One of the things I have been doing in the run-up to my retirement, is a photography course aimed at getting up to speed with the Nikon D7100 which I now use. This is not as complicated as trying to understand how a nuclear reactor works or even the interior of a Kray supercomputer, but it’s close. One of the things we have been studying is black-and-white photography, and classic photographers such as Ansel Adams, the American who invented landscape photography. Black-and-white photographs are very difficult to capture with modern  digital SLR cameras and images are never quite as resonant as those taken in the old days with film. I was delighted to receive an email yesterday, from Margaret Carney, former Balmoral Beach Club captain and Manly swimming icon, containing this black-and-white photograph, taken of Margaret at Loreto Kirribilli in 1966. She is being presented with a sporting prize.

This is an extraordinary photograph. We would find it difficult to get a shot like this today. Note that the photographer is focused probably on either Margaret’s face or the trophy. Everything in that plane is in focus including the nun’s hands, her habit and her face. The clarity is extraordinary. I have blown this photograph up on my computer and there is not the least amount of pixelation even though I’m looking at only a 2 MB file. The detail around the crucifix is extraordinary, as is the writing on the trophy, which is clearly visible.

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After a tumultuous week I had a very different Saturday

Belinda Van de Ven – she who must be obeyed – suggested recently that it would be good to introduce some road bike work into the rehab programme as it is my second year. By sheer coincidence Ron Wilson, my good friend from the BBC and a great cyclist, invited me on a ride from Thirroul to Wollongong which he organises for a group of friends each year. I was reluctant as up until now I didn’t think I had the strength in my broken leg to twist out of the pedal cleats. Also, after my recent experiences, I’m wary of further injury and there’s always plenty of that on offer when riding road bikes. Still, given Ron’s invitation and Belinda’s advice and a desire to introduce something different into the rehab programme, I decided to participate. By strange coincidence, my brother Damien was staying with me, recuperating from his latest Ironman triumph and decided to join in.

By good fortune, I’d left my cycling shoes – the ones with cleats – at home and had to do the ride in a pair of Sperry Hightop boat shoes. While it felt a bit ridiculous, it proved to be a godsend. I hadn’t been on a bike for many years and had forgotten the setup of the gears and derailleur so I struggled at first to get in the right gears. It didn’t matter because if I got confused I could stop, and in one case get off and walked. I didn’t have the added issue of twisting out of the cleats. It would have been too much on the first ride to worry about balance, the gears, the cleats, traffic and foot pedestrians. Don’t underestimate how difficult it is getting back on a bike after a broken leg. For one thing your balance is shot to pieces and your confidence is not much better.

The ride, which was over an easy bicycle/pedestrian path through beautiful coastal country took only two hours not including lunch.

One of the saddest things about retiring is the day you close the office. You have to pack everything in boxes for shipment to the new owners and say goodbye to the staff. You turn off the computers and turn out the lights for the last time. Everyone on the floor assembled for drinks at 4pm – my shout – some speeches and reflections on a long career in the securities and investment business and it was all over. The inevitable question, “What are you going to do now?” and the inevitable answer, “I don’t know.” And so I prepared to leave the office on a Friday afternoon for the last time.

One of the poignant things about packing up is going through all the old files and folders. Years of correspondence with clients, sharing with them the ups and downs of markets and investments, the good times and the dark days of the GFC, the struggles of their daily lives as represented by their finances. I also found the times sheets of both my daughters, Hilary and Catherine, when they worked for me years ago in the early days of the business. written in their own handwriting I could not bring myself to put them into the shredder and put the file back in the cabinet. It will come home with me and not go on to the new owners. Cleaning those out will be a job for another person at another time. Not me.

 

Today an era in my life ended after I signed a contract to sell my investment management firm Sirius Fund Management. My working career is over. I first started work as a 10-year-old chipping Bathurst  burrs with a hoe for my stepfather Alex Kelly. I went on to start my own business as a rabbit trapper and shooter and became a careful manager of my meagre cash assets. Interestingly, the contract I signed today was in the offices of a legal firm in George Street just down the road from the Royal Exchange building where I started my career with the chartered accounting firm, Price Waterhouse and Co in 1972 as a university undergraduate doing holiday work experience. I never wanted to be an accountant and in 1974 I was inducted into the firm with the senior partner giving me an introductory speech that included the never to be forgotten lines, “Well, this is the first year that Price Waterhouse has ever employed female graduates or Catholics.”

