Last Sunday (17th May) saw the running of the annual Chambers Gully Challenge. I had signed up a few weeks ago with Kate knowing full well that it was a hill climb trail race up Mt Lofty. Kate did not realise this.
The race left from Chambers Gully Road at Waterfall Gully Road. The first 3kms are all uphill, the first km being a steady grind, and the next 2km being a hard calf burning ascent. Not so steep that I had to walk, but very close to. As I was running this steep section I was concerned about how Kate would be feeling. Not only was this unlike anything she had ever run...ever, but the air was cold and I was aware she hadn't brought her asthma medication.
It's interesting running a race like this. Only 10kms. I ran 27 kms last week, descending this exact trail. I knew how steep it was but you never really appreciate it until you run up it!
At the top of this grind, the next 5 kms is a beautifully flowy trail called the Wine Shanty Trail. It meanders along the contour of the ridge, providing a nice even running surface and beautiful scenery through Sclerophyll forest. At the end of this 5kms, is the final 2kms which is once again a steep climb to the summit. Given it was a race you always push yourself a bit harder, and I hit the summit in 51mins, about 9 mins faster than I normally run it. The second I hit the top I turned around and ran down to meet Kate.
She was doing really well given her absolute lack of race preparation. I met her as she was about to start the final 2km ascent. I ran it with her, her calves were burning but she persevered and smashed it in 1hr4mins I think. Obviously I was super proud of her achievement and laughed at the fact that she just rocks up and runs a steep as trail race with almost no trail running experience.
This race taught me a lot about trail running. I felt like a total newbie compared to road racing. I have no issues with pacing myself for a road race, however on the trails I had no idea how to tackle the race. Also 10kms is super short for me and I haven't been training for short bursts, and especially not short bursts with this kind of steepness. t also taught me to pay attention. First tail race, first wrong turn! I started chatting to someone and zoned out and once they backed off I continued to run my usual route. Next thing I heard someone yelling at me, I turned around to realise I had overshot the turn off by about 100 meters, and luckily someone had seen me before I went out of sight. I quickly turned around and when I caught up to the other competitor thanked them greatly. That could have really ruined my race!
In the end Kate finished with a 3rd place for her age group, very proud :-) All in all a fun race and I think it has inspired Kate to get out on the trails a bit more.
Showing posts with label outdoors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outdoors. Show all posts
Monday, May 18, 2015
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Friday, May 8, 2015
Running, Trail Running, Yurebilla Trail, Buffalo Stampede
Running is awesome! I am having the most fun running in a long time. Just running for the sake of running. How could it be better.
A bit over a year ago I was ramping back up from an injury that I sustained in the Victoria, BC, Marathon. I learnt a lot from this injury. Don't force speed. I always end up injured. Instead I am now focusing on running because I like it, not because I want to go fast. I am running a lot of miles and speed will slowly come with experience. I'm not pout to prove anything, but what I do want to achieve is to be able to just run for as long as I like.
This is a goal as I love running everywhere I go. It is such an amazing way to spend time with friends, meet new people and see a lot more than if you walked! For example, I could run the Yurebilla Trail in one day. If you walk it, you need to allocate 3 days.
Aside from loving running, I am also living Trail Running. Being out in the hills I just forget that I am running. The views are beautiful and ever changing. The air is fresh. It is a perfect time for meditation, delving deep into your mind and investigating all sorts of interesting thoughts or just finding a total point of clarity in which your mind is empty, free from the weights that we impose upon ourselves in this hectic life.
Running has inspired me to take on a few different challenges in the coming year. These two events will pose a new challenge and replace the challenge that Iron Man presented itself. The first is the Yurebilla Trail 56km. This race will take me the length of the Yurebilla Trail in hopefully 8ish hours.
The second is the Buffalo Stampede. A 76km Ultra that will take me and hopefully my great buddy from Colorado, Ty, from Bright to the top of Mt Buffalo and back to Bright in who knows how long. Since talking about this with Ty I have been so pumped. Running with buddies is amazing, but running with buddies that share a passion for being outdoors and running as much as we both do will be a once in a lifetime opportunity! The 76kms has a LOT of elevation gain and is going to be a great physical and mental challenge for us both, and it is going to be really interesting running together and seeing how comradeship helps pull us through the hard times of the race!
I guess this blog post is a random dribble of why running makes me stoked! I'm just so pumped right now that I had to write something!
Get out there and get running! It's awesome. Till next time, happy running!
A bit over a year ago I was ramping back up from an injury that I sustained in the Victoria, BC, Marathon. I learnt a lot from this injury. Don't force speed. I always end up injured. Instead I am now focusing on running because I like it, not because I want to go fast. I am running a lot of miles and speed will slowly come with experience. I'm not pout to prove anything, but what I do want to achieve is to be able to just run for as long as I like.
This is a goal as I love running everywhere I go. It is such an amazing way to spend time with friends, meet new people and see a lot more than if you walked! For example, I could run the Yurebilla Trail in one day. If you walk it, you need to allocate 3 days.
Aside from loving running, I am also living Trail Running. Being out in the hills I just forget that I am running. The views are beautiful and ever changing. The air is fresh. It is a perfect time for meditation, delving deep into your mind and investigating all sorts of interesting thoughts or just finding a total point of clarity in which your mind is empty, free from the weights that we impose upon ourselves in this hectic life.
Running has inspired me to take on a few different challenges in the coming year. These two events will pose a new challenge and replace the challenge that Iron Man presented itself. The first is the Yurebilla Trail 56km. This race will take me the length of the Yurebilla Trail in hopefully 8ish hours.
The second is the Buffalo Stampede. A 76km Ultra that will take me and hopefully my great buddy from Colorado, Ty, from Bright to the top of Mt Buffalo and back to Bright in who knows how long. Since talking about this with Ty I have been so pumped. Running with buddies is amazing, but running with buddies that share a passion for being outdoors and running as much as we both do will be a once in a lifetime opportunity! The 76kms has a LOT of elevation gain and is going to be a great physical and mental challenge for us both, and it is going to be really interesting running together and seeing how comradeship helps pull us through the hard times of the race!
I guess this blog post is a random dribble of why running makes me stoked! I'm just so pumped right now that I had to write something!
Get out there and get running! It's awesome. Till next time, happy running!
Monday, April 20, 2015
6 degrees and still swimming
I woke up this morning, with the goal to go swimming. Once I get the idea in my head, I'm pretty stubborn and find it hard to bail on my plans, so although the weather channel said it was 9 degrees outside, I dragged my ass out of bed, made a coffee and rode to Unley Pool, yes it's outdoors.
Once I arrive at the pool, the air temp is reading 6 degrees. Why am I out of bed? Now would be a good point to bail, but I don't and in the end have an amazing strength session in the pool. Due to the low air temp, the pool feels beautiful and I end up having a very productive session.
As there was no wind, and the sun was out, getting out of the pool wasn't too bad either. These are the sessions that lead to progress, the ones that you find hard to commit to, but once you finish, you feel so much better. It's this feeling at the end of a hard session that always convinces me to knuckle down and start a session that I don't want to do! I think it's this that keeps the training cycle going.
The sense of satisfaction for a hard session is always much greater than for a session that you were stoked to start!
Once I arrive at the pool, the air temp is reading 6 degrees. Why am I out of bed? Now would be a good point to bail, but I don't and in the end have an amazing strength session in the pool. Due to the low air temp, the pool feels beautiful and I end up having a very productive session.
As there was no wind, and the sun was out, getting out of the pool wasn't too bad either. These are the sessions that lead to progress, the ones that you find hard to commit to, but once you finish, you feel so much better. It's this feeling at the end of a hard session that always convinces me to knuckle down and start a session that I don't want to do! I think it's this that keeps the training cycle going.
The sense of satisfaction for a hard session is always much greater than for a session that you were stoked to start!
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Silver Sands Multisport Festival
Last weekend was the Aldinga, Silver Sands Multi Sport Festival. It is a very cool weekend. The Saturday consists of a 10km run in the morning, and then a 2km swim in the afternoon.
This is then followed on Sunday with an Olympic distance triathlon. This all makes for a very fun weekend.
I was pretty happy in the end, running a 42 min 10.5km on Saturday, and then swimming a 35min 2km in the afternoon. I think the swim is a PB, and the run was great for me at the moment seeming that I am not doing much speed work and am only just starting to ramp up the speed.
This very successful Saturday, however, led to being fatigues as all hell on the Sunday and really feeling it during the swim, ride and run.
The swim was decent for me (25mins) but was painful, the ride was amazing and felt ok, but the run was one of the most painful runs I'v ever done, and I felt it in my quads like I never have before.
Anyway I crossed the line in 2:19, which is pretty decent for me.
Overall it was an amazing weekend. The Saturday run course was absolutely stunning, and the swim was the most beautiful swim I've ever done! The bike course followed the esplanade along the side of the ocean and some beautiful sand dune scrub making it one of the best triathlon bike legs that I ahve ever ridden as well.
Kate smashed the run and swim on Saturday, but passed on Sundays activities due to a few lingering Iron Man niggles. Instead she decided to look after our pain in the ass dog for a half day. Never doing that again :-)
This is then followed on Sunday with an Olympic distance triathlon. This all makes for a very fun weekend.
I was pretty happy in the end, running a 42 min 10.5km on Saturday, and then swimming a 35min 2km in the afternoon. I think the swim is a PB, and the run was great for me at the moment seeming that I am not doing much speed work and am only just starting to ramp up the speed.
This very successful Saturday, however, led to being fatigues as all hell on the Sunday and really feeling it during the swim, ride and run.
The swim was decent for me (25mins) but was painful, the ride was amazing and felt ok, but the run was one of the most painful runs I'v ever done, and I felt it in my quads like I never have before.
Anyway I crossed the line in 2:19, which is pretty decent for me.
Overall it was an amazing weekend. The Saturday run course was absolutely stunning, and the swim was the most beautiful swim I've ever done! The bike course followed the esplanade along the side of the ocean and some beautiful sand dune scrub making it one of the best triathlon bike legs that I ahve ever ridden as well.
Kate smashed the run and swim on Saturday, but passed on Sundays activities due to a few lingering Iron Man niggles. Instead she decided to look after our pain in the ass dog for a half day. Never doing that again :-)
Monday, March 30, 2015
"Tim Forbes, you are now an Iron Man"
"Tim Forbes, you are now an Iron Man".
The sentence that made the last year of commitment and training worthwhile. As I heard this called over the loud speakers by the amazing American commentator I knew I had accomplished the most incredible thing I've ever done!
The sentence that made the last year of commitment and training worthwhile. As I heard this called over the loud speakers by the amazing American commentator I knew I had accomplished the most incredible thing I've ever done!
The thing about Iron Man is that it is a whole package! You don't just have to do the training and have the necessary fitness to complete the event. You also need to organise the whole weekend. Flights, accommodation, transportation etc. You also are required to attend the Iron Man Expo for different functions over the four day duration. What you end up with is an amazing long weekend in which you are immersed in the whole culture of Iron Man. You also feel a sense of accomplishment and achievement not only because you just completed Iron Man, but because a good half year of organisation, training and commitment have just been fulfilled!
I think the best way to elaborate will be to start on Wednesday, and work through to Monday, the day after Iron Man!
Wednesday:
Last day of work before Iron Man! A night of packing, repacking, list making and double checking awaits. I am now starting to get a bit anxious! I hope we remember everything, make all our connections and that all our equipment arrives safely.
The night is spent safely padding the bikes and working out what gets packed where. I pack the bike box with all of our bike components inside, I then pack hand luggage that has all the tri gear that I need for the race. Therefore the only thing to go wrong is that my bike goes missing! Expensive to resolve, yes, but at least I only need to find a bike shop and buy a bike, everything else will be right with me.
Packing done, we go to book a van to the airport. With all our gear we need a pretty big vehicle! We now discover that vans aren't as easy to come by as we hoped. They can't guarantee the exact time so we booked the van super early - just in case. This led to a huge airport wait the next day, but better than missing the flight. At this point the only thing that matters is getting to the Iron Man start line on Sunday.
Everything packed, nutrition sorted and packed. Good to go. I zonk and sleep well, Kate has a broken sleep-excited and anxious about what is to come.
Thursday:
The alarm wakes me at 4:30am. Yes I am crazy, but also super excited and obsessive! I want to triple check everything, plus brekky is my favourite meal of the day, and since going to bed, I've been dreaming of muesli and coffee!
First thing, stove top espresso maker is set up and boiling away! While this is boiling away, a massive bowl of muesli is made. My zen moment then starts. My 15mins of early morning deliciousness where I savior my coffee and muesli before I start going crazy and freaking out about remembering everything.
It's amazing where time went! After double checking all our stuff, watering the garden and a final prep for my sis who was house sitting, it was 9am and we were getting a texty letting us know our cab would be arriving in a few minutes! Game on. Bags outside, loaded into the van, house locked and on our way. Shit! I hope we didn't forget anything.
We check in with Virgin and drop our bikes off at over-sized luggage! I never pray-I'm about as far from a religious man as you will ever find. However that day I prayed that our bikes would arrive safely.
