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First Ultra-Marathon Hitout - The North Face 100 2010

Background



I've never been close to a good runner. Growing up around Cronulla, water sports (particularly kayaking) were much more appealing than running, and having built a bigger physique, I was drafted into the tight-head prop position as a rugby player through to my early twenties, playing first-grade in the tough Monaro competition around the rural ACT area while at the Defence Academy in Canberra.

During my physical tests at the Defence Academy (1992-1994), I never passed the 13:45 mark for the 3.2km on my first attempt (6 straight failures), but always managed to pass on the first re-try, and I think doing 100 situps as part of the physical test before the run played a major role in getting stitches which prevented a pass time. The re-test involved just during the section you had failed, which was always the run for me, and I always passed on the first re-try.

By 2008 I was a pretty bulky 100kg, and was doing plenty of sea kayaking but not eating well or doing enough exercise when my kids were very young (Jess was born in 2003 and Alex in 2006). I took up running again when I started back working in the Sydney CBD in 2008, and was running a 5km loop around Darling Harbour twice a week by Easter 2008.

By the end of 2008, the weight had come off (down to 82kg), and I did my first big run of 21km from Charlottes Pass along the Main Range track to the top of Mt Kosciuszko and down to the Thredbo Chairlift around Christmas 2008. Through 2009 the distances increased, and I regularly did 30km weekend runs with 21km and 14km runs during the week. In Sep 09 I did the Blackmores Sydney Half-Marathon (1:41) and the Fitzroy Falls Marathon in Oct 09 (4:01). My weight levelled off at a healthy 73-75kg (for my 175cm height), which is the lightest Ive been since about 14.

Race Training

After clearing up some ITB after Fitzroy Falls (better shoes (I switched to Asics GT-2140s), the use if a physio roller and 3 weeks rest), I started training hard again in Nov 09. A minor case of Achilles tendinitis kept the distance below 30km over the Christmas period, but the training into the 6ft Track Marathon was pretty good, and I ran a decent 5:02:55 time. After a week off following 6ft, a normal training week going into TNF100 was:


Sunday: Long run. 40-60km
Monday: Recovery run (bare-foot on beach) 10km AM, 1 hr weights (PM)
Tuesday: 21km road run (hard) - sub 5 min\km pace
Wednesday: 2hr kayak (AM), 1 hr weights (PM)
Thursday: 14km road run (medium)
Friday: 1 hr speed work (hard)
Saturday: Rest.

I also did the NoLimits training camp three weeks before the event, which involved Fairmont->CP4 minus the private property section on the Saturday (but with a 8km detour when my and a few other guys got lost just before CP2) and the 22km CP4->CP5 on the Sunday. There was also a CP6->Finish section on Sunday morning which I skipped as I could feel the right ITB was very tight.

Taper and Pre-Race

The weekend before the race I cut my long run distance in half, did an easy 10km on the Monday and another easy 14km on Tuesday, which normal gym work on Monday and Wednesday. I increased carb consumption, particularly from Wed night through to Fri night. Heaps of pancakes and muesli, plus the Fairmont Pasta Dinner (3 pasta plates and 3 desserts) on Friday. Saturday morning I got up at 5:15 and had a coffee and 4 large pancakes.

Mentally I was entirely relaxed heading into the race. My 6ft Track performance was good, and basically the entire time I had been training for races (since signing up for the Blackmore's Half in mid-09) I had missed no training sessions - over-training was the main battle - and this gave me tremendous mental calmness. There were no what-ifs in the preparation. Going into the race, I was physically prepared to give the best performance I could, so there was no stress. Also, I had performed well in high-stress events during my military years, so physical toughness wasn't something I needed to worry about. I'd done a 60km training run from Jindabyne to Mt Kosciuszko and then down to Thredbo over the Easter break (and done that easy), and with the 70km I ran as part of the NoLimits camp, there was no question that physically I could complete the event.

Gear

A real benefit of the NoLimits camp was discovering how minimal the compulsory gear can become. The AROC briefing at the Sydney North Face store was pretty poor, and was essentially a flog-fest of North Face gear. Even PacLite GoreTex is much heavier than nylon, and the GoreTex gear is really designed for hiking, not running. I got a cheap nylon rain-coat from Lowes, and also got the lightest, smallest thermals I could get. Remember its not a camping trip. Much of the mandatory gear is for an emergency, and doesn't need to be the same quality and bulk that could do 2 months at Everest Base Camp.

I used the Camelbak Mule as a pack, and that was excellent. I had only minor skin abrasions on the back after 15 hours. The main customization where two gel flask holders on the shoulders, which where D_i_c_k Smith MP3 holders with an extra elastic band to prevent them bouncing around (you can see the holders in the photo below taken at CP3). I had most of the mandatory gear in the main pouch of the Camelbak, and started the race with the very small Petzl e+LITE and a double-AAA pen light.



I wore a Garmin Forerunner 405CX on the left wrist and a standard digital watch on the right. In the pack I had a Jaycar Battery Bank with USB out port, and this was tapped up and connected to the Garmin charger. At CP2, the 405 battery was low and I put it on the charger. At CP4 I put the 405 back on and left the charger with my support crew (my wife Linda). Data recording worked fine while the device was charging. Two days after the race, a lighter battery charger arrived from an eBay order, and I intend to give this a go on the next long run. The new battery weighs only about 50g.

