Jimieke

My New Sport

2006-12-11T21:56:00.000+10:00

We are winding down our time here in Australia, so for our second to last weekend here Mieke and I decided to drive down to Sydney to check it out. Brisbane is about 11 hours north by car, so initially when we moved we figured the Sydney trip would probably be made a couple of times. Well, it got around to the end of the year and we still hadn't made the journey.

We visited Sydney Olympic Park, the site of the 2000 Summer Olympics. It is a huge complex with many sites and venues including the Telstra Stadium, the competition pool, running track, archery range, courts of every type (basketball to badminton), a skate park, etc. It is open to the public and there are also instructed lessons at a number of the sites.

I had my eye on one sport in particular that I wanted to give a go. I've always been a bit of a monkey boy wanting to climb around and hang on stuff and my swimming background has given me some upper body strength that I thought could be helpful. So I signed up and went through the introductory course and did some drills and practice maneuvers on the ground to get me going. Then we moved onto the real deal and built up the foundation motions and then worked on some more advanced moves. See the video of me in action.

Video of Jim in Action

Jim smashes 2 hours at the Noosa Tri!

2006-10-29T20:51:00.000+10:00

This weekend we were up at Noosa for largest triathlon in the Southern Hemisphere. There were about 2500 individual competitors and over 870 teams of 3 people each. That created quite a mess out on the bike course; lots of crashes and near misses. Jim and I both made it through unscathed.

Jim raced in the Age Group Elite category and improved his personal best time at this distance by about 4 minutes with a finishing time of 1:57:48! He was able to nab 4th place out of 42 (one spot out of the money). I also improved my personal best at this distance by just over a minute to finish in 2:36:44, good enough for me to grab 37th place out of 145 in my age group. Technically it was a non-drafting race, but with thousands of cyclists on the road at once, officiating such a rule was impossible. Because Jim is fast, he started in the 3rd wave, 8 minutes behind the pros, so they had a bit more of an open course to work with. He had a good swim, good bike and excellent run. It seems like all 3 sports are coming together now for him so he should have an great race at the Long Course World Championships in Canberra this November.

Results for this weekends race can be found here: http://www.usmevents.com.au/series/NTMSF/results.cfm

We had an early and tiring day, so that's it for now...

Bribie Island Triathlon

2006-10-21T09:45:00.000+10:00

Last weekend we went to Bribie Island (about a 1 hour drive north of here) for a sprint distance triathlon. It was a 750 meter straight, tide assisted swim followed by a 20 km bike ride and a 5 km run. Jim had a great race and finished forth overall. I also finished forth, but out of 17 in my age group. I found out that wetsuits really do give an advantage when most of the rest of the people don't wear them!

The first picture is of Jim and I just before leaving Bribie Island after the race. The last picture is of me finishing the race. The second picture is of Jim adjusting his bike position at the fit studio he put together at the bike shop. Notice him watching himself on the bigscreen tv.

This weekend we head up to the Sunshine coast for a preview of the Noosa triathlon race course with a friend of Jim's from swimming. Noosa is a very big event with around 25oo individual competitors racing the olympic distance course. We'll post our results after the race.

Gold Coast Half Ironman

2006-10-01T21:27:00.000+10:00

First the alarm goes off at 3:30am. Next we're on the road to the Gold Coast Half Ironman at a resort development at Coomera (45 mins drive south of here).

Jim's wave or the elite males started the race off at 6:00am. He got to race with some of the big names here in Australia, including Chris McCormack. Jim had a great race and set another PR for himself, finishing in 4:13:48! That put him in 10th for the elites and 12th overall, out of a field of 900 people (men, women and teams included). He was third for most of the bike - pulling about 6-8 other guys most of the way.

My wave started at 6:13am. I was glad to get the swim over with - I did beat 9 people though! After the swim I was off on the bike and run, racing myself from 36th place to 20th place (out of 45) in the end. I was hoping to finish between 5:45 and 6 hours and finished at 5:41:15. The results can be found at http://www.usmevents.com.au/home/home.cfm, then click on Cannibal Gold Coast Half Ironman Triathlon.

The first picture is of me running down one more place before the finish. The second photo is after I finished! The third picture is of Jim at Green Island off the coast of Cairns. We visited the area with my parents when they were here.

Ayers Rock, Cairns vacation and Evan's Head triathlon

2006-09-03T18:24:00.000+10:00

Here's some photos of our trip to Ayer's Rock and Cairns. We had a great time with my parents. They are now off to drive from Melbourne to Sydney, checking out the sights along the way. We'll see them next weekend in Brisbane for a few days before they leave the country for good. Visiting and climbing Ayers Rock was certainly a highlight of the trip. It is much more impressive than any photos or postcards can show. The reason my dad looks like he is struggling in the photo above is because it was extremely windy up there. Some lady's glasses blew off her face and were lost for good...