“That’s very enlightened. If they exclude those people where do they get their graduates from? Must be tough here for a female Catholic,” I thought.

I hated working as an accountant. Hated every day at PW. The firm had given me an undertaking that I would never have to be an auditor, a promise they reneged on from the first day. I never trusted them from that day on and spent every spare moment of my early career there in the public gallery of the Sydney Stock Exchange watching with fascination what was going on. When my three year qualifying period was up I left.

So what does the future hold? I don’t know. Everyone tells me that I should have a plan. Well I don’t have one. I have a work out period with the new company getting the clients settled down, then I’m done. The only bigger change in your life than starting work is when you stop.

Doing the cancer two step

This is a day that I’d rather not have to endure and hope that no one else has to either. About three weeks ago I presented at Dr Havyrk’s rooms – he is a prominent bronchial physician – because earlier CAT scans had shown two calcified nodules – growths or tumours to you and me. Could be nothing; a result of infection or exposure to asbestos on the farm or two much dust or mouldy hay or animal manure on the farm. They even have a name for it – Farmer’s Lung. Farms are dangerous places apparently. If I’d told him how much 2-4-D and 2-4-5-T (Agent Orange which contains Dioxin and came to fame in the Vietnam War) I’d been exposed to as a kid he probably would have thrown me out of his office.

Anyway Dr Havryk says that because I’ve survived three melanoma the things in my lungs might be malignant and I need a Positron Emission Tomography scan (love that medical verbosity). It’s a specialised type of whole-body scan called a PET scan for short. They are trying to find if little bits of melanoma have broken off and gone wandering about in places where they shouldn’t such as brain, liver or lungs. Women who have endured breast cancer have the same problem. Both types of cancer survivors are particularly prone to cells wandering around in no go zones, many years after an apparently clear diagnosis, and getting way too comfortable there.

Anyway a PET scan involves injecting the patient full of radioactive juice and watching the results as it travels around the body. I won’t bore you with the details but essentially a bunch of radioactive isotopes are attached to glucose molecules and then shot into your blood stream. The active parts of your body – brain liver etc need a lot of glucose and glow luminosity as they use it up and leave the isotopes behind. Really, really active parts of your body like growing cancer cells, suck up an enormous amount of glucose and attached isotopes and glow like a Dresden searchlight during a bombing raid. The scan picks up the glow of the malignant little buggers.

Anyway I had a very stimulating discussion with a nuclear medicine specialist after I was injected with the glucose solution. He told me all about how the isotopes are generated (not from uranium) and how it is safe to inject such a deadly substance into a human being (short half-life of the isotope.) This was reassuring until he told me that under no circumstances should I approach a pregnant woman or a newborn baby within ten hours of the scan. Reason: you are highly radioactive. I asked him if I would glow in the dark. Probably, he replied. At least he had a sense of humour.

Anyway, as I was being driven home by the ever-reliable Margaret Carney, I received a call on my mobile from the nuclear medicine specialist. The bad news is I have 4 nodules in my lungs, not 2. I’ve got a regular little herbarium going on inside me. The good news is none of them are glowing which means they are benign. I will probably have to get this procedure repeated annually for the next few years. That’s all good I suppose. I’m really glad I’m retiring. I can’t deal with all this stuff and look for a house and work too. Way beyond that.

A long very quiet Easter. I get the blues over these holiday long weekends. This was particularly bad as I couldn’t go down to the BBC nor could I swim at Manly. I hurt my left shoulder a couple of weeks ago during a long training swim at Manly with Barry. Very painful so I’ve retreated into the shell. Still if nothing else is available, at least I can go and be lonely in the gym. That’s productive loneliness. At 3pm once more into the Virgin gym at Frenchs Forest. Very quiet. Only the desperate, dateless and very weird go to the gym on an Easter Monday arvo.