All in all, the GPS function on the 405 was pretty useless during the event. The total distance reading was about 1500m out by CP2, and because of the rough terrain, trying to pick up time based on the distance readings was not feasible. Im glad Ive got a reasonably accurate km-by-km breakdown of pulse and timing over the entire race for historical purposes, but the in-race assistance from the GPS watch wasn't meaningful or helpful.

I started the race wearing long BSc compression tights that were comfortable fitting but not ultra-tight, Asics GT-2150 shoes, running socks, running shorts, a 2XU running shirt, and a Nike running cap. I also wore Oakley Half-Jackets with Transition Lens. The sunnies were good in dealing with the widely varied light conditions, but a few times in the morning they needed to go up onto the cap because it was so dark. I also wore Brooks Running Gloves because I usually trip and fall once or twice on long trail runs, and wanted to not smash up my hands too bad. This was another reason for going with full length tights. Thankfully, I never fell once during the whole race. I witnessed plenty of spills, and reading the Cool Running forums, many folks tripped and fell. Taking a really nasty spill would be one of the highest risks for getting a DNF (assuming you had the training and ticker to do the event otherwise).

At CP4 I ditched the t-shirt and cap, and switched to a long-sleeve technical shirt and a beanie. Also, the Petzl e+LITE was ditched, and I swapped to an ultra-bright Ayup light with the 3 hour battery .The 3 hr battery lasted the whole way to CP5 (it was on for about 3.5 hrs), where I swapped to a second 3 hr battery. The Ayup light was brilliant, but I should have worn some clear glasses as a number of moths and bugs flew into my face, attracted by the headlight. Picture of me with the light below.



Race Plan

This is the plan I went into the event with. Green is instruction to me, red is for my wonderful wife Linda who was support crew for the event. Each leg has goal time, and the time of day I planned to reach the check-point.

Food at start:


12 scoops Endura Optimizer (200g) in full bladder (3 litres)
2 Endura Gel flasks (equivalent 6 gel satchels)
3 Gu gels in Camelbak
125g Choc-Coated Coffee beans

2.5 hrs to Narrow Neck (19km leg, 19km total) - Consume 3 Gu, 6 scoops Endura (1.5 litre) during the leg and 0.5 litre of Endura at rest stop
Arrive at 09:30

2.5 hrs to Dumpheys (19km leg, 38km overall) - Consume 3 Gu, 6 scoops Endura (1.5 litre) .5 litre at rest stop.
Arrive at 12:00
Check water. Have 8 scoop Endura ready for refill

2 hrs to Old Ford (16km, 54km) - Consume 3 Gu, 4 scoops Endura (1.5 litre) .5 litre at rest stop
Arrive at 14:00
Choc coffee beans in zip lock
Swap bladder - 8 scoops Endura (2 l)
Refill both Endura Gel flasks

2 hrs to Katoomba Over (13km, 67km). Consume 8 scoops Endura (2 l), 3 Gu.
Arrive at 16:00
Refill Endura Gel flasks
Choc coffee beans in zip lock
Fruit cake
Swap bladder - 12 scoops Endura (3 l)
Get Avaya headlamp
Leave sunglasses
Change to long-sleeve t-shirt
May have cans of V

3 hrs to Queen Victoria (22km, 89km) . Consume 12 scoops Endura, 3 Gu, fruit cake
Arrive at 19:00
Choc coffee beans in zip lock
Take cheesecake * 2
Swap bladder - 8 scoops Endura (2 l)
Swap headlight battery
May have cans of V


2 hrs to finish (11km, 100km)

Race Day

We got to the Fairmont around 6:15, and at 6:40 the briefing started in the main hall in the lower level of the Fairmont. I felt calm and relaxed, but the drawn out briefing which contained no new information was annoying. The race started about 12 minutes late, and that was not ideal. It made for some mental recalculations of times all day, and when you're tired, adding 12.5 minutes to every calculation is really annoying.

The Fairmont to CP1 leg went exactly as planned. I stayed a long way back, and still had a pulse rate much higher than the goal pulse of 145bpm. My average pulse for the first 5km was around 165bpm. I think it was a combination of excitement, a heavy backpack full of water, and just the amount of carbs and water in my body. By 6km, the pulse was down to 155, and 142 by 8km. There isn't much remarkable for a race perspective on the first leg. Enjoy the view, don't worry about having to walk when the single-track sections bunches up the field, and let yourself settle into the race. You can't win anything going into CP1, but you can really stuff yourself up if you trying to pass folk. Enjoy the views, find somebody to have a chat to, and let the first 1/5th of the race fly by. I made it to CP1 in 2:24, right on plan, and in 151st position.

At CP1 I had 4 cups of Endura, grabbed two handfuls of lollies, and was gone. There's a step uphill after CP1, so there's plenty of time to eat the lollies walking up this huge hill.

Narrow Neck is some of the best running on the course, and a 6 min/ km pace is achievable in this section. Great views too. This is some of the easiest running. Enjoy it.

