Sydney - the Prelude

Okay, well sooooo much happened last weekend I'm going to have to divide it into three posts, so bear with me.

Sydney - the Prelude

Sydney - the Main Event

Sydney - the Encore

So the Prelude ...

Friday afternoon three very excited runners made their way to Avalon Airport, thanks to Alison driving.  And it was a sign.  In our uncanny way amongst our closest friends in our Athletics Group that we turn up wearing the same colours - we've even done it for the plane flight - all wearing stripes!  It was a sign!

The flight to Sydney and we got in before the scheduled 7pm and decided on a taxi rather than working out the train system.  I think the poor driver thought we were checking up on him, we all had our mobile phones out and he kept explaining the one way streets that he really *was* on his way to our accommodation.  Except he took a wrong turn so turned the meter off and made his way back to where he was meant to be going.  So there's a tip people, you won't get ripped off in a taxi if they think you're GPS checking up on them!  

We were delighted by our accommodation at Hyde Park Inn.   I can well and truly recommend it - in terms of location (right opposite Hyde Park),  location to the train stations (within a very easy walk to both Museum Station round the corner and Town Hall Station a couple of blocks away), and the accommodation itself was exactly like the picture and the slight problem we had with the fridge not working they actually replaced the fridge for us.   The accommodation also gave us free continental breakfast, free newspapers, free wifi and there was free parking (if we had a car, which we didn't).

Alison found a nice pizza/pasta place around the corner called Macchiato, and we were ready for a feed so headed down there post haste.   Ended up with a flirty waiter who asked me for my ID, hahahaha.  Well it was a bit dim in there, the girls quickly got out their phones and used the torches for the menu!  Got to love their ingenuity.  You can take the girls out of the country but ...

Up and ready on Saturday morning to explore we headed to the Expo to pick up our race pack and drop off our bags to the bag drop - warm clothing and anything we needed after the race would be taken to the end for us tomorrow.   I tried on a number of the Asics event tops but they are all such super slim fitting and didn't suit me at all.  I came away with a nice cotton t-shirt with the event on it, which I actually liked a lot better and I have been wearing it ad nauseum this week with jeans.  I also bought some mandarin GU which has been my favourite flavour of late, tastes like Fanta!  What's not to love about that.   The GU man (well what do you call him, he seemed to be a GU aficionado) was showing us the new GU wafers about to come out, a pre-run snack to have to keep the hunger pangs away. 

So right, event bag dropped we headed back to the hotel to take our all important race bibs back so we didn't cart them all over the city and decided we should do a trial run to the event start for tomorrow, being that it would involve a train trip.  Nothing like being prepared.  We had bought our Opal card and timed our walk to the Town Hall Station and then the train trip to Milsons Point.   

Silly me, I don't know what I was thinking, we were on the train and I looked out and it was my first glance at the Harbour, and then the penny dropped.  WE WERE ON THE BRIDGE!  But were we?  I'm looking out the window for the bridge, is it possible we were on the bridge or another bridge?  And I'm asking all these questions out loud in the train to anyone who would listen to me ... "Are we on the bridge, noooo we're not on the bridge, are we? OH MY GOD WE'RE ON THE BRIDGE!!"  

Apologies to my travelling companions for being such a dork!

So we we were glad to have done this trial run to Milsons Point so we knew exactly what we were to do the next day and could work backwards so we knew what time to leave the accommodation.  So we had a little wander down Milsons Point, I'd never been over there, it was great seeing the Bridge and the Opera House from this unique angle.   And as you can see it was a magnificent day.  We were just relishing being in short sleeves after leaving such a cold Victoria.

So as the tourists we were, we thought a ferry trip would be in order so decided on a ferry to Darling Harbour.  Inside or outside?  Doh, was there any question.  We enjoyed the scenery as we sailed.

We really didn't want to walk too far, so took a very easy stroll to the Queen Vic Building to our meet up with the other ladies from the 12WBT Runners Connect group.  Although on the way Alison and I were accosted by "Giovanni" from some beauty salon.