So it's 9:30 and our plane boards at 10:30. Boring! After confusing the Cibo staff when inquiring if their soy milk is sweetened (which it isn't by the way) and then consuming said soy latte, I realise that airport food is shit and expensive! Why did I not bring snacks, especially given my current appetite and the fact I ate brekky at 5....? I manage to find a savior a the news stand! Ridiculously overpriced raw unsalted nut and seed mix. I buy 3 bags! Yeewww, sustained until Melbourne.
We finally board the plane for the epically long 50 minute flight-which is ended with one of the sketchiest landings I've ever experienced - It was kinda fun! The Adelaide - Melbs route is a classic flight. You take off, ascend, and the second cruising altitude is reached...start descending! At least it's a cheap flight right with free refreshments..unheard of these days!
Anyways, we disembark and rush to oversized baggage, praying that our bike boxes emerge. And there they are, instantly, almost like they emerged from the holy light behind the oversized baggage door, carried by an angel / butch aussie bloke who could give a rats ares about our bikes! Was that an angelic harmony I heard, or grinding metal of another poor triathletes bike out back?
Next our baggage comes out! Nutrition, check! We load up some trolleys and get our rental car. Everything fits in the car fine, the car drives well and we're en route to Frankston. About a 1hr drive from the airport. All goes smoothly and we hit Frankston with good time, upon which the first of two very minor hiccups in the trip occurs! The apartment hasn't been cleaned - our air b'n'b host had forgotten to add our apartment to the clean list! It was a bit disappointing, but our air b'n'b host was so awesome about it and got everything sorted and clean for us ASAP. That aside the apartment was amazing! Fully equipped kitchen, beautiful views and about a 5min walk to Iron Man transition zone.
I forgot to say that the reason the plane landing was so sketchy was because of the ridiculously high winds! So Melbourne was hot and windy, the whole drive to Frankston was gusty and I could feel the car being blown around. Interestingly we drove the whole bike leg of the Iron Man course on the way down, and it was really windy as it was pretty exposed. I was worrying - if this wind was anything like what we could expect on Sunday, the race was going to be interesting to say the least! Not long after arriving in Frankston though, the heaviest rainstorm I have seen for a long time hit, justifying Melbourne's stereotype of having 4 seasons in one day! After the rain storm passed, the wind was gone and there was a beautiful cleanliness remaining!
Anyway, back to the apartment. We unloaded the car and my first priority was getting the bikes built. I really wanted to know that the bikes had traveled fine! I quickly unpacked them and built them up. All was good! My stress levels dropped so we headed to Frankston to buy the weekends worth of groceries.
I won't linger on the shopping details, but needless to say, quite a lot was bought to sustain our appetites for the next few days!
Kate and I cooked Vietnamese cold rolls with peanut sauce and tofu for the parents, I tweaked with the bikes a bit and then off to bed. All looked well set in place for a successful Iron Man.
Friday:
The list for Friday was pretty chilled. Short training ride, mainly to check the bikes feel OK and that everything is set up correctly. A short 30min ocean swim, and a trip to St Kilda to sign in and have the official race welcome and race director talk.
First up, epic brekky of muesli and coffee :D - then swim! Priorities right. The swim was beautiful, however due to the wind from the day before there was some pretty decent swell, but really this was perfect for race day prep, just in case there were waves. Kate dealt with it really well and smashed the 30 mins. It could not have been much better for practicing with waves - the conditions could only bet better given the forecast.
I loved the swim, the water was warm and crystal clear. The swim itself was so fun with the rolling waves. We were swimming across the swell and as the swell picked you up all of a sudden the sea floor was well beneath you, and then the swell would drop away and next thing you were right up close! So entertaining :-)
Next up was a 30 min ride. Easy and slow. Bikes felt good - lingering saddle sore did not feel good..hmm. That had me a bit worried. It had flared up again a few days before hand, after having caused me some big woes around my longest bike legs in training about 4 weeks prior. Worst case I'd be able to deal with it on race day, but not preferable. Betadine and good dressings were continually being applied in the hope of a miraculous healing. In the end the saddle sore resolved itself in a gross kinda way...I may elaborate later (it happened on Saturday).
After all this we had a quick snack and headed St Kilda way. We got signed in and chilled in the expo area for a while, soaking up the atmosphere and just generally relaxing. What was cool is that as a part of Iron Man, Kate and I each received a $35 voucher for a local Iron Man participating restaurant of our choice! This was so rad. We found a nice little vegan cafe on Acland St called Sister of Soul and munched an amazing dinner courtesy of Iron Man. Prior to this we cafe crawled, sampling numerous Lattes and Long Blacks; Kate also managed to find a rad little clothes shop and stock up on some new outfits!
Following dinner we headed to the beautiful Palais Theatre for our race briefing, and to hear some of the top athletes talk! It was a scary meeting and left me feeling a bit like..."uhhh, what the f%$k have I got myself into!" Thank you to the pros for making it sound so hard - Kate and I were both shitting ourselves, but I just continued to say we've done the training, so we're all good!
Following this we had the 1hr drive back to Frankston. The only thing for Saturday was to rack the bikes and drop off our transition gear. Aside from that we were catching some friends in the morning and just chilling out. At this point we were starting to feel relaxed and like we were on holiday. I guess a good place to have the body in prior to such a big event.
Kate had a niggling cold presenting itself and was stressing. I was being positive that it would eventuate to nothing. My mum being the well equipped doctor that she is had a stack of cold and flu medication, so Kate got doped up and zonked out!
Saturday:
No way! I got a sleep in to 7am! Yep, that's a sleep in for me. Definitely feeling relaxed physically, but still anxious to get all the gear checked. Also good news, Kate awoke with all cold symptoms gone! All she needed was a good sleep, but regardless I made her a huge fruit bowl with lots of Vitamin C rich fruit :-)
Anyways, you got it....muesli and coffee! We then headed to meet our rad friends Dan and B, with their beautiful kids Finn and Wren for brekky. They had been nice enough to meet us half way at Aspendale at a cool little cafe called the "Kitchen Table Cafe". Really nice lattes. As I was on my obsessive pre-race diet I had gluten free bread and avocado while the others had all sorts of amazing egg combinations! A brekky of catching up, kids shenanigans and good times ensued. Finn managed to take chalk to the big black board wall and draw a huge mural all over it!
We hung out till almost 10, and then the nerves started kicking in as transition zone neared opening. This marked time to wrap things up and get home to double check our gear bags then get to transition zone! We bid farewell to our great friends and hit the road back to Frankston.
I was a ball of nerves by now. Obsessively going over our gear bags, cross checking with our lists, doing the good old check of head for run: sunnies and hat, check! head for bike: sunnies and helmet, check! etc!
Finally we were ready to head to transition. Nervously looking at Kate I commented that I couldn't believe that this day had finally come about. We wandered to transition with the parents following along! We dropped our gear off, let air out of the tires, did the transition zone tour checking where we would be entering, exiting etc. It was very well set up to just flow! Kate's bike was racked in an amazing position, pretty much at the end of the row right where you would run through to get to the mount line! We deposited our gear bags, double checking again that everything was there! Yes, triathlon is obsessive! We wandered to the Frankston pier to see where the swim buoys were and get a feel for where we would be swimming - pretty straight forward.
And done, now all we had to do was relax and get to the start line...or that's what you'd think, until Kate commented on the walk home, "I hope I put my riding gear in the blue bag, and my running gear in the red bag! What if we got it mixed up?"
Dammit, now we had to go back to transition to check...again! LOL. So Plan of attack. Go home, eat lunch, have a coffee, head to transition zone then head into town for a coffee with the parents.
I'm not going to elaborate too much on the afternoon, but yes, we had packed our gear in the correct bags.
Finally it was time for pre race dinner! The same meal I had been eating before my big training sessions for the last few months! Brown rice, sweet potato, potato, tahini! Carbs and fat. At this point I was feeling truly relaxed, we had done everything we could to prepare, it was time to race.
The last thing I do before zonking is set an alarm for 4:45 in the morning. The alarm description reads "Timing Chip Dumb Ass". I think I'll keep this alarm for the life of the phone, and hopefully it will wake me for my next Iron Man!
Kate and I fell asleep looking at each other, not believing that we would be waking up on Iron Man race day, injury free and ready to race! So Excited
Sunday:
I set the alarm for 4:30, giving me bimble time for coffee and muesli. The important things right. You may be realising I'm a creature of habit!
I made up all my drink bottles, got my energy gels and suited up. Kate arose a bit later than me - she gets ready a bit quicker than me. Time to walk down came about very quickly. Goggles, check, garmin, check, timing chip, check, swim cap, race tattoos, check! We're good to race!
We planned to get to the transition zone at 6, leaving a hour to set ourselves up, get our nutrition in place and get to the water to start. We set up our bikes with our nutrition, pumped the tires and then dropped our end of race gear bags off. We then headed to the start line.
I had opted for swim zone 2 (1hr to 1hr 8min) and Kate had opted for Zone 4 (in the end she smashed this time and should have done zone 3)! Due to this we had to say good bye to each other and head our separate ways about 30min before starting. This was a bit scary, knowing that the next time I saw Kate, should all go well, would be over the finish line in 10 - 12hrs time...wow!
I don't like swimming before the race starts, then you stand around all wet getting cold! So I just stood feet in the water (as the sand was freezing) until it was start time. Next thing I'm lined up with 2500 other athletes funneling into the start gate. This was the first time Melbourne had done a rolling start to try and relieve congestion - my opinion is that it was awesome. So next thing I know I'm at the front of the mass build up, in the start gate, then GO! I let out a hoot and am off, running into the water, it's waist deep for about 100 meters and then I then dive and am off swimming! So stoked!
The swim goes amazingly well. I feel great and other than a bit of sun glare making it hard to see the buoys, I get a PB and swim the 3.8 in 1hr7mins. Maybe without the sun glare I could have got 1hr5mins. Maybe. But when I see my watch as I exit the water I am so stoked that I let out another hoot.
T1 - about 4mins.
Enter the bike. Transition goes smoothly, the bike is good, I had already set the bike up in the right gear to ensure no mount line high gear stalling:and I'm off. As I am out on the bike course pretty early the head wind has not yet picked up for the outward leg as predicted, it is definitely there, but not that bad. We trained with a lot of headwind on our Outer harbor loop.
Part way through the first lap out (the first 45kms) I decided that I was going to enjoy the day rather than try to smash out an epic time. So many people had been telling me that your first Iron Man is your best as you have no expectations or PBs to beat. So at this point I decided to make friends with the head wind and figured I'd just go steady into it rather than trying to battle it, and then smash it with the wind. In the end this worked pretty well for me, with my final time being 32.8km/h average, which was .2km/h off my goal race pace. However this is still ridiculously slow and I have noted that I really need to get stronger on the bike! I think that the bike is pretty much where I lost the sub 10hr time!
The bike course was pretty cool. The East Link tollway closed it's southbound lanes for the Iron Man. This took the race 45kms out from Frankston and back twice. The course was undulating with mild uphills and mild descents. This was perfect as I'm pretty strong at climbing, and the descents gave an opportunity to stretch out the hammys! At the 45km mark of each loop there was a huge tunnel that we descended into, getting some pretty high speeds. Not only was the tunnel really fun, but it was also nice and cool, giving a good 5 mins or so of relief from the sun and warm air temp.
By the time I got to my second outbound leg, the head wind had picked up. This was a slog and my avg speed for this leg was a bleak 27km/h. The hot wind was also drying me out, and I was drinking a lot. Compared to my training (even on hot 38deg days), my fluid consumption was way up, which worried me a bit as I was not sure how this would effect me on the run, but I figured if you feel like you need to drink, you need to drink. I ended up going 50/50 electrolyte drink to water, with a good gulp of my Hammer Perpetuem energy drink every half hour and an energy gel (home made) each hour with a banana at each second aid station.
By the time I got to the end of the second outward leg, I was so freaking sick of gels and sweet drink. I was craving something solid. Although I had never trained with it, I grabbed one of the Endura chocolate energy bars at the aid station that was situated at the beginning of the final 45km stretch home. At this point I also decided to stop and have a toilet break, eat the energy bar and get back on the bike, prepped to smash the final 45kms with the wind, not having to worry about a toilet stop. (The need was slowly coming on and I didn't want to break some good momentum with the tail wind). I also figured I could make it back to the transition zone, but the toilets there may be congested. Anyways, I think this was one of the smartest moves I made in the race. It just set me up really well to finish the bike leg well.
That final leg was great. That tail wind made us all feel like machines!
Each lap was great as I managed to see Kate as we were passing on alternate laps. This was a massive relief the first time I saw her as I knew the swim had gone well, and then each subsequent time she looked strong and in good spirits! This definitely made my race easier and I was just stoked that she was going well and enjoying herself.