The Tarros ladders worked really well this year, and there was no delay for me. After the ladders, its some nasty, steep up- and down-hill until you get on the fire trail. Just keep your composure here - the day is young, and you need to keep your head. Once you hit the road, its some nice running into CP2.

I was into CP2 in 4:53. On goal pace again, and I'd moved into 83rd spot. I emptied the small rocks out of my shoes at CP2, checked my water, sucked down 2 Endura gels (I'd have 6 Endura gels from the flask up to CP2 as well), grabbed some more lollies, and was on my way.

CP2 to CP3 was where most DNF folks died I think. It was *HARD*. Damn hard. Because Ironpot Ridge is largely private property and only open race day, this section was new to me, and harder than I anticipated. I budgeted 2 hrs for this 16km section, and that's optimistic. Its a hard section. Some of this section is out-and-back, and I saw guys going the other way who clearly weren't going to finish. They looked dreadful.Given how difficult it was, this was probably my best section of the day.

Once you get to 50km and are back on the road into CP3, life gets good. The atmosphere at Old Ford is great, and I was really looking forward to seeing my wife who was support crew for me. At CP3, I felt fresh, and the photo at the top of the post backs up that assessment. I was in to CP3 in 7:06, so I was still close to goal time, and I had CP3->CP4 mentally flagged as an easier leg. I know the terrain well from the 6ft Track marathon and training camp, and knew exactly what was coming. I smashed down 125g of choc-coated coffee beans at Old Ford, had a drink, sprayed my right ankle with Pain Away and was on my way. My right ankle had started bothering me at 40km, and that continued most of the rest of the race.

I had a support bag with the following items with Linda at CP4, 5 and 6:

Goretex pants
Goretex pullover
Trail shoes (Pearl Izumi XC Trail)
Change of socks
Spare headlight battery
3 * 125g coffee beans
.5kg Cake
4 slices cheese cake
Endura Optimizer tub
10 Gus
Endura gel bottle
4 * 250ml Vs
PainAway spray
Long sleeve t-shirt
BSc compression top (long sleeve)
BSc compression tights (short)



Having my right Achilles cause problems was a surprise. I had some ITB soreness of the right knee and a sore left Achilles with some tenderness of the left arch going into the event (though none of this was serious - just niggles), so the right ankle blowing up was a surprise. At CP3 (while I was putting on the Pain Away spray) I noticed two marble-size lumps on the right Achilles. Nothing too painful, but the right ankle was definitely tight.

The other minor issue I'd had was some minor soreness at the top of both ankles, and this had led me into the habit of looser shoe laces. This was a big mistake. The loose shoelaces caused my feet to slide around in my shoes slightly, and with the hills in TNF100, this caused a really nasty blister on my left foot (second-smallest toe). The blister lifted the nail up, and by the top of Nellies Glen, my foot was shot. I couldn't run or walk effectively up- or down-hills, and flats sort of sucked too.

The 2kms from the 6ft Track start to Katoomba Oval was the absolute low point. I thought I was gone. I was walking side-ways to get up stairs, my left foot killed - I was no good at all to go on. It wasn't as much a case of "I'm too tired to go on" as much as "I'm moving at about 3km/h. Going into a 22km section at night with a foot like that means I won't make the cut-off". Then I thought maybe I can find a doctor at the check-point to take off the toe-nail and give me a pain killing shot, and that would at least get me to the finish.

In the photo that was taken in this section (below), I don't look too bad, but these aren't really accurate as there were Photographer Ahead signs on the course, and that sort of prompted a smile no matter how crap you felt.



The funny thing is that I looked OK at CP4, and the photos (below) make me look not too bad. I was still on track for 14 hours, but knew the next 33km would be hard. I got a medic to tape the toe, changed my shirt and socks, ate a full cake (cherry and almond - it was a Coles special). I was somehow leaving the checkpoint before I had time to think about much else. My shoes were tied really right, taking a lot of pressure of the toes and the painful blister, and I set off for the next 22km at a slow shuffle.







Once I got to the viewing platform around the Giant Staircase, there was still plenty of light and tourists around, so I was determined to actually break into a jog, and the random cheering I got helped a lot. I wasn't looking forward to the Staircase, but with gloves on, I let my arms do most of the work, and was down the bottom with no dramas.

Then, a weird thing happened - I felt great! Nothing hurt, I had good energy, there was some OK downhill running, the night was pleasant, my headlamp was bright, and all was good. I actually ran a few kilometre sections at close to 6 min pace. Once passed Jamison Creek, its a 640m climb, and its damn hard. I was quite slow here, and my overall time on this leg was 4 hrs. With the pain I was in for most of the previous leg into CP4, my nutrition really lagged, and I had no gels and very little fluid going up Nellies Glen. I was painfully sick of chocolate Endura Optimizer, didn't feel like the choc-coated coffee beans in my bag, and had no appetite at all. My gel was coffee flavoured, which I normally love, but it tasted foul after CP4.

Once up the hill, it was a pretty easy run into CP5, and I felt tired but happy that there wasn't much longer to go. At CP5, I got Linda to rinse out my water bladder and fill it with Lemon Endura rather than the take the 2 litres of chocolate Endura Optimizer that she had prepared. I also grabbed a few lollies, a piece of cheesecake and took a small Bounce protein cake. The Bounce cake was very hard and dry, and I didn't finish it in the end. I was in and out of CP5 pretty quick, and I actually picked up 20 spots from going into CP5 in 118th spot at 8:08pm and finishing in 88th at 10:18pm. It seemed a lot of people spent a long time here, but I felt OK and was looking forward to the end.