First rule of thumb ... DON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT !!

Too late, he had us in the store and sat down and started applying gunk to our eyes.  He doesn't just take any woman off the street you know, he only takes those he thinks he can help!  What a line!  Need to work on your flattering skills Giovanni.  Once the $300 bottle of diamond dusted encrusted gunk was presented to us, Alison and I hightailed it out of there.  Oh Lordy Lord.

Lunch at the Jet Bar at QVB, yay, getting to meet the Sydney contingent from our runners group was surreal.  It was actually hard to take pictures in the cafe as it was dull inside so by the time the cameras came out a number of the ladies had left.  But not before I got these shots.  I also got to meet my RDU buddy Tamra in the bright pink shirt, we cat and mouse all the time on Run Downunder.

And after lunch we got to see some of the delicacies at Zumbo.  I didn't even trust myself with one macaron, it all looked too amazing.

We utilised the kitchenette in our room that night and Kellie, Alison and I had pasta with a plain tomato napoli topping, parmesan cheese and a bread roll for dinner and it was perfect.  I didn't even do a 'Flat Carol' like I usually do, this was as good as it got.  Red on red, that means fast right?

Alarm set for stupid o'clock 4am wake up as we would want to leave the accommodation by 5am the next day, we said our good nights and I'll honestly say I had one of the best nights sleep pre-race than I've had before.   More to come in the next post.  Stay tuned.

Catching up

I've been a bit slack on the ol' blog hey.  But that means I've been busy.  So here's a catch up in 100 words or less! ha, since when have you known me to only use a hundred words!!

We've become a Garmin family!  Well I've had my Garmin for a while now, but Mike was fortunate to buy a second hand one and he's loving it.  Says he feels like a 'real athlete' now! ha.   For any non-runners reading this or anyone scratching their head - the Garmin is one of many ways to track your run.  It's like a little computer on your wrist.  Measures your pace and distance by way of GPS, lots of other things too like heart rate.  Then you sync it to the app and you can get all sorts of data from it including elevation that you ran, amount of steps, speed, it's wonderful for stats junkies like myself. 

Mike has been out in the studio painting.  With all the rain and cold weather we've been having, this has been his 'time out'.  It's nice a cosy in the studio too.   He's slowly getting back into it.  He studied painting in his younger years, and it's been annoying him how it's not really like riding a bike, you don't just jump back into it.  But like anything the more you practice [ train ;-) ] the better you paint [ run].  You knew I'd have to put a running analogy in there somewhere.

So the running, gearing up for Sydney.  I've been doing hills!!  Not that this Sydney run is hilly, it's a new course and is apparently flat.  But hills make you stronger.   On this particular night it was so funny.  I have this crescent that is a nice out of the way place to just go up and down ad nauseum.  I was doing 5km of hills this particular night and at one stage as I was puffing my way up, an elderly lady came out of her house and said "are you lost dear?"  

And long runs!  The thought of doing 19km around my little town here would do my head in, so on this particular Friday off I popped into Warrnambool and had a lovely scenic run along the ocean and up to the whale viewing platform.   

So much nicer on your run to see sights like this - just gorgeous.

Or this...

And as of my run yesterday there were only 8 days to go!   7 days now.  Heck by this time next week it will be all over red rover and we shall be cheering my friend Kellie in doing her first marathon.   I have the best travelling companions in Kellie and Alison for this trip.

We've been getting a fair bit of water around these parts in the last few days.  There's been some shocker floods up in Coleraine and Casterton and yes we've had rain, but now the water coming down from north is adding to it and we're flooding down here.  So much so that the Koroit to Warrnambool half marathon that was MEANT to be happening this morning and which I was volunteering at, has had to be cancelled.  The rail trail is under water in parts.  As in under REAL DEEP water!   Sad sad sad for the organisers to make this hard decision but safety first always.  There's no way you could have run it, and too late to change course and get the various permits.  Disappointing for the runners who were training to peak specifically for this weekend.  But as runners they will understand that the decision was not taken lightly.