I am incorporating the “pulse” movement into the gym machines. This was introduced by Belinda during the week. It involves a double-pump movement on the leg press and expansion machines effectively doubling the number of repetitions and fatiguing the muscles quicker. It’s very good but should not be tried early on.

Bike……. 5 Mins on levels 8,9,10,11,12

On each level got to 100rpm once

Total time 25 mins

Leg Curl ………………….

10 reps x 30kg = 30 curls

All using a double “pulse” at the bottom of the curl

Leg Press………………….

10 reps x 60kg = 10 presses

10 reps x 70kg = 10 presses

10 reps x 80kg = 10 presses

10 reps x 90kg = 10 presses

40 leg presses all up

Leg Extension…………….

35kg  x 10 reps   both legs

35kg  x 20 reps   both legs

30 leg extensions all up

All using a double “pulse” at the top of the lift

Not a bad session just doing strength work over and over. Shoulders sore from all the swimming I’ve been doing since I returned from skiing.

 

I was supposed to be packing as I leave tomorrow, but hey it’s Saturday and a clear, hot day outside and who wants to pack anyway. I had a swim at Balmoral, still a bit stiff in the back from the Cole Classic, but mercifully no shoulder or neck troubles. I could probably attempt the Palm Beach to Whale Beach swim now but alas, have to go skiing. Anyway, I had promised Jan Davies that I would take her walking group out on a hike today so drove my car back to Manly after the swim. A quick bowl of muesli and Rob Fitzpatrick pulled up out front, with a car load of female walkers, one of whom was his wife.

We set off from Long Reef, at 10am, along the edge of the golf course, the ocean a vibrant blue on the left; not much swell but an eye-popping demonstration of the distance Barry and I are planning to swim from Palm Beach. Things were going well, albeit a bit hot, when my phone suddenly beeped and it contained the following message from my daughter Amelia: Guys …Don’t freak out but I came off my bike.” Attached to the message was this photo:

There is nothing like this type of message to send a chill into a parent. She was okay, just bruised, but so lucky she wasn’t going fast when hit and neither was the driver of the car. While snow skiing, mountain climbing and horse riding have their fair share of mishaps, nothing touches road biking around the streets of Sydney for outright danger. I wouldn’t do it. The only accidents cyclists seem to have are serious ones.

We were at Curl Curl when I got the message, almost at Manly, so I peeled off when we reached my place. I said good bye to all the trekkers, told them to keep up the training and watch their feet. I was covered in sweat but went to see Amelia. She was propped up in Catherine’s chair, ice packs on her legs and elbows, with my crutches leaning on the wall. I’d loaned them to Catherine when she had her plate taken out. We had a laugh about it. I’ve now got photographs of two out of my three daughters on a gurney after suffering an accident, plus one of myself. Maybe we are an accident prone family.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s day and I leave for America.

And so its arrived. Wednesday February 10, the last rehab training session before I go to America on Sunday. I’ve been at this every week, mostly twice a week,  for almost 11 months and I guess in a way it ends here. It’s like a Uni exam. You study as hard as you can but exam time has finally rolled around. Belinda has done all she can – I couldn’t have asked for anything more – so now I have to go and sit the test. Like a good school teacher she can’t help me now I have to go and do it myself.

I warmed up on the boxes doing one legged squats carrying a 5kg dumbell in each hand

Small Box:  
30 x right legged squats x 3 reps   broken leg

30 x left legged squats x 3 reps

Big Box 
20 x right legged squats x 2 reps    broken leg

20 x right legged squats x 2 reps

This was much harder on the sound leg than the broken one but I still managed it ok although my patella tendon in the bad leg started to hurt. Also the coordination in my broken leg is still not as good as the sound leg.

Belinda arrived full of her usual briskness and I explained about the lack of coordination. She said that’s because of the intrusion in the knee from the surgery. The surgeon sometimes has to push the patella aside to get at the break. This stretches the tendon. This will improve over time and, as she pointed out, it is much better than it was and should improve with skiing although she warned me it may be a bit rough at the start.Thankfully she had nothing too strenuous planned but wanted to concentrate on stretching. It is too late to do any further strengthening work now. The horse has well and truly bolted.