The last 11km was pretty unremarkable. Linda got me in the safety vest at the checkpoint, and the few road kilometres out of the Queen Vic hospital where good. Once back onto the walking track, my pace was very slow negotiating the steeps, creeks and crouching as I went under the rock over-hangs. Frankly, I was pretty unimpressed with this section. The walking track condition made it hard to get any speed happening, and with sore knees and ankles, it was a crappy though not overly taxing experience.

I caught up with a good runner called Rob just before CP5 (who'd done the NoLimits camp with me) and who had a very similar pace to me. Seeing him after 13 hours was great. He was battling cramps badly, and made the very wise call to do the CP5->Finish section at his own pace, which was slightly quicker than me.

By the last couple of kilometres, I know I was going slow and wanted to avoid a huge rush of people passing me. I knew I was close to breaking 15 hours, but the crappy condition meant the last 3km took 33 minutes. It was enjoyable to get back on the grass at the bottom of the Laura golf course and trot into the finish.

The very drawn out finish to the event meant there was only muted applause at the finish, and it was simply a case of grabbing the finishers certificate and buckle and hoping in the car for the trip back to the motel. Linda had some pizza ready for me, and I ate a couple of slices, but throw up most of it once I got back to the motel. I slept very poorly, and only managed about 6 hours of sleep before hunger got me up. I was sore, and my right ankle was very swollen, but overall there was no huge dramas the next day. I didn't have much of an appetite, but focused on getting quality food like fish and rice into me rather than pigging out on junk.

My right ankle is still swollen (a couple of days latter), but overall the recovery has been very quick. I rode an exercise bike (easy) for 30 minutes on Monday and did 30 minutes on the stepper Tuesday, 20 mins rowing/ 20 mins bike Wednesday and a moderately hard stepper workout on the Thursday. The plan is to have an easy two weeks to let everything heal up.

Gear Rating

Camelbak Mule Backpack: 9/10. Overall went great. The only thing that I'd look for in the next backpack would be one with small pouches on the waist belt for gels.

Asics GT-2150: 5/10. After doing the NoLimits training camp three weeks out, I realised these shoes weren't ideal, and the race would have been extremely difficult in these shoes if the course was wet (and the weather the week after the race was very wet, so I was lucky on this one). I knew that in 3 weeks between the camp and the event I wasn't going to be able to select and break in track shoes, so I elected to gamble on the 2150s and it came out OK. Shoes with a better lacing system would have been much better. Salomon XT Wings 2 now on order from Wiggle.

Clothing: 10/10. Longs tights, a t-shirt and gloves worked well, and the change to beanie and long sleeve t-shirt at Katoomba worked well. The gloves protected my hands well on the scramble parts of the course. On a hotter day, going with cut-off gym gloves for the day-time section would work well.

Lighting: 10/10. Caring two very small lights during the day and switching to a bigger lighting system at Katoomba was spot on. The strong light meant I had no trips during the night section, and I could run as fast as my legs allowed.

Nutrition: 7/10. The calorie and hydration plan was right, but after 9 hours my appetite totally gave out. The cake at Katoomba was spot on (picture below of the Coles special I inhaled at Katoomba Oval), and I think light, sugary floury stuff like this was good. I'd probably have something like a sponge cake ready at CP3 next year, and fruit cake at CP5. I'm going to talk to a Hawaii Ironwomen veteran who runs a nutrition/ organic fruit shop in Caringbah and get some tips from her in preparation for next year as well.



Other gear 8/10. I probably took a bit too much at the start - I had a spare 120g Endura Optimizer which wasn't required, and I probably would have gone out with 2l of water instead of 3 and refilled at CP2 with another 1l or so (as well as 4 cups of drink at the check-points). The mandatory gear was no big deal, especially with the light weight wet-weather gear. I'd probably look for an even lighter weight thermal top for next year. I'll also try the digital flow gauge on the Camelbak so I can better control fluid intake. It looks like the flow gauge can be set to prompt you to drink the desired amount over a certain time period, so that would be cool.

One thing I'm considering next year is enabling real-time GPS tracking on my Spot V2 device. It only costs US50 a year for the real-time service, and its a handy way of providing a race review afterwards and letting your support crew know where you are.

The Course

AROC have produced an excellent description of the entire course that is a great reference.

Running 100km is a big ask for most folks, but when you through in 4500m on ascent in the mix it becomes bloody hard. Dramatically hard. And slow. The walking track that the route follows for much of the way makes getting a good even stride very hard.I chatted with sponsored North Face athlete Diane Van Deren after the event, and her hopes were for a 12 hour time, and she finished just ahead of me (the photo below is us shaking hands at the finish line). She is an extremely experienced ultra-athlete, and her under-estimation of the course's difficulty is testament to how tough it is.

Finally, a big thanks to AROC for putting on a great event. The course markings are superb, and they have put in a lot of work to improve the event each year. The two areas they need to improve is medical support and venue. There was a guy at the finish who was close to being in a coma, and there wasn't much assistance available for him. Nobody knew the nearest cross street when the ambulance was called, which is pretty bad.