And so to end this post on a fun note, look at these two munchkins.  How lucky we are to be their nanna and grumpy.  Their Great Uncle from Scotland sent them Celtic jerseys as a gift.  I think they're pleased.

Wonderland

I had major Wonderland envy when I saw the pics last year for their inaugural event. I just knew I would do it this year and Mike surprised me that he wanted to as well.

A pic from the most awesome race shirt ever!

Let me back up.  Wonderland is an event run by Big Long Run P/L in the Grampians, at Halls Gap, our favourite town on earth.   The Saturday had the 8km and the 2km kids run.  The Sunday is when the big boys and girls, the serious trail runners, strut their stuff in a gruelling 20km or 36km run up over and around the mountains, alongside waterfalls, over rocks and well you get my drift.  Those two events have mandatory requirements and you need to qualify to run them.

Needless to say we were doing the 8km!

So why did I have Wonderland envy after last year?  Well Wonderland is actually an area in the Grampians, but they theme this event after Alice in Wonderland.  The most amazing volunteers dress up and do their utmost to ensure we have the best ever time as runners.

So the 8km Fyans Flat it was called and hmmm there was a few bits I wouldn't call flat. But nothing bad though. And despite the torrential rain they got yesterday the trail part wasn't too bad at all.

So freaking cold before the start with rain on and off.  We got a good park, probably because we were there around 12noon (the race wasn't starting until 2pm), so wandered (actually dashed through the rain) to the local hall to pick up our bib.  We got looking at the Thirs there and Mike decided he wanted one, not to be outdone I would get one too.   Mind you if he told me once he told me a thousand times he was looking like a "bad-ass" !!   He did a double take when on facebook later that night one of his mates likened him to Keith Richards! hahahahaha  And his sister queried "what's with the pirate look".  Not so bad-ass after all.

So once bib was picked up we popped back to the car for a cuppa, Mike had a sandwich and I had a banana as we still had over an hour to kill.  Saw a couple of the girls from our Runners Connect group, always good to catch up.  The bibs were so cool with our names on them (The Sodd being Mike's camping nick name) although he wasn't too keen on the pink! ha.

So I dragged him to mill around the start line about 30 mins to go, I get anxious to be amongst the throng like that.  Of course he complained - it's cold!!!!!!  And then it started to rain, oh joy.  We huddled under the picnic shelter amongst other race goers.  Time to start moving up to the start line and lo and behold the rain stopped and the sun came out.  It was lovely.  

The idea of doing this event was purely for fun.  I wanted to run with Mike.  He's not really into events, so the first surprise was that he entered.  But I just hated the idea that if it was miserable weather and he was bringing up the rear, he'd be hating it, he'd be wet and cold and well I've been there done that and it's a horrid feeling when you're on your own knowing you still have to slug out X amount of kilometres.  So I figured if we were going to be wet and cold we were going to have a darn fun time together doing it.  

Mike had planned to do his 1 minute run, 1 minute walk.  That was all good, but when his runkeeper told him each time that it was time to start running he would never warn me and he'd take off like a jack rabbit (or was that the white rabbit, tee hee!!) and leave me in his dust, only to stop and walk a minute up the road.  Gaaah!  Warn me when the one minute ding happened will ya!

So I mentioned the volunteers, they were nothing short of amazing.  Dotted around the route we just smiled and smiled.  Pics following.  

Probably about half way through it clouded right over and at times some misty rain, but it was okay, we were hot from running so the misty rain was welcome. We took so many photos, today was about fun. Loved hearing the kookaburras (who were prob laughing at us!!) and seeing lots of kangaroos and wallabies. The bush smelt so good too.

Didn't realize though I was running with Usain Bolt!!   This bad-ass took up that Bolt pose for every race photographer!!! Good grief  

Pics courtesy of the facebook group from the local people taking photos around the traps.  The Sports Image photos have come through today, I just haven't yet had a moment to purchase them.  They are as equally hysterical.