I did a series of the now obligatory jumps off the big box before moving onto squats and lunges on the Kinesis machine. Things then turned weird. She got me to stand side-on to the machine, arms out straight in front of my chest, pulling sideways against the resistance. Then she asked me to stand on one leg. This mightn’t sound hard but it is the first time you try it. All the muscles in the foot, knee and thigh of the leg you are standing on go crazy at once trying to stop youy from falling over. It’s like standing one legged on a Bosu ball.

We had a discussion sitting in the gym after the session about how apprehensive I was about going skiing. It’s like the anxiety I got coming back from Freshwater in the Cole Classic. She had an interesting take: “Happens to people who have a serious injury, particularly if they haven’t been badly hurt before. It comes as a shock to them and you did have a serious injury. It’s also part of getting older. People just seem to lose a bit of physical confidence as they age. I don’t think that’s going to change.”

Such a wise head on young shoulders. I agree with her. Anyway bring on Montana.

THE BLUE OUTBACK

INTERVIEW WITH IAN McNAMARA

AUSTRALIA ALL OVER

SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY 7, 2016, 7.15am 

WALKING FROM MANLY TO SHELLY BEACH FOR START OF COLE CLASSIC

Macca: On the line is our swimming correspondent, Kieran Kelly. Good morning Kieran.

Good morning Ian. How are you?

Macca: Ah good. Mate where are you? Tell everybody.

I’m just down at Manly walking towards Shelly Beach for the start of the 5 km Cole Classic.

Macca: The Cole Classic. That’s on. How many people will be in that Kieran?

Probably about 2,500 Ian, over all the events. There’s the 5km swim, which is the smaller event, and they also have a 1km and a 2km. So it’ll be several thousand people.

Macca: Wow. Now Kieran you’re using this as training for your big swim a little later, in a month or two?

Yes, it’s training for our swim in a couple of months from Palm Beach to Manly, which is about 30 kms.

Macca: Have you been in the Cole classic before and swum in it?

I used to go in it every year. This is my first crack at the 5km swim. I used to go in the 2Km every year. It’s almost a community event down here in Manly and you get all sorts of people going in it and it’s quite fun. People in the 5K take it a bit more seriously. I’m swimming today for a bet and it’s one of the strangest bets that anyone’s ever had.

Macca: Tell me! Can you tell me?

Yeah I can. One of the swimmers from the Balmoral Beach Club, Alison Maunder, who’s a pretty handy swimmer over this distance and she said, `Kieran we’ve gotta have a bet.’ And I said, `Well people have a bet for five dollars or a bottle of wine. What about that?’ And she said, `No, this’s gotta be for a bottle of Kefir.’

Macca: A whatta?

Kefir.     You don’t know what Kefir is do you?

Macca: No

Alison’s a nutritionist so she’s very interested in people’s health. We used to milk every day Ian when I was a kid and when the milk went sour we used to pitch it out. Mum would throw it out. Nowadays, they put it in a very fancy plastic bottle with a label on the front, saying Kefir and sell it in health food stores for $15 a litre, because it’s good for the bacterial situation in your stomach. But my mother would say, `Kieran, look, you can put it in a bottle and call it Kefir, but it’s still sour milk.

It’s actually fermented cow’s milk, Ian. So I’m out here turning myself inside out and getting eaten by the sharks so I can win a litre of stale milk. I don’t know how life ever got this strange.

Macca: So what time does your swim start Kieran?

At 7:45am

Macca: Quarter to eight

I reckon I’ll be finished by 9:15, God willing.

Macca: Have you noticed any of the boys from the Brighton Beach club in Victoria there this morning?

I haven’t. I’m just walking up to the start line now. Everyone is just warming up. This is going to be an interesting race for some people because you have to swim well outside the shark net at Manly. We start here at Shelly Beach and we swim straight across to Freshwater Point and around a big box and come back and you’re about 100 metres outside the shark net and that’s the big wilderness. I often say there are two Australian Outbacks: the big red outback when you cross the North Bourke bridge and go over the Darling River. That’s the red outback and the blue outback is when you go over the shark net at Manly. You’re outside and in the wilderness. Some of these people won’t have been out beyond the shark net and to see it sliding by underneath you, and see the floats 10 or 15 feet below the water and the big cable that holds it up, it’s quite an eerie feeling. It’s like leaving Fort Laramie and going out into Cheyenne country, I think.