The event volunteers who helped so much with the event deserve a massive thanks. They were so helpful at the checkpoints, particularly buzzlightyear who was simply awesome.

The Fairmont Resort has had its share of drama, and they appeared disinterested in the event. They overbooked for the event weekend, and a few people who had booking were told to look for alternative accommodation very close to the event without much of an apology. When I did the running camp and stayed at the Fairmont three weeks out, I got back after 70 kilometres of running, and was told my bags had been moved to my room (the room was occupied when we left to start running at 8am). Upon getting to my room, the bags weren't there, and when I rang the desk, I was told they were with the concierge, and I could come down and get them. After an 11 hour day of running, walking the hundred or so meters from room to front desk and back didn't leave anything close to a favorable impression.

The hugest thanks go to my family and particularly my wonderful wife Linda. In addition to tolerating my 6 hour disappearance for runs through the Royal National Park, she was magnificent in her capacity as support crew. Everything was prepared and easy as I came into CP3, 4 and 5, and her encouragement, particularly at CP4 was instrumental in my ability to finish the race.

The next race I have planned in the Mesa Falls marathon during a trip to the US in August (it will be nice to go back to a 42km event), followed by the Fitzroy Falls Marathon in October, Bogong to Mt Hotham Ultra in the New Year, and the 6ft Track/ TNF100 combo in autumn 2011.

All the aurora images I'm in that I bought after the event are up on Facebook.

Week 24 Photos

Stuggling, but only 3 weeks to go now...

Visual C++ SP1 Sample

If you've downloaded SP1 of Visual Studio 2008, and are looking through the Visual C++ samples trying to locate anything to do with TR1 language extensions or the MFC Feature Pack, you'll notice they aren't there. The SP1 samples are avialable, but ship as part of a seperate download available from MSDN Downloads.

The sample pach weigh's in at a heft 7.9MB, and contains a heap of samples to get going with the major MFC improvments that SP1 contains.

My first book cover - Introduction to Psychology, 12th Edition by Dennis Coon

Posting high-resolution photos on your web-site brings in the occassional request for permission to use the photos is some publication. I've had requests before from Israel Ministry of Agriculture to use camel shots from Broome in one of their publications, and Busselton Online (which doesn't seem to be online anymore :)) wanted to use one of my shots of the area on their website.

A couple of weeks ago I got a request from Cangage Learning to use of of my Antelope Canyon shots on the cover of one of their text books. The website page for the textbook is online now, and my Canyon shot made it through the review process to make the cover. While not on the same scale as a Nat Geo cover, making the front cover of a book by a reputable publisher is a nice achievement.

Cronulla to Kiama

Over the weekend of 25-26 Oct, I paddled from Cronulla to Kiama with an overnight at Corrimal. After really bad weather mid-week that culminated with 4m swells and 40 knot winds from the south on Wednesday, it looked like the conditions weren't going to be suitable for a long paddle. Over Thursday and Friday, a high-pressure system moved in, allowing the swell to begin to drop, and Saturday morning dawned with a good forecast of 2m swell and variable winds of about 15 knots out of the north.



The goal of the first days paddle was Corrimal, with is one of the beach-side suburbs north of Wollongong. Corrimal has a really nice council-run caravan park at the back of the beach, and the plan was to leave early (up at 5:15, on the water at 5:40), and meet the family at Corrimal around 1pm. The conditions around the Jibbon Bumbora were quite rough, with steep swells coming from all over the place, but after passing the Bumbora and getting a kilometer or so off the coast, the swell became more consistent and less step, and the paddling was quite easy. There was a lot of foam in the water from the mid-week gale conditions, and it was quite strange paddling in the foam, which dampened all sound, creating a weird silence.



Once past the Royal National Park and along the beaches north of Wollongong, it was clear that a beach landing was going to be hard. There was 6ft dumping sets on most beaches, and a low tide also made conditions pretty bad. I had planned to land at Bellambi Pt if a beach landing look dicey, but get my Points mixed up, and ended up landing at Bulli Pt, which is about 3km north. I rang the family, and they where close by in the car, so I got them to pick me up and the kayak went on the roof for the final few kms to the camp ground.



By the Sunday, the swell had dropped, and taking off from the beach at Corrimal was easy. The Sunday trip had 3 distinct 12km sections - the first to Big Island off Port Kembla, then another 12km to Bass Point, then the final 12 or so kilometers into Easts Beach, just south of Kiama. The seas of Wollongong where fairly calm, and the first 12km went by fast.

Off Big Island, a seal was basking in the sun, but disappeared before I could get the camera out. There were heaps of gulls nesting on Islands, and it was a good spot for a break out of the swell between Big Island and the mainland.





After Big Island, it was getting hazy, and I initially aimed for Windang Island off Lake Illawarra rather than Bass Point. About 1km off Windang Island, I realised my mistake, and turned east to get to Bass Pt. I landed for a while on the Pt, and had some sandwiches for lunch. For the first two hours of each paddle, I had a Gu Gel at the hour mark, and then had a carb drink and sandwich at the 3 hr mark, and then repeated the cycle for the next 3 hours. Breaking the paddle into hour long sections (which was 8kms travelled) made it easy to focus on short-term marks, and the Gu's and drinks keep my energy pretty high.