Funnily I found out later, kate was having a few mechanical issues with her saddle, as well as needing a few toilet breaks. On her final lap out she knew that if I didn't see her I'd worry, so she kept putting off a toilet/mechanical break until she saw me...I never came so she finally stopped for the loo. About two minutes later after starting riding again I passed her - hows that for timing. She then proceeded to do some side of road mechanics in which stuff started rolling everywhere - however she has waited for me to pass so that I didn't catch a glimpse of this as she knew I would have been worrying for the rest of the race. How sweet :-)
Finishing the bike leg was great. The longest part of Iron Man over and done with, and I was feeling good! I rock up to the dismount line, hearing the commentator call me in and then a cheer with my name, at which point the commentator calls me Forbsey??? Not sure if anyone was in Frankston that day that knew me, but if you were, thank you for being there whoever you were. At the dismount line it is amazing - a volunteer just takes your bike from you and you run off to transition - they re rack your bike for you! Amazing.
The legs felt a bit shaky straight off the bike, and running in cleats is never awesome, but none the less I was in and out of transition in 4 mins, including a huge sunscreen session. Running shoes on, hat, sunnies, bang! Time to run.
Out of the Transition tent, hit lap on garmin and the marathon begins! Man I was feeling good. The legs were turning over well and I was just loving life. The run started by shooting 1km south, and then u-turned and headed back north towards the finish line. This was interesting as we were sharing a small trail, runners on the left going down, runners on the right coming back up, and it let you see how some people were going! I was blown away to see people already walking. I couldn't imagine their pain - only another 40kms to go and already walking. WOW!
At this early stage there were a fair few spectators and I made sure I hi-fived as many kids as I could and thanked every spectator that cheered me! I made sure I thanked the volunteers and it was amazing when there were residents with hoses offering spray downs! Amazing and thank you!
Anyways, I was feeling good, running 4:45kms so I set out a game plan. Hit the first 21kms hopefully sub 5min km pace, then take the next 10kms a bit easier and smashout the last 10 if I'm feeling great.
This race was different to a lot of my training. My appetite was huge and I was consuming fluids like a machine. I was wary to not get a dodgy stomach, but I figured if I need to drink, then drink. The aid stations were each 2km, this made it easy to make sure you got all the nutrition and hydration that you needed, but it was also a great way to count down the race.
I got into a good routine with hydration and nutrition. It was loosely as follows: First aid station, water on face, water to drink, ice under hat. Second aid station, water in face, electrolyte to drink, ice under hat, water in face. Third aid station, ice under hat / down tri suit etc. That was rad until I got a mass chunk of ice down in my nether regions...not awesome! I'd then repeat this over. With nutrition I'd grab something at every third station, making sure not to over do it. I ate a mix of energy bars (just needing something solid), water melon (cos watermelon is awesome) and bananas!
So, I hit 21kms, feeling pretty good and overtaking a lot of people, but unfortunately not feeling as good as I had hoped, I realised at this point I was just going to maintain a comfortable speed for the rest of the marathon - which was still pushing it due to the fact that the whole freaking marathon from this point felt like it was uphill, and there was a hot dry headwind, and it was 4 in the arvo and about 29degrees! I think this is why I was drinking so many fluids!
I remember at 22kms there was a short uphill that went from the beach trail, to the top of the dunes to run along the road above - I had sworn I wouldn't walk any part of the marathon, so I ran the hill. It was fine but at the top it was carnage - obviously a lot of others had also tied this and they were all sprawled over the ground passed out or throwing up in the bushes. Pushing it way too hard.
Anyways the rest of the Marathon was pretty cool. I just cruised it out, motivated by some rad crowds, especially the crew at the St Kilda sailing club with about 2kms to go! You guys rocked!
At this point I picked up the pace, not believing that it was almost over. All that hard work training, 3am morning bike rides, smashing out 32km runs before work, all about to be made worthwhile. I started feeling like I was choking up as I turned into the finishing chute! Man, looking down that Iron Man finishing chute, lined with people and all carpeted with red Iron Man logos is pretty special! Not many people get to experience that and it is one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced.
I conjured up my last ounces of energy and smashed the 200 meters of finishing chute and bang, over the finish line! Done! And feeling good!
A volunteer greets me and gives me my medal and finishing towel, which was strange as my dad was meant to be there to give this to me (he got VIP tickets for the day which enabled him to meet me at the finish line). So I'm a bit dazed and confused as to whats going on, then I see my dad, totally confused and holding a towel and medal, obviously having missed his cue and hence the volunteer had got to me first. Anyways, one of the amazing Iron Man crew lead us away from the finish line I say hi to dad and happen to score a second towel and medal due to dads confusion :-) After a breif conversation with dad and a quick chat to mum through the fence, I'm off to the recovery area for food and massage. The first thing I asked mum when I saw her was "where's Kate at?" Mum responded that she had just passed 21kms on the Marathon! I was over the moon. I knew Kate could smash the run and the fact that she was already half way through filled me with stoke! I could now really relax.
While I remember I have to say the Iron Man volunteers were amazing. On numerous occasions I'd ask for say an energy bar at an aid station and they wouldn't have one. I'd keep running, not really minding, and then next thing I'd have a volunteer sprinting up beside me with an energy bar. Amazing, and thank you so much. I think this happened on 3 occasions! Then in the recovery area, I grabbed a bowl of fruit salad and a massive dollop of ice cream on top, and then went to the massage area as another athlete recommended I get there to avoid a line up. So I take a seat in the line for a massage, and then ask the volunteer that is directing us if it's cool for me to mark my place in line with my shoes, go get some more ice cream and come back...he was like "You know what, I'll go get it for you!" Amazing. A few mins and he's back with the biggest bowl of ice cream! I smashed it all. So good!
Anyways after the massage and some food, I manage to swindle my way into the VIP area to meet my parents and get my phone so I can check up on Kate and her progress. I was stoked to find that she was not almost at 35kms. Based on her pace I figured about another 40 mins. I was counting down, refreshing my phone over and over. Willing Kate along. She finally hit 40kms, and I'm thinking sweet, I'll give her 10 mins. She passes 41kms, and I'm getting ready for a photo of her and maybe a big hug down the finishing chute.
This last 1km seems to take forever, and I look at my phone for a second to see how long it has taken, and look up just in time to see Kate smashing it towards the finish line! Holy shit she was cracking it!
"Kate Forbes, you are now an Iron Man!"
Hearing that made me so proud and finally tied up the last 3 months of hard work! Experiencing this with Kate has been the most amazing thing, and seeing her cross the finish line so well was amazing!
I rushed into the recovery area where we hung out and talked race stories with fellow athletes and each other for a fair while. I smashed a lot more food and got another massage.
By this point we figured we should go out to see mum and dad, they had been so good waiting for us. I think they were super tired but were still loving it and being really encouraging! They are rad and it was so special having theme there to greet us over the line! We hung out with them for another hour or so watching athletes roll in, never getting sick of "....you are now an Iron Man!" LOL.
Thankfully mum had decided she loved the big ass engine in our rental car and offered to lay some rubber and drive us home. Thank god, I could barely walk at this point and driving for a hour was not super appealing. The drive home to Frankston was full of Iron Man banter. Already remembering the fun moments and the times that we had to dig in deep. It was so amazing and I was so glad that Kate and I had had such a successful day!
By the time we got home, we had a bit more food, some hydration, a mad shower and got to bed. Kate and I zonked looking at each other just grinning like fools. Only 15 hours earlier we had woken looking into each others eyes wondering what the f%$k we were about to get ourselves into.
Monday:
I wake up, breakfast on my mind! Coffee and muesli right :-) Creature of habit. However because it is first day post Iron Man, it is about 4 coffees, a huuuuge bowl of muesli, yoghurt, scrambled tofu, sweet potato and potato hash, boiled eggs...woooo yeh!
Surprisingly I'm feeling great. Walking is a bit tough as is to be expected, but really I have pulled up fine. Stoked!
Anyways, after the epic brekky, there is a small list for the day. Pack up apartment and load car. Drive to St Kilda Iron Man expo to gather bikes and gear bags, as well as buy merchandise. I wouldn't buy merch until I actually finished! I figured this would be a) bad luck and b) lame. why would you wear gear from an event that you couldn't finish??? Drive to swanky hotel that mum and dad had booked. Iron Man after party and then an nice night out starting with meeting a friend for drinks, and then dinner with the rentals.
So, we pack up the apartment, pretty quickly and are ready to hit the road at 9! This was my ititial plan, but after our epic cook up for brekky, I did not think we'd manage it, however I even got to get out the door with a coffee for the road! I was trying to smash the coffee cos I love it for one, but also my mum bout a big assed bag that we didn't want to lug home, and me being frugal, did not want to waste it!
So towards St Kilda we head, back up the same route that the Marathon from the day before hand had run along. I tell you what, you appreciate a marathon a bit more when you go and drive the course, as it still takes a freaking long time to drive the length of it!
Anyways, we get to St Kilda and score a park right out front of the expo. Iron Man have this organised like a military operation. Pretty much over night, all of out bikes and gear are moved to St Kilda and repositioned exactly like the transition zone, so all we do is walk in, show ur athlete wrist bands, pick up our gear and bikes from exactly where is should be, and then get scanned out by barcode with our bikes - making sure that you are the actual owner of the bike you are wheeling out! I was blown away by the organisation and how well it worked!
So we grab all of our gear, a bunch of merchandise - wow Iron Man make a killing - and then head to the car to pack up. I planned to roughly pack our bikes and then do it properly at the apartment, but then figure if I'm gonna do it now, I may as well do it properly, so top off, game on, I smash out boxing two bikes on the side of the road while it's lightly raining! Total time, 1hr to pick up all our gear, buy a bunch of merch (this took a while) and box two bikes. Bang!
I'm utterly surprised that we are running on time, actually early even. Our next appointment is 1:30 for the Iron Man after party and I actually think that we may be early.
Anyways, next step, get the parentals to the Hotel, Mum had booked a two bedroom apartment in the Citadine, Bourke St, downtown Melbs. We get there easily (Melbs traffic isn't that bad!), and suss out parking in the hotel, pretty good deal really, $26 for 24hrs parking! We get all our gear into the apartment and organise a bit.
I make another coffee :-)
The organisation step involves unpacking our gear bags from the race. I won't bore you too much with these details, but woooaaa, the swim bag stank. Put a wetsuit in a plastic bag for 24hrs in a warm marquee and it don't smell too good :-)
Loving it as we are so organised and running on a boat load of endorphins, Kate and I head back to St Kilda.LOL.for the Iron Man after party. I'm stoked as somehow I find a free all day park! We arrive back at the Iron Man expo (where we just picked our bikes up from) a bit early, which is awesome as we get to see the age group presentations. And this blew me away. When the older age groupers got up i was so impressed. Firstly the 50 - 54 category. I will never stop being fit and healthy after seeing these fine specimens. They didn't look a day over 35! Totally inspired to keep up triathlon after this. Then the age group of 70 - 74, and the dear old lady, the only entrant in this age group! She finished with 2 mins to spare before cut of. This brought a frog to the throat. What an inspirational person, and she brushed it off like it was another walk in the park!
From here it was a short walk to the after party. Being truly inspired by the whole package of Iron Man, the people that compete and the comradeship that is shared by your fellow finishers, the idea of another Iron Man is already welling! The idea is cemented at the after party.
Firstly the after party was amazing. Fully catered ad a swanky bar on the esplanade at St Kilda. I happened to mention when a waiter was near by that I wouldn't mind a slice of pizza when one comes around again. About 5 mins later the waiter is back with 3 pizzas for me! WOW. I actually had a beer, it was quite delicious and Kate and I smashed a lot of food. Aside from the amazing party that Iron Man put on, we experienced one of the things that makes Iron Man so special. We just wandered up to some spare seats and asked if we could sit. Next thing we are chatting away to total strangers, obviously we share quite a lot in common already, and have a good 10hrs of common stories from the day before to talk about. This couple have done collectively about 12 Iron Men events, and they got me super excited on a few. By the time we said our farewells I had decided it would be Cairns or Pt Macquarie. Cairns for the beautiful bike ride, and Pt Macquarie for a few reasons. The swim is unique as it goes up an estuary. The bike is beautiful and a bit hilly (this suits me), but mainly the run, which initially didn't appeal as it is a 4 lap Marathon, but when told about the section near the break wall and caravan park that is lined with people cheering you on, I got pretty stoked. The way this was described to me, you could see my fellow athletes eyes light up as they recalled the many times they passed the same crowd.
Kate and I left this party, our last official Iron Man activity, thoroughly impressed with what Iron Man is. It is so much more than just a huge suffer fest. Sure the personal goals that are accomplished are absolutely amazing. But for me the special thing was all the inspirational athletes that we met and witnessed achieving amazing personal feats. The comradeship after crossing the finish line. The battle stories that everyone has to share. It is all amazing and just left us feeling so overwhelmed and inspired. That is what an event should be about. Iron Man is not about the winners, the first man and woman to cross the line as it may be in say the NYC Marathon, but it is about the 74 year old lady that crosses the line 2 minutes before cut off, the team of 40 that are all racing for the "Tour de Cure" team to raise money for cancer awareness. Thats what makes Iron Man special and is what will make keep me returning for a while yet!
Oh yeh, earlier on I mentioned the apartment being clean was hiccup one of our trip. Hiccup 2 was literally the last step of the trip. As Kates bike box was carried out of the oversized baggage area, a whole lot of shit fell out of the bottom as the tape gave way. I was freaking thinking that her stuff would be strewn all over the plane and runway, imagining hundreds of dollars of replacement. To top this off the security guy at oversized baggage was a mad douche and could care less that I wanted to check if anything else was missing.
