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Last night I visited the Active Feet store in Heathmont and bought a pair of runners. The sales folks there are great; the girl looking after me was a final year podiatry student and really knew her stuff. After walking on the treadmill and explaining the type of walk I needed we worked through different shoes to see which would give me the best posture and gait. The Brooks Adrenaline ASR’s, a trail running shoe. After walking around the store, she showed me a different way to lace the shoe up to reduce the amount of heel slip. I also bought a special pair of socks that are supposed to reduce the chance of blistering.

Tomorrow is our first team training walk. We’re covering 18lkms on the trail (Checkpoint 1 -> 2 and back again) over some mildly hilly terrain. Weather is due to be mild. I’m looking forward to it. It will be a good initial test of the new shoes.

Well it’s Jan 1, 2009. Time to start planning for the two big personal goals for the year; completing the OXFAM Trailwalk with the teams from Ultimate and passing my Black Belt Grading in June.
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I’ve been fairly slack of late. It’s been some time since I posted anything here. And that’s not changing much now… just some additions to the photo galleries I manage.

First I have added some photos from the June adult grading to the Bushidokan photos site. See the June Adult/Teen grading link. These photos are from Fiona. I haven’t yet got the photos that Bernie took during the day.

Fiona, a friend from Karate, has given me the “best of the best” photos from her trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in March/April this year. I’ve uploaded them to a separate folder on the main gallery page.

There are some great pics there. Some amazing photo’s of Ankor Wat and surrounds, kids playing, towns on the river deltas and modern temples. Enjoy.

I’ve just come back from two weeks working in India, the first in Chennai and the second in Pune. It’s been two years since my last trip to India and I’d forgotten how bad the traffic can be. This entry is an attempt, with some video’s captured on my phone, to describe how interesting driving in Indian cities is.
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After a long work week, I spent today taking in some of the sights of Chennai. I’d checked out the usual online sources and the Lonely Planet and there wasn’t much that took my fancy. Then I found that the Royal Enfield factory is north of the city. So I combined this with a trip to the south to see Mahabalipuram.
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