The last 12kms into Kiama was with a strengthening NE and swells picking up to 1.5m which made for fast paddling.



I had hoped to continue the paddle into Jervis Bay on the Monday, but the weather deteriorate, with 30 knot N/NW winds forecast and a 3m swell. There is a 25km open crossing south of Kiama from Black Pt to Currarong (across the Shoalhaven Bight), and with the bad conditions, the paddle wasn't worth it. Instead I drove down to Jervis Bay with the family and relaxed at Honeymoon Bay out of the wind and swell. This is Jess at the Kiama campground.



The overall distance travelled was 45.1km on the first day, and 38.3km on the second day. The body pulled up well, with no real soreness in the shoulders or back, no sunburn and only very minor blisters on the hands. It was disappointing to not be able to get to Jervis Bay, but looking out at the sea conditions from Currarong on the Monday afternoon, it was apparent I'd made the right choice not to attempt the crossing. Black Pt wasn't visible across the Shoalhaven Bight, the wind was howling, and the temperature was up to the mid- to high-30s. Hopefully over the summer I'll launch from Kiama and finish the last leg of the paddle.

Sea kayaking with a GPS

I recently purchased a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx for use as both an in-car unit and a sea kayaking navigation aid. While navigation on the current routes I'm doing in pretty easy (essenitally, keep the land on left while heading north), its good to track the speed I'm paddling and get a good handle on distance to go. Mounting the GPS on the kayak was something that I was initially concerned about, but last Sunday I did the 40km paddle from Yowie Bay in the Port Hacking to Watsons Bay in Sydney Harbour with the GPS unit mounted to the front of the kayak using the auto suction-cup mount with good results.

The conditions on Sunday where pretty calm (more details here), but a few waves did come over the front of the kayak without causing any movement or loosening of the suction cup. The suction cup gives quite a strong connection, and its is possible to take most of the 25kg-plus weight of the loaded kayak without having the suction cup detached. This is the basic set-up


I wrapped the unit in a medium zip-lock bag and electical taped the bag to the mount. The 60Csx is water-resistant to IPX7 standards, but I thought 5+ hours of having salt-water dripped onto the unit from the paddle was going to decrease the life of the unit if not kill it outright. Pulled tight, the zip-lock didn't have too much of an impact on screen visibility, and after the paddle only a few drops had managed to work there way into the bag.

The other precaution against unit damage/loss was a stainless-steel cable clipped to the shock-cord mounts and run through the middle of the mount. The stainless steel cable only cost $12 to make, which is reasonable insurance for the cost of the GPS. The photos below show the details of the cable.





The only thing that I didn't like much about the GPS was the lack of details displayed about coastal landmarks like beach and headland names. The detail is all there in BlueChart maps, and viewing the charts on the desktop using MapSource shows heaps of details. No matter how close I zoomed and where I moved the pointer too, I couldn't get the name of a beach or bay to display on the GPS unit. While that isn't much of a drama with familar areas, it is a significant missing feature if you're in unfamilar waters. The one work-around is to add way-points to prominant locations and download them onto the unit before heading out, which is what I plan to do when I do the paddle down to Kiama in a couple of months.

ASP.NET MVC at SDNUG on Thursday

After 6 months buried in a banking project, I'm emerging from the other end with a presentation this Thursday at SDNUG on ASP.NET MVC. Full details on the SDNUG site - if you're in Sydney, come along and be wowed.

Handango not posting negative reviews

A couple of weeks ago I purchased the eGlass BookReader from Handango, partly because of the problem with WMDC that I spoke about in my last post. The reader was pretty poor, particularly in its reading experience of PDF books. In reflow mode, you have to change back to scaled view before you can advance to the next page in the document, which makes for a tedious reading experience. In the end, I ditched the eGlass reader out of frustration.

I got an email from Handango asking for a review, and as the product had been particularly useless, I decided it was worth the time warning others not to waste their money. The rules for reviews on Handango are quite restrictive, but I made sure I stayed within the guidelines and only mentioned I was unhappy with the product because of the clumsy paging-turning support in the PDF reader. For the record, I gave the product the lowest review of 1 star.

Suspiciously, my review has yet to appear, and I've received no feedback or confirmation from Handango. Here is the page for the product, which miraculously contains no reviews at all.

It seems my sensored review is not an isolated case. Another one here. And another.

WM6 to Vista Sync Error 0x8503001c - Fixed by going back to WMDC 6.0

I had the frustrating experience of having a new WM6 device (HTC Touch) developing a problem synching to a new Vista machine. The Touch was in its third week of a synch relationship with Vista, so it could be hoped that honeymoon bliss was still lingering in sufficient proportions to prevent a dreaded 0x8503001c error. The only change to the system has been to do a sync over Bluetooth, and that seems to have toasted WMDC somehow. I tried deleting and re-creating the partnership (which didn't work), and taking off synch items, which produced the result of a successful sync with Mobile One Note and nothing else. After trying the partnership delete, I tried an uninstall/ reinstall of WMDC 6.1, again with no success. The next tactic I tried was creating a new PST file for Outlook and importing everything from the old file to the new one with no success. The next tactic, which did work, was to unistall WMDC 6.1 and install WMDC 6.0. Amazingly, this fixed the problem. Its a shame that WMDC seems to have all the same problems of ActiveSync, and yet has less features. I hope WMDC 6.2 will see a return of the file conversion functionality that was part of ActiveSync - at the moment I need to print PDFs to a third-party reader application because the file conversion that adds reflow support to a PDF file doesn't work with WMDC. Nick mentions the other side of this problem in this post. If the Mobile Device team want to deliver on their sales pitch that they are the best platform for business and productivity and fight off the combined competition from the iPhone and Google, WMDC needs to be rock-solid.