Luckily when we got home and went through the box, nothing was missing, it had literally broken before our eyes so we collected everything that fell out..phew. That topped the trip off, almost feeling like a little victory :-) Now back to standard life and wondering what to do next. It'll be hard to fill the void of all that training. Averaging 15hrs a week for the last 3 months gives you a lot of spare time when you stop.
The race in time:
total: 10hrs 37mins
swim: 1hr 7mins, 3.8kms
bike: 5hrs 38mins, 180kms
run: 3hrs 44mins, 42kms
total distance: 226kms
Anyways, thankyou for reading, I hope you enjoyed the ride!
Next our baggage comes out! Nutrition, check! We load up some trolleys and get our rental car. Everything fits in the car fine, the car drives well and we're en route to Frankston. About a 1hr drive from the airport. All goes smoothly and we hit Frankston with good time, upon which the first of two very minor hiccups in the trip occurs! The apartment hasn't been cleaned - our air b'n'b host had forgotten to add our apartment to the clean list! It was a bit disappointing, but our air b'n'b host was so awesome about it and got everything sorted and clean for us ASAP. That aside the apartment was amazing! Fully equipped kitchen, beautiful views and about a 5min walk to Iron Man transition zone.
I forgot to say that the reason the plane landing was so sketchy was because of the ridiculously high winds! So Melbourne was hot and windy, the whole drive to Frankston was gusty and I could feel the car being blown around. Interestingly we drove the whole bike leg of the Iron Man course on the way down, and it was really windy as it was pretty exposed. I was worrying - if this wind was anything like what we could expect on Sunday, the race was going to be interesting to say the least! Not long after arriving in Frankston though, the heaviest rainstorm I have seen for a long time hit, justifying Melbourne's stereotype of having 4 seasons in one day! After the rain storm passed, the wind was gone and there was a beautiful cleanliness remaining!
Anyway, back to the apartment. We unloaded the car and my first priority was getting the bikes built. I really wanted to know that the bikes had traveled fine! I quickly unpacked them and built them up. All was good! My stress levels dropped so we headed to Frankston to buy the weekends worth of groceries.
I won't linger on the shopping details, but needless to say, quite a lot was bought to sustain our appetites for the next few days!
Kate and I cooked Vietnamese cold rolls with peanut sauce and tofu for the parents, I tweaked with the bikes a bit and then off to bed. All looked well set in place for a successful Iron Man.
Friday:
The list for Friday was pretty chilled. Short training ride, mainly to check the bikes feel OK and that everything is set up correctly. A short 30min ocean swim, and a trip to St Kilda to sign in and have the official race welcome and race director talk.
First up, epic brekky of muesli and coffee :D - then swim! Priorities right. The swim was beautiful, however due to the wind from the day before there was some pretty decent swell, but really this was perfect for race day prep, just in case there were waves. Kate dealt with it really well and smashed the 30 mins. It could not have been much better for practicing with waves - the conditions could only bet better given the forecast.
I loved the swim, the water was warm and crystal clear. The swim itself was so fun with the rolling waves. We were swimming across the swell and as the swell picked you up all of a sudden the sea floor was well beneath you, and then the swell would drop away and next thing you were right up close! So entertaining :-)
Next up was a 30 min ride. Easy and slow. Bikes felt good - lingering saddle sore did not feel good..hmm. That had me a bit worried. It had flared up again a few days before hand, after having caused me some big woes around my longest bike legs in training about 4 weeks prior. Worst case I'd be able to deal with it on race day, but not preferable. Betadine and good dressings were continually being applied in the hope of a miraculous healing. In the end the saddle sore resolved itself in a gross kinda way...I may elaborate later (it happened on Saturday).
After all this we had a quick snack and headed St Kilda way. We got signed in and chilled in the expo area for a while, soaking up the atmosphere and just generally relaxing. What was cool is that as a part of Iron Man, Kate and I each received a $35 voucher for a local Iron Man participating restaurant of our choice! This was so rad. We found a nice little vegan cafe on Acland St called Sister of Soul and munched an amazing dinner courtesy of Iron Man. Prior to this we cafe crawled, sampling numerous Lattes and Long Blacks; Kate also managed to find a rad little clothes shop and stock up on some new outfits!
Following dinner we headed to the beautiful Palais Theatre for our race briefing, and to hear some of the top athletes talk! It was a scary meeting and left me feeling a bit like..."uhhh, what the f%$k have I got myself into!" Thank you to the pros for making it sound so hard - Kate and I were both shitting ourselves, but I just continued to say we've done the training, so we're all good!
Following this we had the 1hr drive back to Frankston. The only thing for Saturday was to rack the bikes and drop off our transition gear. Aside from that we were catching some friends in the morning and just chilling out. At this point we were starting to feel relaxed and like we were on holiday. I guess a good place to have the body in prior to such a big event.
Kate had a niggling cold presenting itself and was stressing. I was being positive that it would eventuate to nothing. My mum being the well equipped doctor that she is had a stack of cold and flu medication, so Kate got doped up and zonked out!
Saturday:
No way! I got a sleep in to 7am! Yep, that's a sleep in for me. Definitely feeling relaxed physically, but still anxious to get all the gear checked. Also good news, Kate awoke with all cold symptoms gone! All she needed was a good sleep, but regardless I made her a huge fruit bowl with lots of Vitamin C rich fruit :-)
Anyways, you got it....muesli and coffee! We then headed to meet our rad friends Dan and B, with their beautiful kids Finn and Wren for brekky. They had been nice enough to meet us half way at Aspendale at a cool little cafe called the "Kitchen Table Cafe". Really nice lattes. As I was on my obsessive pre-race diet I had gluten free bread and avocado while the others had all sorts of amazing egg combinations! A brekky of catching up, kids shenanigans and good times ensued. Finn managed to take chalk to the big black board wall and draw a huge mural all over it!
We hung out till almost 10, and then the nerves started kicking in as transition zone neared opening. This marked time to wrap things up and get home to double check our gear bags then get to transition zone! We bid farewell to our great friends and hit the road back to Frankston.
I was a ball of nerves by now. Obsessively going over our gear bags, cross checking with our lists, doing the good old check of head for run: sunnies and hat, check! head for bike: sunnies and helmet, check! etc!
Finally we were ready to head to transition. Nervously looking at Kate I commented that I couldn't believe that this day had finally come about. We wandered to transition with the parents following along! We dropped our gear off, let air out of the tires, did the transition zone tour checking where we would be entering, exiting etc. It was very well set up to just flow! Kate's bike was racked in an amazing position, pretty much at the end of the row right where you would run through to get to the mount line! We deposited our gear bags, double checking again that everything was there! Yes, triathlon is obsessive! We wandered to the Frankston pier to see where the swim buoys were and get a feel for where we would be swimming - pretty straight forward.
And done, now all we had to do was relax and get to the start line...or that's what you'd think, until Kate commented on the walk home, "I hope I put my riding gear in the blue bag, and my running gear in the red bag! What if we got it mixed up?"
Dammit, now we had to go back to transition to check...again! LOL. So Plan of attack. Go home, eat lunch, have a coffee, head to transition zone then head into town for a coffee with the parents.
I'm not going to elaborate too much on the afternoon, but yes, we had packed our gear in the correct bags.
Finally it was time for pre race dinner! The same meal I had been eating before my big training sessions for the last few months! Brown rice, sweet potato, potato, tahini! Carbs and fat. At this point I was feeling truly relaxed, we had done everything we could to prepare, it was time to race.
The last thing I do before zonking is set an alarm for 4:45 in the morning. The alarm description reads "Timing Chip Dumb Ass". I think I'll keep this alarm for the life of the phone, and hopefully it will wake me for my next Iron Man!
Kate and I fell asleep looking at each other, not believing that we would be waking up on Iron Man race day, injury free and ready to race! So Excited
Sunday:
I set the alarm for 4:30, giving me bimble time for coffee and muesli. The important things right. You may be realising I'm a creature of habit!
I made up all my drink bottles, got my energy gels and suited up. Kate arose a bit later than me - she gets ready a bit quicker than me. Time to walk down came about very quickly. Goggles, check, garmin, check, timing chip, check, swim cap, race tattoos, check! We're good to race!
We planned to get to the transition zone at 6, leaving a hour to set ourselves up, get our nutrition in place and get to the water to start. We set up our bikes with our nutrition, pumped the tires and then dropped our end of race gear bags off. We then headed to the start line.
I had opted for swim zone 2 (1hr to 1hr 8min) and Kate had opted for Zone 4 (in the end she smashed this time and should have done zone 3)! Due to this we had to say good bye to each other and head our separate ways about 30min before starting. This was a bit scary, knowing that the next time I saw Kate, should all go well, would be over the finish line in 10 - 12hrs time...wow!
I don't like swimming before the race starts, then you stand around all wet getting cold! So I just stood feet in the water (as the sand was freezing) until it was start time. Next thing I'm lined up with 2500 other athletes funneling into the start gate. This was the first time Melbourne had done a rolling start to try and relieve congestion - my opinion is that it was awesome. So next thing I know I'm at the front of the mass build up, in the start gate, then GO! I let out a hoot and am off, running into the water, it's waist deep for about 100 meters and then I then dive and am off swimming! So stoked!
The swim goes amazingly well. I feel great and other than a bit of sun glare making it hard to see the buoys, I get a PB and swim the 3.8 in 1hr7mins. Maybe without the sun glare I could have got 1hr5mins. Maybe. But when I see my watch as I exit the water I am so stoked that I let out another hoot.
T1 - about 4mins.
Enter the bike. Transition goes smoothly, the bike is good, I had already set the bike up in the right gear to ensure no mount line high gear stalling:and I'm off. As I am out on the bike course pretty early the head wind has not yet picked up for the outward leg as predicted, it is definitely there, but not that bad. We trained with a lot of headwind on our Outer harbor loop.
Part way through the first lap out (the first 45kms) I decided that I was going to enjoy the day rather than try to smash out an epic time. So many people had been telling me that your first Iron Man is your best as you have no expectations or PBs to beat. So at this point I decided to make friends with the head wind and figured I'd just go steady into it rather than trying to battle it, and then smash it with the wind. In the end this worked pretty well for me, with my final time being 32.8km/h average, which was .2km/h off my goal race pace. However this is still ridiculously slow and I have noted that I really need to get stronger on the bike! I think that the bike is pretty much where I lost the sub 10hr time!
The bike course was pretty cool. The East Link tollway closed it's southbound lanes for the Iron Man. This took the race 45kms out from Frankston and back twice. The course was undulating with mild uphills and mild descents. This was perfect as I'm pretty strong at climbing, and the descents gave an opportunity to stretch out the hammys! At the 45km mark of each loop there was a huge tunnel that we descended into, getting some pretty high speeds. Not only was the tunnel really fun, but it was also nice and cool, giving a good 5 mins or so of relief from the sun and warm air temp.
By the time I got to my second outbound leg, the head wind had picked up. This was a slog and my avg speed for this leg was a bleak 27km/h. The hot wind was also drying me out, and I was drinking a lot. Compared to my training (even on hot 38deg days), my fluid consumption was way up, which worried me a bit as I was not sure how this would effect me on the run, but I figured if you feel like you need to drink, you need to drink. I ended up going 50/50 electrolyte drink to water, with a good gulp of my Hammer Perpetuem energy drink every half hour and an energy gel (home made) each hour with a banana at each second aid station.
By the time I got to the end of the second outward leg, I was so freaking sick of gels and sweet drink. I was craving something solid. Although I had never trained with it, I grabbed one of the Endura chocolate energy bars at the aid station that was situated at the beginning of the final 45km stretch home. At this point I also decided to stop and have a toilet break, eat the energy bar and get back on the bike, prepped to smash the final 45kms with the wind, not having to worry about a toilet stop. (The need was slowly coming on and I didn't want to break some good momentum with the tail wind). I also figured I could make it back to the transition zone, but the toilets there may be congested. Anyways, I think this was one of the smartest moves I made in the race. It just set me up really well to finish the bike leg well.
That final leg was great. That tail wind made us all feel like machines!
Each lap was great as I managed to see Kate as we were passing on alternate laps. This was a massive relief the first time I saw her as I knew the swim had gone well, and then each subsequent time she looked strong and in good spirits! This definitely made my race easier and I was just stoked that she was going well and enjoying herself.
Funnily I found out later, kate was having a few mechanical issues with her saddle, as well as needing a few toilet breaks. On her final lap out she knew that if I didn't see her I'd worry, so she kept putting off a toilet/mechanical break until she saw me...I never came so she finally stopped for the loo. About two minutes later after starting riding again I passed her - hows that for timing. She then proceeded to do some side of road mechanics in which stuff started rolling everywhere - however she has waited for me to pass so that I didn't catch a glimpse of this as she knew I would have been worrying for the rest of the race. How sweet :-)
Finishing the bike leg was great. The longest part of Iron Man over and done with, and I was feeling good! I rock up to the dismount line, hearing the commentator call me in and then a cheer with my name, at which point the commentator calls me Forbsey??? Not sure if anyone was in Frankston that day that knew me, but if you were, thank you for being there whoever you were. At the dismount line it is amazing - a volunteer just takes your bike from you and you run off to transition - they re rack your bike for you! Amazing.