Macca: Now, I know when you are doing your other swim on your own, you have some little things trailing for sharks, do they have this on this swim?

No. No, the theory is there is enough commotion in the water, even though you’re out beyond the shark net, there is enough commotion so that the sharks won’t interfere with the people in the race.

Macca: Oh dear.

That’s the theory. I hope it’s true.

Macca: Yeah well I hope it’s true too, Kieran Kelly. Now when you finish this, how long will it take you?

Well I’d like to get in in under an hour and a half, if I could but it might be somewhere between an hour and a half an hour 40 minutes. Conditions are a bit rough.

Macca: Yeah and that’s the trouble. Which way do you turn your head, to the left or the right?

Both. I do both.

Macca: Both. Well you’ll probably have to if it’s coming in that way. Kieran, when you have finished this you are going away next week skiing again aren’t you?

Yeah, I am. My first skiing trip since I broke my leg.

Macca:  To where? Where are you going?

To Montana and then to Sun Valley in Idaho.

Macca:  And then you’re coming back and then doing the swim from Palm Beach to Manly?

That’s the plan.

Macca:  Well, good luck and good luck today Kieran. I won’t ask you to ring us during the swim.

No I can’t do that. I’ll have my mind on other things like; this is the race I don’t want to win because I’ll be presented with a stale bottle of milk at the end of it. So I hope I lose.

Macca:  A stale bottle of milk. What’s it called?

Kefir. I bet there’s a heap of your listeners probably take it every day Ian. In fact I do so I shouldn’t criticise it. I take it every day.

Macca:  Alright. Okay. Kieran, good luck mate and nice to talk to you. I hope I catch up with you sooner or later. Give us a ring from the ski fields too.

Ok thanks very much Ian.

Macca: Good onya mate. Bye

So as the days wind down to my departure for skiing, it seems that I’m doing a lot of swimming and not much skiing related exercises or rehab. Today is no exception. Today the organisers of the iconic Manly Cole Classic swim are going to run a 5 km event for the first time and I’ve entered. For many years I did the 2 km event in this series, firstly at Bondi, when it was located there and later at Manly. I don’t think I’ve ever done a 5 km ocean swim before. It looked dubious last night with a strong southerly wind and big seas booming into Queenscliff and Freshwater. I thought they would probably cancel it. They didn’t. There is still a swell running onto Queenscliff Headland as I walk down to Shelly although the wind has dropped off a bit.

Barry and Adriana Feyder, Ross Boakes, Alison Maunder from the beach club as well as David Healy met me at the Surf Club and we walked over to Shelly together. I did a radio interview with Ian McNamara’s Australia All Over radio programme for the swim which is something I’ve never done before – a perambulatory speech. That means I can walk and talk at the same time which I guess is encouraging.

Course is shown below.

Anyway off we went at 7:45 AM. The first couple of hundred metres were the only time in the entire event that I swam with anyone and it was a very lonely experience by the time I got down to the buoys opposite Freshwater Beach. I think I ended up about a kilometre off Freshwater Point as I was swimming too far to the right. On the way back I started to get anxious battling into the south-easterly swell and wind and feeling totally isolated. There were no other swimmers in the water that I could see and there was no water safety either. It was confronting as I pondered the consequences of a heart attack or stroke out there. Anyway, I kept that it, battling rising anxiety and eventually went round the last can in front of Manly Surf club somewhat relieved. Interestingly, I went around the can with Dave Healy who I’d gone off the beach with at Shelly an hour and a half earlier. Amelia and Bergin came to say hello and we had a jolly breakfast afterwards at Manly Winebar. The coffee never came, but it never does. I’m glad I did the swim. It won’t help my rehab or my skiing but it gives me a sense of accomplishment

Next Friday February 12, will be the one year anniversary of surgery for a tibial plateau fracture. Two days later, on the Sunday,  I leave for the United States to resume skiing. Hopefully. It’s been quite a year.