Dealing with linked servers in VSTS Database Pro

Working with linked servers in VSTS Database Pro can be a bit painful, especially when the linked server is a production server that should be (and typically is) inaccessible from developer's machines. If the appropriate linked server settings aren't set up on the design-time validation database server(which is the local database by default), the Database Pro project won't be able to build, which will prevent all sorts of useful things like schema compares for happening.

The solution to the problem is replicate the schema of the production database to another server (local is fine), and then to use sp_addlinkedserver to add the linked server using an alias rather than the actual server name, and then to use this alias in any stored procs that reference the linked server. The syntax for the call is:

EXEC sp_addlinkedserver @server='ServerAlias', @srvproduct='', @provider='SQLNCLI', @datasrc='ActualServerName'

Once sp_addlinkedserver has been called, the appropriate security settings still need to be set up, and this can be done from Management Studio or via sp_addlinkedsrvlogin.

By using an alias rather than the actual server name, the need for developers to have any login details for production systems on their machines is removed.

A few quick tips for using SQL Server 2005 Linked Servers

I've just completed a short,rushed project that involved moving data from one SQL Server 2005 in a DMZ to another SQL Server 2005 server inside the network. The database in the DMZ is deployed on a per-web site basis, and there can be many copies of the same database sending data back into the central database. I initially choose a push model, which would ease the deployment burden, as each copy of the website database could point back to the central server to push its data back. If a new site was deployed, there was no configuration necessary to get the data pushed back to the central location apart from setting some meta-data in a particular table, and scheduling a stored procedure to run.

As is typical in rushed projects, there was no consultation with the infrastructure guys about the feasibility of the design, and we didn't find out a few issues till we where scheduled to deploy. The problems (in the order that they occurred) where:

  • For someone that has always had network guys to set up DTC, its not as straight forward as I'd assumed. I spent ages setting all the correct DTC configuration values on the remote machine without ever enabling it on the central server. When I tried to issue a BEGIN DISTRIBUTED TRANSACTION from the central server, I got an error saying that the remote server had disabled its support for distributed transactions. The error message was wrong - the local server hadn't been set up for distributed transactions. Turning on DTC on both servers (obviously) fixed the problem.
  • Getting DTC working through a firewall is hard. This KB article documents how to do it, but as there was no name resolution between the web server and the central server (to quote the KB article 'DTC also requires that you can resolve computer names by using NetBIOS or DNS'), distributed transactions weren't a goer.
  • @@IDENTITY and scope_identity() don't flow across servers. Using the push model, I needed to set a foreign key in one of the inserted tables, which means I needed to know the primary key on the row inserted earlier in the stored proc. In the end, I had to go to a pull model, which was a pretty easy change.
    While it would have been nice to identity and sort out all these issues before we started baning out TSQL, the project scope was small enough that we could resort to heroics to overcome design short-comings.

    Filling in a technical support web form, and getting a response- well done DiskView!

    A couple of months before Vista was release, I purchased a copy of DiskView to track down where all my hard disk space was being eaten up on a Windows XP install (it turned out to be several multi-gigabyte files that DivX converter had left lying around).

    A version of DiskView that support Vista has recently been released, but when I tried it, I got an error with code 2738 during installation. I checked the website support page, and didn't see any resolution for this issue, so I tried filling in the support page without much hope of ever receiving an answer. Only a couple of hours later I got the following email:

    Error 2738 may occur in Windows Vista when a custom install action is required by a software installer and VBScript is not registered. I'm not sure why it is occurring on your computer, as it seems to work fineon other Vista installations. I also just installed DiskView with no errors on a fresh Windows Vista Ultimate virtual machine.

    Can you try the following?

    Start Button > All Programs > Accessories Right-click on "Command Prompt"
    Select "Run as Administrator"
    Type cd \ and press ENTER
    Type cd C:\Windows\System32 and press ENTER Type regsvr32 vbscript.dll and press ENTER You should receive a message that the DLL has been successfully registered.

    Try the DiskView installation again. Please let me know how it goes.
    Re-registering vbscript.dll fixed the problem
    So, not only is DiskView a really good product, there technical support is excellent.

    New CodeGuru article up

    This months offering looks at upgrading an old MFC application to take advantage of Vista. Some months the article come quickly (less than 4 hours). This month, it took a couple of days. The documentation for the MFC 9 updates is still pretty minimal.

