Livestrong Junkie

Over the past few months I've turned into a bit of a Livestrong junkie.

It all started quite innocently enough, back in June, when St Pete and I went to New York for a week - a prize I won with Qantas and radio station MoreFM.  While there I came across a Livestrong bike jersey in a sports store and decided I had to have it.  I've always admired Lance Armstrong and the work he's done with the Livestrong Foundation and I figured I wouldn't see many of those jerseys back in New Zealand. 

So the jersey duly returned to New Zealand with us and became a regular feature on my long Sunday rides.

Not long after I started thinking about getting some new sunglasses.  I had a new aero helmet for Ironman and it fitted close in around my face and I had been finding that my sunglasses were slightly too wide to fit inside the helmet comfortably.

I was quite keen on Oakley's Jawbones and as luck would have it, that model comes in Livestrong colours.  It only seemed right, then, that this should be the pair to get, to match my cycling jersey.

In rapid succession followed the Radioshack limited edition 28 jersey.

This jersey was designed for the Radioshack team for their final day of the 2010 Tour de France and has the number 28 on the back, in honour of the 28 million cancer sufferers around the world.  Because they didn't get it pre-approved by the Tour officials, though, Radioshack were forced to remove the jerseys before the race started and had to ride in their regular red and grey colours.  At the end of the day Radioshack claimed the Team honours for the tour and the jerseys finally got an airing on the podium and gained enough notoriety to be in hot demand by Livestrong/Radioshack/Armstrong fans worldwide.

I admired the jersey along with the rest of the world but never dreamed I'd see them on the racks in Scotty Browns in Christchurch.  All reports were that they were being released as a limited edition and it seemed pretty obvious that they'd be snapped up well and truly before heading to this part of the world.  It was an opportunity then too good to pass up and one was added to my ever-increasing Livestrong collection.

The latest addition has been the Giro Ionos Livestrong Helmet.  Completely unnecessary (there was nothing wrong my with previous helmet) but the balance has shifted to an extent now where I can only think of myself as a Livestrong Junkie and so must have the entire collection...if Lance's Giro Livestrong aero helmet ever appears on the shop shelves then St Pete had better hide the credit card!!!

Speaking of St Pete, he's being slowly sucked into the Livestrong collector's vortex and has ordered his first Livestrong products...along with Livestrong bike pants for me, all on their way from the Livestrong store in America!

Watching Le Tour

As I write this we are about two-thirds of the way through one of the most iconic and well-known bike races in the world, the Tour de France.

I've always enjoyed watching the tour, but this year it's also become a great training tool.  Over winter the wind trainer and my old bike have been set up in the lounge so I can do 60 minutes of spinning on the bike in the evenings.  This is a great example of how ironman takes over your life...!  The lounge is great as I can at least watch some TV while I'm pedalling away - it can get pretty tedious on the wind trainer with no changing scenery and no changing terrain, so the TV at least provides some distraction. 

Anyway, the Tour de France has added another dimension.  Each day the last 2 hours of the Tour are replayed on Sky Sport and Coach Dave has been recording each stage and taking them to Jim's garage where we have set up our wind trainers and bikes for "Le Tour de Garage".  Most evenings between 3 and 8 keen cyclists turn up and we do a 60-90 minute spin session on the wind trainers while watching the coverage of the Tour.

As a bit of fun we have our own points classification system - points for turning up and bonus points for various things, such as wearing tour gear and having particularly exotic beer in your bidon cage.  The Tour de France cap I brought back for Pete last year has had a couple of outings at Tour de Garage and pizza turned up another night which added a new dimension as we tried to imagine the logistics of eating a slice of pizza while biking the ironman leg in the style of Dean Karnazes, who famously eats pizza on his all-night training runs.

An added interest has been watching the teams and I've been following Team Radioshack, Lance Armstrong's team.  Lance is completing his final tour and had some back luck early on in the race meaning he isn't going to be one of the top finishers this year.  However he leaves a real legacy and is taking the opportunity to enjoy the tour and acknowledge the fans along the way.  I really admire what he's done for cancer research, which is something really dear to his heart, and look forward to seeing how he transitions to ironman next year.  Kona 2011 will be interesting!