The legs felt a bit shaky straight off the bike, and running in cleats is never awesome, but none the less I was in and out of transition in 4 mins, including a huge sunscreen session. Running shoes on, hat, sunnies, bang! Time to run.
Out of the Transition tent, hit lap on garmin and the marathon begins! Man I was feeling good. The legs were turning over well and I was just loving life. The run started by shooting 1km south, and then u-turned and headed back north towards the finish line. This was interesting as we were sharing a small trail, runners on the left going down, runners on the right coming back up, and it let you see how some people were going! I was blown away to see people already walking. I couldn't imagine their pain - only another 40kms to go and already walking. WOW!
At this early stage there were a fair few spectators and I made sure I hi-fived as many kids as I could and thanked every spectator that cheered me! I made sure I thanked the volunteers and it was amazing when there were residents with hoses offering spray downs! Amazing and thank you!
Anyways, I was feeling good, running 4:45kms so I set out a game plan. Hit the first 21kms hopefully sub 5min km pace, then take the next 10kms a bit easier and smashout the last 10 if I'm feeling great.
This race was different to a lot of my training. My appetite was huge and I was consuming fluids like a machine. I was wary to not get a dodgy stomach, but I figured if I need to drink, then drink. The aid stations were each 2km, this made it easy to make sure you got all the nutrition and hydration that you needed, but it was also a great way to count down the race.
I got into a good routine with hydration and nutrition. It was loosely as follows: First aid station, water on face, water to drink, ice under hat. Second aid station, water in face, electrolyte to drink, ice under hat, water in face. Third aid station, ice under hat / down tri suit etc. That was rad until I got a mass chunk of ice down in my nether regions...not awesome! I'd then repeat this over. With nutrition I'd grab something at every third station, making sure not to over do it. I ate a mix of energy bars (just needing something solid), water melon (cos watermelon is awesome) and bananas!
So, I hit 21kms, feeling pretty good and overtaking a lot of people, but unfortunately not feeling as good as I had hoped, I realised at this point I was just going to maintain a comfortable speed for the rest of the marathon - which was still pushing it due to the fact that the whole freaking marathon from this point felt like it was uphill, and there was a hot dry headwind, and it was 4 in the arvo and about 29degrees! I think this is why I was drinking so many fluids!
I remember at 22kms there was a short uphill that went from the beach trail, to the top of the dunes to run along the road above - I had sworn I wouldn't walk any part of the marathon, so I ran the hill. It was fine but at the top it was carnage - obviously a lot of others had also tied this and they were all sprawled over the ground passed out or throwing up in the bushes. Pushing it way too hard.
Anyways the rest of the Marathon was pretty cool. I just cruised it out, motivated by some rad crowds, especially the crew at the St Kilda sailing club with about 2kms to go! You guys rocked!
At this point I picked up the pace, not believing that it was almost over. All that hard work training, 3am morning bike rides, smashing out 32km runs before work, all about to be made worthwhile. I started feeling like I was choking up as I turned into the finishing chute! Man, looking down that Iron Man finishing chute, lined with people and all carpeted with red Iron Man logos is pretty special! Not many people get to experience that and it is one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced.
I conjured up my last ounces of energy and smashed the 200 meters of finishing chute and bang, over the finish line! Done! And feeling good!
A volunteer greets me and gives me my medal and finishing towel, which was strange as my dad was meant to be there to give this to me (he got VIP tickets for the day which enabled him to meet me at the finish line). So I'm a bit dazed and confused as to whats going on, then I see my dad, totally confused and holding a towel and medal, obviously having missed his cue and hence the volunteer had got to me first. Anyways, one of the amazing Iron Man crew lead us away from the finish line I say hi to dad and happen to score a second towel and medal due to dads confusion :-) After a breif conversation with dad and a quick chat to mum through the fence, I'm off to the recovery area for food and massage. The first thing I asked mum when I saw her was "where's Kate at?" Mum responded that she had just passed 21kms on the Marathon! I was over the moon. I knew Kate could smash the run and the fact that she was already half way through filled me with stoke! I could now really relax.
While I remember I have to say the Iron Man volunteers were amazing. On numerous occasions I'd ask for say an energy bar at an aid station and they wouldn't have one. I'd keep running, not really minding, and then next thing I'd have a volunteer sprinting up beside me with an energy bar. Amazing, and thank you so much. I think this happened on 3 occasions! Then in the recovery area, I grabbed a bowl of fruit salad and a massive dollop of ice cream on top, and then went to the massage area as another athlete recommended I get there to avoid a line up. So I take a seat in the line for a massage, and then ask the volunteer that is directing us if it's cool for me to mark my place in line with my shoes, go get some more ice cream and come back...he was like "You know what, I'll go get it for you!" Amazing. A few mins and he's back with the biggest bowl of ice cream! I smashed it all. So good!
Anyways after the massage and some food, I manage to swindle my way into the VIP area to meet my parents and get my phone so I can check up on Kate and her progress. I was stoked to find that she was not almost at 35kms. Based on her pace I figured about another 40 mins. I was counting down, refreshing my phone over and over. Willing Kate along. She finally hit 40kms, and I'm thinking sweet, I'll give her 10 mins. She passes 41kms, and I'm getting ready for a photo of her and maybe a big hug down the finishing chute.
This last 1km seems to take forever, and I look at my phone for a second to see how long it has taken, and look up just in time to see Kate smashing it towards the finish line! Holy shit she was cracking it!
"Kate Forbes, you are now an Iron Man!"
Hearing that made me so proud and finally tied up the last 3 months of hard work! Experiencing this with Kate has been the most amazing thing, and seeing her cross the finish line so well was amazing!
I rushed into the recovery area where we hung out and talked race stories with fellow athletes and each other for a fair while. I smashed a lot more food and got another massage.
By this point we figured we should go out to see mum and dad, they had been so good waiting for us. I think they were super tired but were still loving it and being really encouraging! They are rad and it was so special having theme there to greet us over the line! We hung out with them for another hour or so watching athletes roll in, never getting sick of "....you are now an Iron Man!" LOL.
Thankfully mum had decided she loved the big ass engine in our rental car and offered to lay some rubber and drive us home. Thank god, I could barely walk at this point and driving for a hour was not super appealing. The drive home to Frankston was full of Iron Man banter. Already remembering the fun moments and the times that we had to dig in deep. It was so amazing and I was so glad that Kate and I had had such a successful day!
By the time we got home, we had a bit more food, some hydration, a mad shower and got to bed. Kate and I zonked looking at each other just grinning like fools. Only 15 hours earlier we had woken looking into each others eyes wondering what the f%$k we were about to get ourselves into.
Monday:
I wake up, breakfast on my mind! Coffee and muesli right :-) Creature of habit. However because it is first day post Iron Man, it is about 4 coffees, a huuuuge bowl of muesli, yoghurt, scrambled tofu, sweet potato and potato hash, boiled eggs...woooo yeh!
Surprisingly I'm feeling great. Walking is a bit tough as is to be expected, but really I have pulled up fine. Stoked!
Anyways, after the epic brekky, there is a small list for the day. Pack up apartment and load car. Drive to St Kilda Iron Man expo to gather bikes and gear bags, as well as buy merchandise. I wouldn't buy merch until I actually finished! I figured this would be a) bad luck and b) lame. why would you wear gear from an event that you couldn't finish??? Drive to swanky hotel that mum and dad had booked. Iron Man after party and then an nice night out starting with meeting a friend for drinks, and then dinner with the rentals.
So, we pack up the apartment, pretty quickly and are ready to hit the road at 9! This was my ititial plan, but after our epic cook up for brekky, I did not think we'd manage it, however I even got to get out the door with a coffee for the road! I was trying to smash the coffee cos I love it for one, but also my mum bout a big assed bag that we didn't want to lug home, and me being frugal, did not want to waste it!
So towards St Kilda we head, back up the same route that the Marathon from the day before hand had run along. I tell you what, you appreciate a marathon a bit more when you go and drive the course, as it still takes a freaking long time to drive the length of it!
Anyways, we get to St Kilda and score a park right out front of the expo. Iron Man have this organised like a military operation. Pretty much over night, all of out bikes and gear are moved to St Kilda and repositioned exactly like the transition zone, so all we do is walk in, show ur athlete wrist bands, pick up our gear and bikes from exactly where is should be, and then get scanned out by barcode with our bikes - making sure that you are the actual owner of the bike you are wheeling out! I was blown away by the organisation and how well it worked!
So we grab all of our gear, a bunch of merchandise - wow Iron Man make a killing - and then head to the car to pack up. I planned to roughly pack our bikes and then do it properly at the apartment, but then figure if I'm gonna do it now, I may as well do it properly, so top off, game on, I smash out boxing two bikes on the side of the road while it's lightly raining! Total time, 1hr to pick up all our gear, buy a bunch of merch (this took a while) and box two bikes. Bang!
I'm utterly surprised that we are running on time, actually early even. Our next appointment is 1:30 for the Iron Man after party and I actually think that we may be early.
Anyways, next step, get the parentals to the Hotel, Mum had booked a two bedroom apartment in the Citadine, Bourke St, downtown Melbs. We get there easily (Melbs traffic isn't that bad!), and suss out parking in the hotel, pretty good deal really, $26 for 24hrs parking! We get all our gear into the apartment and organise a bit.
I make another coffee :-)
The organisation step involves unpacking our gear bags from the race. I won't bore you too much with these details, but woooaaa, the swim bag stank. Put a wetsuit in a plastic bag for 24hrs in a warm marquee and it don't smell too good :-)
Loving it as we are so organised and running on a boat load of endorphins, Kate and I head back to St Kilda.LOL.for the Iron Man after party. I'm stoked as somehow I find a free all day park! We arrive back at the Iron Man expo (where we just picked our bikes up from) a bit early, which is awesome as we get to see the age group presentations. And this blew me away. When the older age groupers got up i was so impressed. Firstly the 50 - 54 category. I will never stop being fit and healthy after seeing these fine specimens. They didn't look a day over 35! Totally inspired to keep up triathlon after this. Then the age group of 70 - 74, and the dear old lady, the only entrant in this age group! She finished with 2 mins to spare before cut of. This brought a frog to the throat. What an inspirational person, and she brushed it off like it was another walk in the park!
From here it was a short walk to the after party. Being truly inspired by the whole package of Iron Man, the people that compete and the comradeship that is shared by your fellow finishers, the idea of another Iron Man is already welling! The idea is cemented at the after party.
Firstly the after party was amazing. Fully catered ad a swanky bar on the esplanade at St Kilda. I happened to mention when a waiter was near by that I wouldn't mind a slice of pizza when one comes around again. About 5 mins later the waiter is back with 3 pizzas for me! WOW. I actually had a beer, it was quite delicious and Kate and I smashed a lot of food. Aside from the amazing party that Iron Man put on, we experienced one of the things that makes Iron Man so special. We just wandered up to some spare seats and asked if we could sit. Next thing we are chatting away to total strangers, obviously we share quite a lot in common already, and have a good 10hrs of common stories from the day before to talk about. This couple have done collectively about 12 Iron Men events, and they got me super excited on a few. By the time we said our farewells I had decided it would be Cairns or Pt Macquarie. Cairns for the beautiful bike ride, and Pt Macquarie for a few reasons. The swim is unique as it goes up an estuary. The bike is beautiful and a bit hilly (this suits me), but mainly the run, which initially didn't appeal as it is a 4 lap Marathon, but when told about the section near the break wall and caravan park that is lined with people cheering you on, I got pretty stoked. The way this was described to me, you could see my fellow athletes eyes light up as they recalled the many times they passed the same crowd.
Kate and I left this party, our last official Iron Man activity, thoroughly impressed with what Iron Man is. It is so much more than just a huge suffer fest. Sure the personal goals that are accomplished are absolutely amazing. But for me the special thing was all the inspirational athletes that we met and witnessed achieving amazing personal feats. The comradeship after crossing the finish line. The battle stories that everyone has to share. It is all amazing and just left us feeling so overwhelmed and inspired. That is what an event should be about. Iron Man is not about the winners, the first man and woman to cross the line as it may be in say the NYC Marathon, but it is about the 74 year old lady that crosses the line 2 minutes before cut off, the team of 40 that are all racing for the "Tour de Cure" team to raise money for cancer awareness. Thats what makes Iron Man special and is what will make keep me returning for a while yet!
Oh yeh, earlier on I mentioned the apartment being clean was hiccup one of our trip. Hiccup 2 was literally the last step of the trip. As Kates bike box was carried out of the oversized baggage area, a whole lot of shit fell out of the bottom as the tape gave way. I was freaking thinking that her stuff would be strewn all over the plane and runway, imagining hundreds of dollars of replacement. To top this off the security guy at oversized baggage was a mad douche and could care less that I wanted to check if anything else was missing.
Luckily when we got home and went through the box, nothing was missing, it had literally broken before our eyes so we collected everything that fell out..phew. That topped the trip off, almost feeling like a little victory :-) Now back to standard life and wondering what to do next. It'll be hard to fill the void of all that training. Averaging 15hrs a week for the last 3 months gives you a lot of spare time when you stop.