    In Perth tomorrow night

    The website is up to date now - I'm in Perth tomorrow night for the Code Generation presentation (if APEC hasn't caused the too many problems with my flight)

    Week 23 Pics

    After a long break, I've finally finished the gallery for Week 23 of my six month trip around Australia in 2005. As expected, the Tassie portion of the trip produced a lot of shots, and it took a long time to go through them. 15 shots in this gallery, which is the most since Week 8, which covered the Mt Isa rodeo and Ayers Rocks.

    Printing a calendar for Christmas Presents

    Last year I used 13 of the photos I took from my 6 month trip around Australia in 2005 to make a calendar for a Christmas present for family and friend. The print company I used was Kainos Print from the ACT, and the actual order form for the calendar is here - they make the process quite simple. The final proof for this years calanar (4+MB PDF) is up on my site if you're interested in seeing how it turned out. Generally I was very happy with the result, and plan on using Kainos again this year.

    The main change I need to make for the years images is to lighten the dark images significantly (March and May look very dark when not in direct light). Other than that, the 2007 calandar looks great.

    The 2008 images will come from my trip to Arizona, Utah and Nevada before the MVP summit. Wupatki Pueblo is pencilled in for Jan, and Antelope Canyon will be in there too.

    If you're interested in purchasing a copy, please drop me an email. Cost will be around AU30 including postage in Australia. Happy to send OS for a bit extra postage, but be warned that the public holidays and school holidays in the calandar are mostly Australia-specific.

    Visual C++ 2008 - CodeGuru Articles Up

    Its hard to believe that its been over three years since I started doing the C++ column at CodeGuru (and still no missed columns). I plan to keep going to beat Kate Gregory's record of 42 articles, at which point in time I'll demand to get the URL for the column changed (http://www.codeguru.com/columns/Kate/). I know Kate is fairly vindictive, and believe this is one possible response from Kate's fans:



    (I've got into trouble before for not making it absolutely clear when I'm making stuff up, so for the record, I actually don't know Kate, and I'm sure she is not vindictive or has any knowledge of our relative article count).

    The last two articles I've done have been on VC++ 2008, which has some pretty nice new features, particularly around Interop. The August article shows how easy it is to extend the marshaling library, and this is likely to be one of the most used new features of Orcas for C++ developers. Next months article will look at upgrading the version of Scribble that ships with the Visual C++ 6 sample to use the Vista common controls. If there is anything you'd like to see covered in upcoming articles, please leave a comment and I'll happily suggest it to my editor.

    First INETA Speaker Bureau Gig coming up - Perth 6 Sep

    The site's not updated yet, but I'm happy to confirm that I'll be in Perth on 6 Sep to present my Code Generation in the Real World talk. The blurb for the talk is:

    Real-world Code Generationby Nick Wienholt There is a lot more to real-world code generation than simple spitting out a bunch of objects based on a database schema.What is the re-generation story?How are the generated objects extensible?How do I integrate custom stored procs?How do I return a collection with only a sub-set of fields populated?What is the performance like?How do I maintain source control on the database, the generated objects and the settings used for the generation? This presentation will cover a code generation process using CodeSmith, .net Tiers and VSTS Database Professional that addresses all these points and more.The end result is a development process that can go from schema modification to full back-end regeneration in under 10 minutes.
    The talk was well received when I did it at SDNUG, and the great Adam Cogan told me after the session it was his favorite session he seen so-far in 07.
    I haven't been to the Perth User Group since Dec 04, and I'm looking forward to catching up with Mitch W and Nick R when I'm over there.
    I'm flying out of Sydney on the day before APAC and coming back on the red-eye on the day of the start of the summit. Should be interesting.
    Thanks to Sanjay and Sin from INETA APAC for making the trip possible by funding the flight.

    SOA in the Real World Book from Microsoft Architecture Group

    Released a couple of weeks ago, SOA in the Real World is a good summary of the guidance that Microsoft has been putting out for the last 5 years. As my main task in the current gig is the writing a document of integration stategy and then working with the development team implementating web services for the first time, the e-book is a timely helper with this task. I'm still working through the first few chapters, but it looks promising.

    MSDN Subscription - Why isn't there a cheaper download-only offering?

    As part of the MSDN Subscription offering, a box of discs is delivered most months with updated versions of Microsoft software. Because a single DVD has many products on it, the disc churn rate is reasonably high. In addition to the disks that come in the mail, MSDN subscribers can download all the software available as part of their subscription directly from a Passport-secured website

    There is about a three month lag between a product being available on the download site, and the physical disc arriving, so any product that you're really keen to use (like Visual Studio, Office, Windows and SQL Server) gets downloaded and burnt to a DVD long before the discs every arrive. Even without broadband, it is possible to download big releases like Visual Studio - in the days of severe broadband usage limits, I downloaded Visual Studio.NET 2002 over dial-up. The download can be paused, so I just kicked it off each night before I went to sleep, and the full download only took a couple of nights.

    It seems to make a lot of sense for Microsoft to offer a download-only offering for MSDN Subscription. The price of a subscription has roughly doubled in the last five years, and in my conversations with lots of folks around the user group and at work, there are plenty of ex-subscribers around who find the cost too high. It would be great if the savings in disk distribution that would be achieved with a download-only MSDN Subscription offering could be passed directly onto the developer community, and the rate of folks with subscriptions could pick up again.

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