fitness, being the amount of work done per day averaged over the previous 3 months. It declined from a peak of just over 60 in November, to just above 20 in the New Year. The pink line is the average work done over the previous week, which fluctuates a bit more.

Anyway, it is what it is. I'm off to Europe this summer to ride my bike in the Alps again, so, the rebuild begins!

The big news in the last six months is that myself and Jacqui have bought an apartment. After a few years of half-hearted looking we finally found somewhere that we liked enough to actually bid on.

Jacqui always wanted a bit of outdoor space, so a courtyard or garden was a must. She spotted ana apartment in Maroubra which looked great. Decent sized garden, recently renovated, move in, nothing to spend sort of place. It met all the requirements, so we got our finances in order and headed off to the auction.

The agent had quoted an expected price around $520k, so, Aussie agents being what they are, we knew that would probably be a bare minimum. Although this was our first auction, there were found being held at the venue before ours, so there was plenty of time to get a feel for how things were running. Standard procedure seemed to see lots of frantic bidding, then a pause when it appeared it was finally down to two buyers, but then the serious bidders would come in and the final stage was reached.

When our auction started I figured I'd bide my time and see what happened. Bidding started at $450k and I was hopeful of getting the apartment for a decent price, but it quickly ended up at two couples duking it out at $540k. After the "going twice" announcement, I started bidding and we ended up bowing out at $570k. Damn! I was a bit disappointed, but Jacqui was heartbroken.

Back to the drawing-board, or so we thought. A couple of days later the estate agent called us to say that the owner of the apartment next door, in the same building, wanted to sell. We went to check it out and it was identical in layout and size to the apartment we'd missed at auction. The only downside was that, while there were no structural issues, it was a rental property, so would need a complete paint, a new kitchen and a few other things done to get it up to the standard we wanted.

Luckily our bid of $525k was accepted and, after all the legalese was over with, we picked up the keys on November 23rd. Here's a few photos of the state it was in when we bought it.

With the help of Jimmy, my builder mate, we quickly worked through the major items needing to be done so we could move in before December 10th.

• rip out carpets and built-ins in both bedrooms
• rip out carpet and lay a wooden floor in my office
• install many extra plug sockets
• sand & white-wash the floorboards throughout
• prune the trees in the garden and get rid of the weeds

Here's a few photos of the work in progress. We've now moved in and had a BBQ/housewarming on NYE which went pretty well. We've a new kitchen on the way, plus a few final touches to sort out before the major work is finished. More photos to come!