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee directing us down over the bridge to the trail below.

Really now magnificent is this area, look at the running track.  Yep, another Bolt moment! 

A lovely racegoer who came up behind us took our photo.

Something you don't see every day in the middle of the bush - 

Mike was passing a Tweedle Dum race goer.

The pose wasn't only a static pose - he did it on the fly also!  

This is probably one of my most favourite photos, he was having the time of his life.

Even despite the torrential rain we had seen on the FB group from the day before,

the track wasn't too bad, only a couple of areas like this.  

How high can you jump?  As high as needed.  

Got to the Bramuk area and the sun was magnificent.

Still with the pose - da plane da plane (a la Fantasy Island I reckon)

  

How magnificent is this area - this view stopped me in my tracks.

More of the rockin' volunteers who just made this event fantastic.

Mike really tired in the last couple of kms as we were heading back to the start (by way of a big loop).  The cloud cover had come over and it started raining a little bit but soon stopped.  I could hear the loud speaker and I said to him that when the finish line area came into sight we had to run.  And he did.  Over the finish line a bit red in the face but oh so happy.  Until he realised his very first piece of bling, his finishers medal was also PINK! hahahahahaha  

  

We came in I think third and fourth last, ha.  But as you can see from these pics, there was so much fun being had, it wasn't about racing.  We certainly got our moneys worth.   Mike was worried he was holding me up but heck, if I had gone on ahead I wouldn't have had half the fun I did.   It truly has gone down as my most funnest event ever being able to take part with my running-bad-ass-bolt-like-keith-richard-pirate-looking husband !!

And the best part was he said "I think we should do it again next year" !  

We finished off the day getting an icecream cone from one of the shops, and on this cold afternoon it was really yummy.  Then back to the car to have our thermos of coffee and hit the road back home. 

LSR ramping up

EDITED TO ADD:   I had written this post a couple of weeks ago and still had it sitting in my drafts only to realise tonight I hadn't hit publish!


So my weekend LSR (long slow runs to the non-runners reading this) are ramping up as I continue on with my half marathon plan.  Not sure if I've ever mentioned, I use a plan from the Marathon Training Academy to which I also avidly listen to their podcasts.  But heck it's hard to get out when the mornings have been looking like this - ICY !

My weekend runs are taking me out of town and down lonely country roads.  Actually lots of roads around here like this, but admittedly this one lead out of town.

And I had the 'girls' for company, a veritable cheer squad lining up along the fence watching me run by.   Actually this heard of cows started following me along the fence, not sure how I can get the video I took in here, it did make me laugh.

But you know when you run way out of town, you've got to run back in, so in my effort to do a big loop I went along under the cypress trees and came across lots of puddles like this.  Oh no!  Not my finest hour.  

Didn't really think that plan through properly did I?

Cows!!

Soooooo there were cows involved in my day today.  First off my morning run.  Told His Nibs that I would be getting up early to get my 8km in.  Feh!  Only 8km.  It was a drop back week in my training schedule, I feel like I should do more but what's the first thing people will say ... TRUST THE PLAN!  So I did.   The plan was that I'd go out and do a 4km loop of town and when I was five minutes from home I'd send Mike a text and he'd meet me up on the corner and he'd do the next 4km loop with me.  Win-win.  He'd get his 4km in and I'd do my 8km.

So text sent when I was five minutes from home and I get to the corner and no Mike.  I rang him and get a feeble "errrr I'm not fully dressed yet".  [read: I'm still in bed].  Yes my fair-weathered running husband / accountability partner for this morning piked on me.  So darn him I kept going but decided to put a big angry-assed hill in it too so ran up the stock route instead. There, I showed him!

Cow legs made me mooooooove it !  haha  someone had to say it.   My awesome tights from Run Amok Tights.  Honestly so super super comfy and some great patterns available, but really who can go past cow legs!