The race in time:
total: 10hrs 37mins
swim: 1hr 7mins, 3.8kms
bike: 5hrs 38mins, 180kms
run: 3hrs 44mins, 42kms
total distance: 226kms
Anyways, thankyou for reading, I hope you enjoyed the ride!
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Friday, February 6, 2015
Iron man training continues
After a 32km run on wednesday that left my ankle feeling a bit on the dodgy side, i didn't hopd high hopes for todays brick run! Alas, the 145km ride went perfectly, 4hr30min, and backed that up with a slow run of 9.8km in 48min. This pace felt rad and as though iI could have run forever! Definitely feeling good for Iron Man! Just need to let this ankle rest until next weeks 29km run now! Game on!
Friday, January 30, 2015
Tour Down Under 2015
This year it was great to get out to a few stages of the Tour Down Under. The Willunga Hill finish was one of the best cycling stages I've seen. The atmosphere was great! It is fantastic to see cycling growing so much in Adelaide and to see so many people out supporting this amazing event!
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Iron Man Training WIP
WOW! 3 weeks into Iron Man training and we have hit all of our sessions. It is going to be a hard 12 weeks with the saturday ride and the Wednesday run proving to be the really tough ones. So yesterday our ride was 5 hours - I did 140km - which was a bit off pace as it was raining and windy as all hell! While out on this training ride I was thinking that is the definition of dedication to the end goal. Up at 4am, riding in the wind, rain and cold because I want to do as best as I can at Iron Man.
At the time the session was miserable, but I kept telling myself a few little things to get through it and to help me mentally deal with the tough session. 1) Sessions like this are the ones that matter. You learn way more and push yourself physically and mentally way more when the conditions are tough. Everyone loves training on a balmy blue sky day with no wind, but what happens on race day when it is blowing a gale and wet as shit? 2) That I am very fortunate to be living in a country where I am free and able to get up on Saturday and choose wether I want to, or don't want to go out and trail for an amazing event that I am about to partake in, so although the conditions may not be desirable, it still sure as hell beats not having the choice or opportunity to do such things. 3) Don't be a whinging pussy and just smash it out!
That little rant aside, training is going amazingly well for both me and Kate and we are lucky enough to be getting a few sessions in per week together which is making it really enjoyable. This journey to the end goal of Iron Man will be a huge accomplishment, but to do it with my wife as well, and to share all the hard weeks of training, the massive food bills, lack of sleep and crazy fatigue will just make it so much more special and it will be something that we hold onto together forever.
Get out there and get stoked. Happy training!.
At the time the session was miserable, but I kept telling myself a few little things to get through it and to help me mentally deal with the tough session. 1) Sessions like this are the ones that matter. You learn way more and push yourself physically and mentally way more when the conditions are tough. Everyone loves training on a balmy blue sky day with no wind, but what happens on race day when it is blowing a gale and wet as shit? 2) That I am very fortunate to be living in a country where I am free and able to get up on Saturday and choose wether I want to, or don't want to go out and trail for an amazing event that I am about to partake in, so although the conditions may not be desirable, it still sure as hell beats not having the choice or opportunity to do such things. 3) Don't be a whinging pussy and just smash it out!
That little rant aside, training is going amazingly well for both me and Kate and we are lucky enough to be getting a few sessions in per week together which is making it really enjoyable. This journey to the end goal of Iron Man will be a huge accomplishment, but to do it with my wife as well, and to share all the hard weeks of training, the massive food bills, lack of sleep and crazy fatigue will just make it so much more special and it will be something that we hold onto together forever.
Get out there and get stoked. Happy training!.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Perth roadtrip
This year to start our Christmas Holiday break we decide to head west to Perth and do a road trip through the South West forests of the state. Originally we had planned to head North to Coral Bay, however after further research we realised that the distance was huge and we would end up spending our whole holiday driving, rather than relaxing.
We rented a Britz Hi Top Camper Van for 6 days, and then booked a few powered campsites for the week to ensure we could water and charge up during the busy holiday period. The other nights we figured we'd just wing it depending on how far we wanted to drive or where we wanted to stay!
We booked in for night 2 at Hamelin Bay, on the strip of coastline just below Margaret River, and then on the 3rd night in Walpole, a town of 250 people just west of Denmark on the southern coastline of WA. THe rest was all going to happen between these stops and Perth, so this is what we came up with.
Day 1: Perth to Bussleton. We had decided that we wanted to make it to Bussleton for our first night. Bussleton sits about 250kms South of Perth. By the time we had landed at Perth airport and got to Britz, we hit the road at about 9am, and after a quick pit stop to pick up some supplies, it was just us, the highway and the lonely planet to guide us to fun en route to Bussleton. On the drive down we stopped by Safety Bay Marine Park. Here we got our first view of the most amazing clear blue water that I have ever seen! I was totally blown away and immediately relised that we were in for a week of sun, sand and beautiful salt water! Here we also scoped our first marine life with some dolphins that were hunting fish a few meters from the shore.
After this stop we drove along Tuart Drive as an alternate route to Bussleton, This drive took us through Tuart Forest National Park. This National Park is the only remaining forest of the Tuart Tree. The Tuart tree (Eucalyptus gomphocephala) is a very specific Eucalypt that only grown on coastal limestone so this was a very unique forest to see and was noticeably different to everything else that we had seen.
This drive then took us past historical Wonnerup House and then onto Bussleton via some beautiful wetlands and coastal dunes.
Upon arriving in Bussleton we promptly parked the Van and went for a walk along the Bussleton Jetty. The longest Timber post jetty in the southern hemisphere. I was absolutely blown away to see that the water here was even clearer and bluer! I couldn't stop gawking at it. I also noticed that there was a very large area of ocean enclosed by shark nets. Game on! Obviously an ocean swim was now on the cards....although I didn't bring my wetsuit.
Anyways, this jetty is almost 2km long, so we wandered out to the end and back, by which point we had decided we wanted to spend the night in Bussleton and headed to Kangaroo Campground and booked a powered site. This campground is about a 2min walk to the jetty and is run by the most classic husband and wife team. They were rad to chat to. The wife inspired me to camp there for Bussleton Iron Man next year!
The rest of the day involved wandering around Bussleton, going for a refreshing swim, catching some squid with a cheap ass suid jig, then losing said squid jig due to my shithouse know tying skills. Now as Perth is 3hrs behind Adelaide we were ready to zonk at about 8pm. Tomorrow off to Hamelin Bay! Day 2: Bussleton to Hamelin Bay
Funny! I woke up on holiday probably just before 4am...due to the time difference and then wondered why no one was around the campground (it was already light and I had turned my phone off for the whole week so I had no way to tell the time). I then realised how early it was after making a bit of noise and talking at normal volume..whoops! Anyways, I figured I may as well go for an epic swim seeming I was up so early, and that way by the time I got back Kate would be up and ready for brekky!
After smashing an epic bowl of museli and a coffee, we filled up the vn with water and then hit the road. First stop Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse! We wandered a few kms of trails, seeing some beautiful coastline. We decided to not go into this lighthouse and save the $$ for Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse in a few days! Funniest thing about this walk was when Kate saw an Iguana, momentatliy after I had seen it. I was in the process of saying "Oh look at that!", when Kate saw it she got the absolute beejezus scared out of herself, scaring the Iguana into the bush, and sending her heartrate skyhigh for a few minutes :D Next we headed to Ngilgi Caves. Our first cave experience for the trip!
After this we continued down the coast, checking out Vasse Felix Winery, some local breweries and the town of Margatet River to get some supplies and fresh fish! We then headed back to Old Coast Road to head to Hamelin Bay Caravan Park, slipping in minutes for our 5pm check in. The drive to Hamelin Bay was amazing. The forest was so varying and without a a doubt what looked like the most diverse forest species wise that I have ever seen! The Xanthorrhoea were amazing!
Once we set up in the campground we cooked up a nice fresh meal with the fish we had just bought then headed to the beach for sunset and a swim. Once again, amazing blue water, but as we had been blessed with cool conditions, it was chilly as and the double layered hoodies were making an appearance and thus the swim was short lived!
Another early night and I was stoked because with morning would come our first trail run for the trip!
Day 3: Hamelin Bay to Walpole
Up early for a run this morning! Kate and I headed South along the Cape To Cape Trail. We wanted to run for about 2 hrs so we just headed a hour out, and a hour back....along the most amazing coastline I've ever seen. The run really went by super quickly. It was amazing with different coastling and vegetation around every corner, and we didn't see another soul. We finished this run with a refreshing dip in the ocean :-)
After a quick brekky and pack up of the campground, we set out for what was to be the longest driving day. First stop was the huge lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin - the highest lighthouse on mainland Australia and also positioned at the south-western most tip! The light can be seen 48kms out to sea! Kate was feeling a bit queezy at the top as it is pretty high and very windy! The lighthouse guide was really informative and a true character. After the tour Kate had to smash some Devonshire tea, fresh out of the oven scones and jam!
Following this we set off on the road trip to Walpole, however midway we planned a stop in Pemberton! Pemberton is a cool little town. We resupplied the van here and checked out some little shops, made a quick lunch and decided that we would stop here properly on the way back up the coast...low and behold, when we drove back up to Perth we totally didn't stop here :-) So on we went to Walpole, and as we hadn't stopped as much as we thought we would we made good time, and hit Walpole with plenty of time to do the "Valley of the Giants" treetop walk in the afternoon before checking into our campground. The treetop walk takes you 60 or so metres into the canopy of the giant Tingle trees. It's pretty spectacular and such a good way to view these beautiful trees. Once again Kate surprised me with feeling a bit queezy up on the walkway!
Next we finally got to our campground, and priority number 1 was going for a swim.Quick side note I managed an ocean swim every day, so yes, I didn't shower once until the last day of our trip once we were back in a hotel. It was rad! So the campground sat right on the "ocean", or atleast I thought it did when I booked it. What it actually is is a massive tidal area where a river meets the ocean, but it is almost like a lake with a tiny mouth into the main Pacific Ocean making it a very unique area. The water was super warm, brownish in color from the leaf matter and river water and apparently really good for fishing. It was also really nice to swim in because copmpared to the ocean, it was like taking a warm bath. The other unique part of this area was the vegetation, once again WA dished up another kind of vegetation to explore, ranging from stunted coastal shrubs and small trees to the giant Tingle tree forests. One of the most notable species being the greenish Kangaroo Paw that was flowering everywhere.
Day 4: Walpole to Conto Campground
The day prior I had spoken with the caretaker of the campground regarding walking trails and had been advised of a nice trail that was about 7km one way and would take me to see some more giant Tingle trees. I obviously had to run this! I set out early. The trail took me along a beautiful coastal trail and then up into the coastal forests. The trail probably only rose a few hundred metres but offered some amazing views of the Walpole area. Running this trail was amazing, being amongst such wise and ancient trees, I was truly inspired and had one of the best runs that I have ever had. I finished the run with a few kms through some beautiful marshland to make up almost 20km.
Our driving journeys today would take us back up to the Caves Highway near Margaret River, where we would stay at Conto Campground. A first-come-first-serve campground that was just near the Lake Cave. We decided to head back to here as we really wanted to see the Lake Cave, and figured that this part of coastline was probably our favourite that we would love to explore a bit more! The weather this day was crazy, starting with misty rain and thunder in Walpole, and taking us into hot, windy fire conditions by the time we got to Pemberton area.
En route to conto we stopped in at some places well worth noting! 1)The bicentennial tree. We had been warned about the "ladder" to the top of this tree! We couldn't believe it when we saw it.
2)An amazing Marron farm off the Vasse Highway where we met an awesome old couple who owned a largeish property and farmed marron. We met their dogs, one of which always was required to be chained up, as when both set free they would always end up roaming around on the highway! Their garden was beautiful and they had an amazing fruit orchard from which we were given some of the most amazing lemons that I have ever tasted. We purchased two huge Marron to cook up for dinner. Needless to say after battling the marron into the boiling water and feeling like a massive a**hole, the meal was well worthwhile!
3)We stopped through Nannup. A quaint little town with some beautiful historic buildings.
Arriving at Conto was a relief after some hectic winds throwing the camper van all over the road! To help Kate de-stress I cooked up our marron and served it up with a delicious Vasse Felix Chardonnay.
Although being super tired, we dragged our half asleep ases out for a walk to the beach (which ended up being waaaay further than we anticipated...and way steeper); and we were lucky we did. A dark raincloud passed while we were walking, and then was followed by intense white sunlight creating the most dynamic lighting conditions for sunset and some of the most amazing coastline I have ever seen. It was a long walk but well worthwhile, and topped off with a whale sighting as we were leaving! We spent the whole of sunset sitting on some large granite boulders looking out over the Indian Ocean as the swell rolled in and the rain clouds passed. It was pretty amazing as the colors and light conditions constantly changed. By the time we had walke back to camp it was pretty much time to set up the beds and zonk out. While on the beds, the back of the Britz van was super easy to set up and surprisingly comfortable! Despite the hot day, we were once again blessed with another cool night! So far we had had to double blanket it each night to keep warm enough, which given we were sleeping in the back of a van was totally cool, as it would have been difficult to cool down on a stagnant hot night otherwise!
