Shepparton Half Ironman

Well, the weekend of the 18th November had arrived! After months of training it was becoming a reality. The last 2 weeks we had been tapering, which means decreasing the long hours of training but still maintaining enough to not lose your fitness. It's a strange feeling, not being able to train as much as normal and I actually found I was so much hungrier, even though I was doing less exercise.

Saturday morning we had to register and put our bikes into the bike compound. Our bikes were easily the least expensive and sophisticated there amongst some that were worth $20,000. Then we went for a quick dip in the lake, that was literally so brown you could not even see your arms in it! Never swum in anything like that before! It wasn't that cold though, which was good.

Slept quite well Saturday night, always a bonus and woke up at 4am. Still calm, I managed to eat 3 Weetabix and a banana, giving it enough time to digest before the 7.10am start. Calm right till the off and the first 200m of the swim. Then when the next two waves of people came past, I lost it a bit and was seriously wondering what on earth I was doing, trying to survive amongst the 1,200 other swimmers. But once they had all passed me by and there was just a handful of other slow swimmers left, I got back into my rhythm, determined to finish. When I came out in 55 minutes (there was a one hour cut-off) I whooped for joy, as if I had finished the whole thing :)

The bike went according to plan, 90km (56 miles) in 3.5 hours. It was made up of 2 laps in an oblong, 2 sides I had the wind behind me and I was flying at 30km/hr but the other two were tough going struggling into the wind doing 20km/hr.

The run was made up of 3 laps of 7km and took longer than normal - 2:11 hrs but I managed to keep running the whole thing whilst others were walking. At the end of each lap you were given an Ironman wristband to show you had completed each lap and I still haven't taken them off! Finally, after 6:42hrs, I crossed the finish line, completely estatic and emotional! I came 853rd out of 1,200 entrants so very pleased with myself. And more to the point, felt great afterwards, a slight pull in my hammie but that was all. I have barely ached and today, 4 days later, have just run 10k. So all, in all, it was a very successful weekend and we are all still on a bit of a high from it :)

Kona Ironman World Championships

British girl Leanda Cave (33) has just won the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii !!! Caroline Seffan (who won Melbourne IM) came in second, 1.34mins behind her :) Leanda also won the 70.3 Half Ironman World Championships a few weeks ago!

It's been ages since I last blogged but nothing exciting has really happened! Sam had all his hair cut off which was rather sad, first time in 8 years. The Boys have just had two weeks holiday which they enjoyed by sleeping in, playing on the xbox and seeing their friends!

Chris went to Singapore for a week but wasn't that impressed with it. Lafha (Living Away From Home Allowance) has now finished, so we have decided to apply for Residency. This will bring the cost of Uni down and means the Boys can decide where they want to live when they are older. It doesn't mean we are staying here permanently, but at least till the Boys have finished school.

My weeks consist of studying (I am now halfway through my course) and training for the half IM in 5 weeks! I have been training really hard, this morning I was at the pool at 7am and swam 2.5km. Tomorrow I am cycling 100km and running for an hour. On Thursday I ran past Cathy Freeman (twice!!) - Australia's 400m gold medallist in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games :)

We went to Lorne for the weekend recently. Chris took part in a 120km ride which included 10km up a very steep hill. We rented a nice house and Will took 3 friends along with him (Jack and Sam were working.)

The footie season has now finished so Jack has just got himself 2 new jobs. One is at a restaurant by the beach in Mordi (waiting and bar work) and the other is reffing indoor soccer. Sam tends to work Tuesday evenings and Sunday at Bunnings so they are earning lots of dish! Sam passed his "L's" test last week so I will have to start taking him out to practice. He was sooo pleased with himself!

We have one of Jack's friends staying with us at the moment from the UK. Jack is over in Australia for 6 months playing cricket and is the guy our Jack spent his famous cricket days with at Christmas 2 years ago :)

Think that's about all for now :)

News Just In....!

Exciting news! (well, I think it is!) I have secured a place in the Shepparton Half Ironman on November 18th!!! This will incorporate a 1.9km swim (just over 1 mile), followed by a 90km ride (55miles) ending with a 21.1km run (half marathon, 14 miles).  This morning I rode 82.5 km so nearly there (but my legs were pooped afterwards!), last week I ran the half marathon and I'm up to 1.6km in the pool. Put them altogether though and it's a different matter. I would like to complete it in 6.5/7 hours... better get training...!

London Olympics 2012

Well, what a couple of weeks the Olympics provided us with! 4/5 of us got up at 5.15am to watch the Opening Ceremony (Jack didn't!) and we weren't disappointed! A lot of it was on in the middle of the night for us but we were able to avidly catch up the next day and eagerly checked the medal table every morning :) This is one time when we were sad not to be in the UK. Loved watching the Triathlons (which we watched live) and the cycling and athletics.

Both Sam and Jack went skiing last week. Sam did cross country skiing which he quite enjoyed while Jack ended up teaching his class mates downhill skiing, none of whom had done it before! Had to get up at 3.45am to take Jack and his friends to North Melbourne to catch the coach!

I did my third Half Marathon yesterday and was very pleased with my 1:54hr time and recovered very well too! Each one I am getting a little bit faster:)

Our friends from the UK, Joe and Fiona and their two daughters Charlotte and Lydia have been over in Australia for the past month and this week they arrived in Melbourne. We spent a really nice weekend with them; Chris, Sam and Will took Joe to an AFL game at the MCG while I went round Melbourne Museum with the girls. Then yesterday they came to ours for the day with Joe going to watch Sam at his football match :)

New House

We are now in our new house in Parkdale and have finally unpacked all the boxes. It was a bit of a manic weekend, what with the move, Jack's 18th Birthday and me starting my Personal Trainer course. I had spent the week packing all the boxes and having got the keys on Thursday afternoon, had shifted a lot already. But we had a man with a van (well, 2 men) coming at 12 to help with the heavy stuff like the sofas, washing machine, beds etc. But at 11.20am I got a text to say they couldn't come because of a death in the family! Luckily, Chris managed to find another company who arrived 2 hours later and it was action stations! In the evening, we had a lovely meal at Longrain with some of Jacks friends - the food was Asian fusion and was delicious.

Sam  had a weeks trip to Canberra 2 weeks ago with school and last week had work experience , helping at an after school club called Kelly Sports with Primary aged children. So he was able to come with me to Ikea to buy and put together some wardrobes, draws, bookcase etc on Wednesday. He has officially started his new job at Bunnings with the new store opening tomorrow.

I am enjoying my course though today the guy taking it spoke really quickly and I found it difficult to understand what he was saying! I am able to get the same train as Jack and Sam, though we all sit in different sections of the train depending on where we need to get off :)

Will put some fotos on Flickr soon of the new house...

Half Marathon number 2!

We did it!!! And I beat last years time by 1 minute :)