What a glorious morning though, here's a pic of the Mill against the morning sun coming up, it looked eerily spooky and beautiful at the same time.   Oh and yes, got home and His Nibs was definitely still in bed!  Hmmmm.   

Sooo then because it was a magic winter's day today, absolutely glorious out this afternoon I took the little boy out for a walk.  So much fresh grass to sniff and pee and sniff some more!  haha, yes it's a drawn out process when there's so much goodness to get into for a little dog.

EXCEPT ... when there are cows involved.  Heck don't know what came over him this afternoon you'd think he'd never seen a cow before.  But there they were lined up at the fence.  Oh right, yep never been THAT CLOSE before hey Lucky.  His little tail went between his legs and he trembled and wouldn't go any further.  Only with some extreme urging would he walk but only on the other side of me giving that fence a wide berth.

He soon realised the cows were more scared of him than he was of them.

But his eyes never left them, don't take me over there mum, noooooo don't take me over there!  Don't worry mate, I won't let anything happen to you, we'll stick to the road and leave the cows over there.

And then after all this, later on this afternoon at 5.30 the guilt had got the better of Mike, and off he want for his own 3km run.  Good man!  I'm not going to say I shamed him into it, but the smile he had when he got home and then sat down for his roast lamb dinner was worth it!  

The things I put up with!!

Sooooo last Sunday was a 5km Charity run with proceeds going to "Steps for Aaron" in turn going to Brain Cancer Research.  Aaron was young local man who recently passed away from Brain Cancer.  The family have arranged a walk from Melbourne to Portland each year raising money for Brain Cancer.   So in turn our brains trust from the Aths Group decided to dedicate our charity run this year to "Steps for Aaron".   Just on $1000 was raised by those wanting to run or walk from the Flagstaff Hill car park around the foreshore and ending back with a victory loop round the little lake at Flagstaff Hill.

After such a dismal day on Saturday, I don't think the temp rose from 7 degrees, with wind and rain all day, we despaired about Sunday's run, but despite the cold it was a brilliant day with perfect running weather.  Of course Mister-Fair-Weathered-Running-Man had to wear long pants, long sleeved shirt and his jacket during the run.

And as what happens strangely enough with our Warrnie girls, we tend to rock up at these events wearing matching outfits.  Crazy but true.  Leah was the only one of the crew there this time but look!  Great minds think alike.  Of course wearing our Aths Club shirts, but who knew the long sleeved yellow was going to be part of the ensemble too!   It never fails to make me giggle when this happens.

I was happy with my run, but like usual no matter how fast I think I'm going, the pack always goes faster.  It wasn't a handicapped race, it was all off at the same time.  But all good.  At the out and back I passed Mike while he was still heading out, and I saw him limping.  Ouch, shin splints.  But he said he was okay - one minute walk, one minute run.  He was paying the price of not steadily running throughout winter.

He got back to Flagstaff Hill (which for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's a maritime village from yesteryear) and as he was the second last runner back ... hooray, he beat a heavily pregnant woman wheeling a pram!! we yelled out to not worry about the lap round the little lack but to take the shortcut.  Oh no, the man was doing the full course.

Chugging his way to the finish line...

Oh and ever the Showman (you can't ever call Mike shy, that's for sure) he drops to his knees at the finish line and crawls through the witches hats.  Oh dear!

After catching his breath, having a drink and then everyone dispersing, he spotted the Undertakers at the village and had to pose for a shot.  See what I have to put up with??????

On the way back home we popped in to see the grandkids as we had to drop something off.  Yeah yeah, any excuse.  What's the best thing on a cold winter's day?  Grumpy getting warm snuggly cuddles from Saxon.  :-)

And the look that Codan is giving his Grumpy here is just priceless.  Yep Codan, Grumpy loves you too little man.

That's what it's all about really, leading healthy lives so we live a long time for these little guys.  With a third grandchild due in December (yep thought I'd drop that one in) a little cousin for these two, I wonder what this wee one will be.  ANYONE WANT TO GUESS????    ;-)    I'm pretty good at hints!