The campground was beautiful and quite remote. There were a lot of "resident" kangaroos so I had to snap some pics especially for our Canadian buddies!
Day 5: Conto Campground to Bussleton
I woke early again, peeked out the window and scoped a whole lot of the resident Kangaroos just near the van. One had a joey so I had to get some pics to send to the Canadian crew.
Following my 'roo photo mission a trail run with Kate occured. We ran the Cape to Cape trail again, but obviously a different section that overlooked an amazing part of the coast again. I can't get over how amazing this trail is! Anyways, after a very near run ending ankle rolling by Kate and a root trip and face plant by me (thankfully it was a sandy section), we decided to finish the run on some less hazardous 4x4 trails which took us through some amazing coastal "Grass Tree" forest out to the Lake Cave, which we were going to visit later today!
So, first roatrip stop after clearing camp was the Lake Cave, only about 5 mins drive from Conto! Wow! THis cave was amazing to say the least. It has the only "floating" pillar in the world that is open to the public to view. Weighing in at about 5 tonne, it hangs suspended above a lake making for amazing photos!
Day 6: Bussleton to Perth
Day 7: Perth!
We rented a Britz Hi Top Camper Van for 6 days, and then booked a few powered campsites for the week to ensure we could water and charge up during the busy holiday period. The other nights we figured we'd just wing it depending on how far we wanted to drive or where we wanted to stay!
We booked in for night 2 at Hamelin Bay, on the strip of coastline just below Margaret River, and then on the 3rd night in Walpole, a town of 250 people just west of Denmark on the southern coastline of WA. THe rest was all going to happen between these stops and Perth, so this is what we came up with.
Day 1: Perth to Bussleton. We had decided that we wanted to make it to Bussleton for our first night. Bussleton sits about 250kms South of Perth. By the time we had landed at Perth airport and got to Britz, we hit the road at about 9am, and after a quick pit stop to pick up some supplies, it was just us, the highway and the lonely planet to guide us to fun en route to Bussleton. On the drive down we stopped by Safety Bay Marine Park. Here we got our first view of the most amazing clear blue water that I have ever seen! I was totally blown away and immediately relised that we were in for a week of sun, sand and beautiful salt water! Here we also scoped our first marine life with some dolphins that were hunting fish a few meters from the shore.
After this stop we drove along Tuart Drive as an alternate route to Bussleton, This drive took us through Tuart Forest National Park. This National Park is the only remaining forest of the Tuart Tree. The Tuart tree (Eucalyptus gomphocephala) is a very specific Eucalypt that only grown on coastal limestone so this was a very unique forest to see and was noticeably different to everything else that we had seen.
This drive then took us past historical Wonnerup House and then onto Bussleton via some beautiful wetlands and coastal dunes.
Upon arriving in Bussleton we promptly parked the Van and went for a walk along the Bussleton Jetty. The longest Timber post jetty in the southern hemisphere. I was absolutely blown away to see that the water here was even clearer and bluer! I couldn't stop gawking at it. I also noticed that there was a very large area of ocean enclosed by shark nets. Game on! Obviously an ocean swim was now on the cards....although I didn't bring my wetsuit.
Anyways, this jetty is almost 2km long, so we wandered out to the end and back, by which point we had decided we wanted to spend the night in Bussleton and headed to Kangaroo Campground and booked a powered site. This campground is about a 2min walk to the jetty and is run by the most classic husband and wife team. They were rad to chat to. The wife inspired me to camp there for Bussleton Iron Man next year!
The rest of the day involved wandering around Bussleton, going for a refreshing swim, catching some squid with a cheap ass suid jig, then losing said squid jig due to my shithouse know tying skills. Now as Perth is 3hrs behind Adelaide we were ready to zonk at about 8pm. Tomorrow off to Hamelin Bay! Day 2: Bussleton to Hamelin Bay
Funny! I woke up on holiday probably just before 4am...due to the time difference and then wondered why no one was around the campground (it was already light and I had turned my phone off for the whole week so I had no way to tell the time). I then realised how early it was after making a bit of noise and talking at normal volume..whoops! Anyways, I figured I may as well go for an epic swim seeming I was up so early, and that way by the time I got back Kate would be up and ready for brekky!
After smashing an epic bowl of museli and a coffee, we filled up the vn with water and then hit the road. First stop Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse! We wandered a few kms of trails, seeing some beautiful coastline. We decided to not go into this lighthouse and save the $$ for Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse in a few days! Funniest thing about this walk was when Kate saw an Iguana, momentatliy after I had seen it. I was in the process of saying "Oh look at that!", when Kate saw it she got the absolute beejezus scared out of herself, scaring the Iguana into the bush, and sending her heartrate skyhigh for a few minutes :D Next we headed to Ngilgi Caves. Our first cave experience for the trip!
After this we continued down the coast, checking out Vasse Felix Winery, some local breweries and the town of Margatet River to get some supplies and fresh fish! We then headed back to Old Coast Road to head to Hamelin Bay Caravan Park, slipping in minutes for our 5pm check in. The drive to Hamelin Bay was amazing. The forest was so varying and without a a doubt what looked like the most diverse forest species wise that I have ever seen! The Xanthorrhoea were amazing!
Once we set up in the campground we cooked up a nice fresh meal with the fish we had just bought then headed to the beach for sunset and a swim. Once again, amazing blue water, but as we had been blessed with cool conditions, it was chilly as and the double layered hoodies were making an appearance and thus the swim was short lived!
Another early night and I was stoked because with morning would come our first trail run for the trip!
Day 3: Hamelin Bay to Walpole
Up early for a run this morning! Kate and I headed South along the Cape To Cape Trail. We wanted to run for about 2 hrs so we just headed a hour out, and a hour back....along the most amazing coastline I've ever seen. The run really went by super quickly. It was amazing with different coastling and vegetation around every corner, and we didn't see another soul. We finished this run with a refreshing dip in the ocean :-)
After a quick brekky and pack up of the campground, we set out for what was to be the longest driving day. First stop was the huge lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin - the highest lighthouse on mainland Australia and also positioned at the south-western most tip! The light can be seen 48kms out to sea! Kate was feeling a bit queezy at the top as it is pretty high and very windy! The lighthouse guide was really informative and a true character. After the tour Kate had to smash some Devonshire tea, fresh out of the oven scones and jam!
Following this we set off on the road trip to Walpole, however midway we planned a stop in Pemberton! Pemberton is a cool little town. We resupplied the van here and checked out some little shops, made a quick lunch and decided that we would stop here properly on the way back up the coast...low and behold, when we drove back up to Perth we totally didn't stop here :-) So on we went to Walpole, and as we hadn't stopped as much as we thought we would we made good time, and hit Walpole with plenty of time to do the "Valley of the Giants" treetop walk in the afternoon before checking into our campground. The treetop walk takes you 60 or so metres into the canopy of the giant Tingle trees. It's pretty spectacular and such a good way to view these beautiful trees. Once again Kate surprised me with feeling a bit queezy up on the walkway!
Next we finally got to our campground, and priority number 1 was going for a swim.Quick side note I managed an ocean swim every day, so yes, I didn't shower once until the last day of our trip once we were back in a hotel. It was rad! So the campground sat right on the "ocean", or atleast I thought it did when I booked it. What it actually is is a massive tidal area where a river meets the ocean, but it is almost like a lake with a tiny mouth into the main Pacific Ocean making it a very unique area. The water was super warm, brownish in color from the leaf matter and river water and apparently really good for fishing. It was also really nice to swim in because copmpared to the ocean, it was like taking a warm bath. The other unique part of this area was the vegetation, once again WA dished up another kind of vegetation to explore, ranging from stunted coastal shrubs and small trees to the giant Tingle tree forests. One of the most notable species being the greenish Kangaroo Paw that was flowering everywhere.
Day 4: Walpole to Conto Campground
The day prior I had spoken with the caretaker of the campground regarding walking trails and had been advised of a nice trail that was about 7km one way and would take me to see some more giant Tingle trees. I obviously had to run this! I set out early. The trail took me along a beautiful coastal trail and then up into the coastal forests. The trail probably only rose a few hundred metres but offered some amazing views of the Walpole area. Running this trail was amazing, being amongst such wise and ancient trees, I was truly inspired and had one of the best runs that I have ever had. I finished the run with a few kms through some beautiful marshland to make up almost 20km.
Our driving journeys today would take us back up to the Caves Highway near Margaret River, where we would stay at Conto Campground. A first-come-first-serve campground that was just near the Lake Cave. We decided to head back to here as we really wanted to see the Lake Cave, and figured that this part of coastline was probably our favourite that we would love to explore a bit more! The weather this day was crazy, starting with misty rain and thunder in Walpole, and taking us into hot, windy fire conditions by the time we got to Pemberton area.
En route to conto we stopped in at some places well worth noting! 1)The bicentennial tree. We had been warned about the "ladder" to the top of this tree! We couldn't believe it when we saw it.
2)An amazing Marron farm off the Vasse Highway where we met an awesome old couple who owned a largeish property and farmed marron. We met their dogs, one of which always was required to be chained up, as when both set free they would always end up roaming around on the highway! Their garden was beautiful and they had an amazing fruit orchard from which we were given some of the most amazing lemons that I have ever tasted. We purchased two huge Marron to cook up for dinner. Needless to say after battling the marron into the boiling water and feeling like a massive a**hole, the meal was well worthwhile!
3)We stopped through Nannup. A quaint little town with some beautiful historic buildings.
Arriving at Conto was a relief after some hectic winds throwing the camper van all over the road! To help Kate de-stress I cooked up our marron and served it up with a delicious Vasse Felix Chardonnay.
Although being super tired, we dragged our half asleep ases out for a walk to the beach (which ended up being waaaay further than we anticipated...and way steeper); and we were lucky we did. A dark raincloud passed while we were walking, and then was followed by intense white sunlight creating the most dynamic lighting conditions for sunset and some of the most amazing coastline I have ever seen. It was a long walk but well worthwhile, and topped off with a whale sighting as we were leaving! We spent the whole of sunset sitting on some large granite boulders looking out over the Indian Ocean as the swell rolled in and the rain clouds passed. It was pretty amazing as the colors and light conditions constantly changed. By the time we had walke back to camp it was pretty much time to set up the beds and zonk out. While on the beds, the back of the Britz van was super easy to set up and surprisingly comfortable! Despite the hot day, we were once again blessed with another cool night! So far we had had to double blanket it each night to keep warm enough, which given we were sleeping in the back of a van was totally cool, as it would have been difficult to cool down on a stagnant hot night otherwise!
The campground was beautiful and quite remote. There were a lot of "resident" kangaroos so I had to snap some pics especially for our Canadian buddies!
Day 5: Conto Campground to Bussleton
I woke early again, peeked out the window and scoped a whole lot of the resident Kangaroos just near the van. One had a joey so I had to get some pics to send to the Canadian crew.
Following my 'roo photo mission a trail run with Kate occured. We ran the Cape to Cape trail again, but obviously a different section that overlooked an amazing part of the coast again. I can't get over how amazing this trail is! Anyways, after a very near run ending ankle rolling by Kate and a root trip and face plant by me (thankfully it was a sandy section), we decided to finish the run on some less hazardous 4x4 trails which took us through some amazing coastal "Grass Tree" forest out to the Lake Cave, which we were going to visit later today!
So, first roatrip stop after clearing camp was the Lake Cave, only about 5 mins drive from Conto! Wow! THis cave was amazing to say the least. It has the only "floating" pillar in the world that is open to the public to view. Weighing in at about 5 tonne, it hangs suspended above a lake making for amazing photos!
Day 6: Bussleton to Perth
Day 7: Perth!
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Walpole giant tingle tree run
What an amazing morning this trail run was. We spent the night in a great caravan park in Walpole. Walpole is known for a giant tree known as the tingle tree. From our campground there was a trail out to a grove of these trees, about 15km return.
The trail was amazing. Nice and wide, not too many tripping hazards and a little bit soft, making for a really nice fast run and I was able to look around at the amazing trees. This run was so inspiring. Running amongst these huge ancient trees was humbling. I really felt honoured to be able to immerse myself in that forest amongst these trees that just gave off an amazing aura of wisdom and history! It really put it into perspective that we are merely dots on this planet and there are presences out there that are so much more powerful than us. Running this trail really made time dissappear as I cruised along admiring these giants.
This run really reminded me of why I run. All of these amazing views I was experiencine would have gone unseen had I not run as it just takes too long to walk there. I was also running at about 5:30 in the morning so the air was nice and crisp and there was not another soul around. Once deep in the forest I really felt like the only person on the planet.
It was such an amazing and inspiring run, and to think it was only a small 10km section of what is a 1500km long trail network. It would be amazing to get out there and explore more of these trails with some good mates!
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Murray Man
So Murray Man has come and gone! What an epic event. The organisation was flawless, hands down the best event that I have ever been involved in! The course was amazing, the volunteers were awesome, everything worked like clockwork and the competitors were super friendly. The whole vibe of the event was so good!
At the finish line there was a competitors "finish area". This was so rad, it had ice baths, blow up couches, massage, delicious endless food including brownies, fruit, icecream endless drinks etc and also the well used medical tent :-)
Onto the event. I love events like this where it become a road trip and weekend away. It meant that Kate and I finally got away together. We drove up on the Saturday morning. The drive takes you north of Adelaide, throug some very arid looking regions and into the riverland. The drive is about 250kms and you get to see some amazing scenery including vast arid planes, productive farming land and the beautiful Murray River.
The race was held on Lake Bonny in Barmera, but we stayed in Berri, at the main hotel there which happened to be a sponsor and held an info night the night before. The hotel looks totally like a highway 66 budget motel, but the rooms were great. Once we had signed into the race and dropped the bikes in transition, kate knuckled down to study and I wandered the streets of Berri......wow, country towns are DEAD on weekends. It was say 3pm and nothing was open. You could have shot a gun down any road and the bullet would have dropped to the ground before it hit anything. Funnily I was trying to find somewhere to get dinner so I asked some locals..and they had no idea where you could get take out pizza or anything after say lunch time at that. LOL. Don't think I could live in Berri.
Sunday morning came by. Alarms set for 5am allowing me to smash a good coffee and a bowl of museli before we headed to the transition zone in Barmera, a 15 min drive away. The temp was stark in contrast to the day before. Sat was low 30's, sun morning was 9! Needless to say it was chilly in the transition zone! Kate didn't want to take her shoes off until the absolute last minute.
We did get to the transition zone pretty early, but it gave us a lot of time to familiarise ourselves with everything and to organise our gear without rushing (just the way I like it). Anyways the race finally neared, we wandered to the start line and had a quick swim to get acclimatised. Next thing we're lining up to start, a quick hug and kiss to kate and then we were off. The swim was beautiful, the lake was an amazing temp and I felt good. In the end the 2km swim was 34 mins. Pretty stoked.
I was feeling great out of the water and set into a steady ride. The course was beautiful. Long the shores of Lake Bonney, 10km out, 10km back. Unfortunately the back leg was slightly more uphill, and into a decent headwind. Funnily enough, everyone was smashing me with the wind, but I was smashing everyone into it? Strange. It must be all the hill climbing!
Being broken into 4 20km loops, the ride actually felt like it went pretty quick. Nex thing onto the run. Another decent transition, and off for 20kms. The run comprised of 4x5 km laps. This was a really great way to structure the run, once again mentally helping as 5kms is easy right....and I only have to do it 4 times. In the end I was stoked, after needing a toilet break at the end of lap one, I progressively got faster finishing my last lap with an avg pace of 4:24 min/km, placing me 2nd for the run in my age group.
Feeling strong I passed Kate at the end of her first run lap, she was in suffer town and I felt pretty bad for her, but kudos to her she stuck it out.
I ended up crossing the line in 4hrs29mins, and then proceeded to chill out in the race finisher zone, munching some nice food, soaking up some rays and getting a massage. Not to mention meeting some rad crew and hearing some crazy race and training stories.
Kate ended up crossing the line in 6hrs 9mins with a lot of encouragement. She was pooched to say the least. So proud of her.
Now we headed quickly back to Berri for a freshen up in our late checkout hotel room, the shower was amazing. Smashed a coffee and some food and then embarked on the 2.5hr drive home, which was surprisingly good seeming I just did a long distance triathlon. What an amazing weekend. It has filled me with enthusiasm to ramp up my Iron Man training and maybe get a proper TT frame :-)
At the finish line there was a competitors "finish area". This was so rad, it had ice baths, blow up couches, massage, delicious endless food including brownies, fruit, icecream endless drinks etc and also the well used medical tent :-)
Onto the event. I love events like this where it become a road trip and weekend away. It meant that Kate and I finally got away together. We drove up on the Saturday morning. The drive takes you north of Adelaide, throug some very arid looking regions and into the riverland. The drive is about 250kms and you get to see some amazing scenery including vast arid planes, productive farming land and the beautiful Murray River.
The race was held on Lake Bonny in Barmera, but we stayed in Berri, at the main hotel there which happened to be a sponsor and held an info night the night before. The hotel looks totally like a highway 66 budget motel, but the rooms were great. Once we had signed into the race and dropped the bikes in transition, kate knuckled down to study and I wandered the streets of Berri......wow, country towns are DEAD on weekends. It was say 3pm and nothing was open. You could have shot a gun down any road and the bullet would have dropped to the ground before it hit anything. Funnily I was trying to find somewhere to get dinner so I asked some locals..and they had no idea where you could get take out pizza or anything after say lunch time at that. LOL. Don't think I could live in Berri.
Sunday morning came by. Alarms set for 5am allowing me to smash a good coffee and a bowl of museli before we headed to the transition zone in Barmera, a 15 min drive away. The temp was stark in contrast to the day before. Sat was low 30's, sun morning was 9! Needless to say it was chilly in the transition zone! Kate didn't want to take her shoes off until the absolute last minute.
We did get to the transition zone pretty early, but it gave us a lot of time to familiarise ourselves with everything and to organise our gear without rushing (just the way I like it). Anyways the race finally neared, we wandered to the start line and had a quick swim to get acclimatised. Next thing we're lining up to start, a quick hug and kiss to kate and then we were off. The swim was beautiful, the lake was an amazing temp and I felt good. In the end the 2km swim was 34 mins. Pretty stoked.
I was feeling great out of the water and set into a steady ride. The course was beautiful. Long the shores of Lake Bonney, 10km out, 10km back. Unfortunately the back leg was slightly more uphill, and into a decent headwind. Funnily enough, everyone was smashing me with the wind, but I was smashing everyone into it? Strange. It must be all the hill climbing!
Being broken into 4 20km loops, the ride actually felt like it went pretty quick. Nex thing onto the run. Another decent transition, and off for 20kms. The run comprised of 4x5 km laps. This was a really great way to structure the run, once again mentally helping as 5kms is easy right....and I only have to do it 4 times. In the end I was stoked, after needing a toilet break at the end of lap one, I progressively got faster finishing my last lap with an avg pace of 4:24 min/km, placing me 2nd for the run in my age group.
Feeling strong I passed Kate at the end of her first run lap, she was in suffer town and I felt pretty bad for her, but kudos to her she stuck it out.
I ended up crossing the line in 4hrs29mins, and then proceeded to chill out in the race finisher zone, munching some nice food, soaking up some rays and getting a massage. Not to mention meeting some rad crew and hearing some crazy race and training stories.
Kate ended up crossing the line in 6hrs 9mins with a lot of encouragement. She was pooched to say the least. So proud of her.
Now we headed quickly back to Berri for a freshen up in our late checkout hotel room, the shower was amazing. Smashed a coffee and some food and then embarked on the 2.5hr drive home, which was surprisingly good seeming I just did a long distance triathlon. What an amazing weekend. It has filled me with enthusiasm to ramp up my Iron Man training and maybe get a proper TT frame :-)
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Trail Running
This morning I wanted to go for a re is a loop trail run. There is a loop around Clealand that I have run part of, but not the whole way before. I was unsure how long the loop would be - I had suspected about 20km. I could have read the trail map, but that is boring. Why not just try it and see how long it takes.
So this loop starts at Chambers Gully trail head on Waterfall Gully Rd, heads up the Chambers Gully track and Bar Tail Spur track to Clealand Wildlife Park. From here you jam onto the Wine Shanty Trail that follows a fairly flat contour through some amazing natural vegetation. I was amazed at the variation of different vegetation over the duration of the run.
In the end the run was about 16kms. I started at about 6:15 I think; it was totally dark and I immediately started seeing flashes of lightning. As the run progressed, so did the storm cloud, slowly moving in right over me, which made sense as I was running up Mt Lofty, the highest hill in the area so that would make sense that the most weather would occur here. The lightning started increasing in frequency and was creating the most amazing views of the whole valley as it would light up momentarily, and then get plunged into pitch black again. The storm started getting really close at about 5km into the run, at which point I was seeing bolts hit the hill tops around me. The thought to turn around crossed my mind, however I figured the storm would pass, and it was just as far to turn around as to keep going! I just hoped that the storm would pass before I hit the top exposed ridge.
I ended up being correct, the storm had totally passed by the time I exited the treeline onto the top ridge, however to be careful I still ran closer to the trees to ensure I wasn't the highest conductor around! By this point the sun was rising opening up spectacular views back over Adelaide and the wooded valleys. Views like this make for such amazing runs, and you don't really notice the time or distance that you are covering. The fresh rain had caused the most amazing array or aromas to be released. The damp sweet smell of leaf matter and the undergrowth, the iconic Australian aroma of Eucalypt and that damp smell of fresh rain. These are all aromas that immediately generate a pang of nostalgia for me.
The final kms of the run were so amazing, finishing up back where I started, and seeing a lot of new trails to try along the way. At the trail head are two gigantic fig trees, so the run ended with a forage to collect a kg or so of fresh figs. What an amazing morning, some much needed meditation.
So this loop starts at Chambers Gully trail head on Waterfall Gully Rd, heads up the Chambers Gully track and Bar Tail Spur track to Clealand Wildlife Park. From here you jam onto the Wine Shanty Trail that follows a fairly flat contour through some amazing natural vegetation. I was amazed at the variation of different vegetation over the duration of the run.
In the end the run was about 16kms. I started at about 6:15 I think; it was totally dark and I immediately started seeing flashes of lightning. As the run progressed, so did the storm cloud, slowly moving in right over me, which made sense as I was running up Mt Lofty, the highest hill in the area so that would make sense that the most weather would occur here. The lightning started increasing in frequency and was creating the most amazing views of the whole valley as it would light up momentarily, and then get plunged into pitch black again. The storm started getting really close at about 5km into the run, at which point I was seeing bolts hit the hill tops around me. The thought to turn around crossed my mind, however I figured the storm would pass, and it was just as far to turn around as to keep going! I just hoped that the storm would pass before I hit the top exposed ridge.
I ended up being correct, the storm had totally passed by the time I exited the treeline onto the top ridge, however to be careful I still ran closer to the trees to ensure I wasn't the highest conductor around! By this point the sun was rising opening up spectacular views back over Adelaide and the wooded valleys. Views like this make for such amazing runs, and you don't really notice the time or distance that you are covering. The fresh rain had caused the most amazing array or aromas to be released. The damp sweet smell of leaf matter and the undergrowth, the iconic Australian aroma of Eucalypt and that damp smell of fresh rain. These are all aromas that immediately generate a pang of nostalgia for me.
The final kms of the run were so amazing, finishing up back where I started, and seeing a lot of new trails to try along the way. At the trail head are two gigantic fig trees, so the run ended with a forage to collect a kg or so of fresh figs. What an amazing morning, some much needed meditation.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
45/365
Raining in Adelaide all day! The creek up the road from my parents was flowing all day, and the trash racks filled up super quick from all of the summers debris. It was so humid all day, I think at 99% humidity. Weather unlike anything I've experienced in Adelaide in summer, and I have rarely seen the creek flow like this in February. I think this is why this is worthy of photo of the day.
Kate and I finished the day with an amazing trail run at Morialta Falls. It was such a beautiful run, and somewhat challenging especially in the high humidity.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
44/365
Yes, today it rained in Adelaide. Not just a bit of rain, but freaking heavy tropical downpour kinda rain! We headed downtown to pick up a camera, and being a tad frugal we parked in free two hour parking, a good 10min walk from where we needed to be. Of course it started raining heavier for the walk in, and of course we didn't bring an umbrella...cos who needs an umbrella in Adelaide right?
Anyways, everything went well with the camera and other misc downtown duties, and then as we started walking back to the car, the rain stepped up a notch. Anyways, this led to me being so drenched that I had to strip off my soaking shirt and ring it out before getting in the car.
The rain continued all afternoon, filling the parents rain water tanks and giving Adelaide a thorough soaking, including flooding out the Garden of Unearthly Delights for tomorrows fringe opening, and apparently it's just going to keep raining tomorrow. We'll see.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
43/365
Relocating to the in laws residence. Beautiful bouganvillea colour the backyard, reminding me of the colours that graced us for our wedding day. The clouds are creeping in and hopefully some cooler and maybe wet weather is on the way, as today was ridiculously hot.
An interesting day with a few job prospects popping up[, including one very exciting one. Made for a pretty good day :-)
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
42/365
Red Berry Espresso is by far my favourite pop up coffee shop. They roast small batches so it is always fresh, and have a huge range that is way more affordable than Vancouver coffee prices.
Kate and I headed by the coffee shop today to grab a coffee and some more Guatemala beans. The other thing that is nice is that they always have a different bean that is being pulled in house, so you'll always get a delicious and sometimes different coffee.
Monday, February 10, 2014
41/365
Walking around the suburbs of Adelaide, there are so many little cottages. Kate and I hope to invest in something like this in the future. A little house with a bit of work to do, so that we have a nice little project. I think this one may be a bit far gone from what we want, but I still loved the character of the place.
This is just between the Parade and Kensington Road.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
39/365
Tusmore Park BBQ Breakfast for Adelaide running crew. These Eucalyptus are so majestic and vibrant. They are the most beautiful trees and are so iconic of South Australia. When I see them with this dappled summer light I just think of a Hans Heysen painting.
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