On a side note, Jim and I got back yesterday morning from Cairns and went to Evan's Head (a town 2.5 hours south of here) for a sprint distance triathlon - 750meter swim, 20km bike, and 5km run. It was the first one of the season for us down here. Jim got third overall and first in his age group. I got 3rd in my age group (out of 5!!)

The swim was in the ocean with lots of big waves and currents pulling you around. It was by far the hardest swim I've ever done - since I've learned to swim this past year. I wanted to quit half way out to the first bouy when I was in the big crashing waves and not going anywhere, but the lifeguards and their boats weren't nearby. Good thing I guess, since I eventually worked my way around the course and ended up getting $20 for my 3rd place effort. Jim, on the other hand, made it around the swim fine and had a good race overall and won $50 for his effort...

Jim runs his personal best 10km

2006-08-24T23:03:00.000+10:00

Last weekend Jim and I went to Noosa for a 10km and 5km run, respectively. Jim ran his personal best in the 10km by 2 minutes, finishing in 36:30! I ran the 5km and finished 8th out of 70 something people (walkers included). The first picture is of Jim before he started the race. He was to get the camera when he was done and take a picture of me finishing my race. Unfortunately, I ran so fast he missed me! Therefore, I've included another picture of me and the other 2 gals (Louise and Amy) that finished the cycling teams time trial a few weekends ago. I'm on the blue bike...

On another note, John Bruch has arrived to the land downunder. Tomorrow Bonnie arrives and we're all 4 off to Ayers rock and Cairns for the week. I'll post photos of the fun later.

Queensland Team Time Trial Championships

2006-08-13T22:32:00.000+10:00

Today Jim and I spent the day in Laidley, a town about an hours drive from Brisbane, to compete in the Queensland state team time trial championship. It consisted of teams of 3 or 4 people working together to get the fastest time (your team time was recorded when your 3rd team member crosses the finish line.

Jim's race was about 76 kms. They finished with 3 out of their 4 team members (Jim included) to an 8th place finish. Jim and Gavin were the two strongest guys on their team; the other two were totally buggered and their legs were smashed when they finished. Dave was so buggered he could hardly walk and needed assistance to sit down because of his cramping legs...

My race was around 37 kms. We too, finished with 3 out of our 4 team members together (me included). We raced ourselves into a 4th place finish out of 8 teams, in just under an hour at 59:59!

You can see the photo of my team above (from left to right: Eve, Amy, myself and Louise). Jim's team above at the starting line from left to right: Jim, Gavin, Dave and Shaun.

Finally...A post of the new pad

2006-08-09T21:02:00.000+10:00

Sorry about the huge delay between posts. The move across town was successful. We now can leave our car parked for the majority of the week. Jim is only a 4 minute bike ride to work and I am only a 15 minute ride to school. The new neighborhood is much closer to restaurants, little shops and the grocery store - so very convenient. The apartment is a bit smaller than the last one with no individual garage, but we do have secure undercover parking. We now have a much larger deck as you can see in the photos. Jim has built us a bike rack so the bikes can be easily stored - what a handy guy he is! Another bonus for me is I now have a dishwasher and a washer and dryer in the apartment.

In two weeks I will be finishing up with my forth teaching period of classes. That means I'll be 2/3 the way done - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! The classes are going pretty well. I've been able to get to know some of the other students pretty well which makes it nice, especially since it is a very diverse group of students.

Jim has been working at lot at the bike shop. He's also been leading some of the weekly rides - which leave at 5:30am! Yep, they're all early birds here. The other guys at the shop have really taken a liking to him (who wouldn't) and are really going to miss all his help when we leave.

The other photos of us are from the Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter's zoo) which we visited last weekend. The elephants got our hands full of slober and dirt when we were feeding them...

Moving Soon!

2006-06-24T18:16:00.000+10:00

So finally another blog entry. I'm not sure where the time went. I just finished up with my 3rd teachingt period for my MBA (half way done!). Jim's been busy getting the "Fit Studio" done at the bike shop where he is working. He will be putting to use the fit bike he built and using it to fit people to their bikes for petter performance. He has a great deal with the shop he works at. The shop owner will do all the marketing; Jim just has to come in and do the fits and they both make money. Yippie! The first two photos are from a time trial Jim and I did last weekend. The last picture is of me (in the red helmet) getting ready to do my first criterium. In this race, you ride around in a cirlce of about a mile for 40 minutes + 3 laps. It was rainy and a bit chilly, but non-the-less, it was a fun workout.

Hopefully we will be moving soon to a new apartment in the suburb called the West End. That location will be much more central for us. I will be able to ride my bike to school and Jim can ride his to work. Plus there are lots of little cafes located nearby and a nice bike path along the river. We are waiting anxiously to see if we can get an apartment secured in the complex that we want. I hope so because then I will be upgrading to a place with a dishwasher again!!

If you had to guess, which appliances to you think an unfurnished apartment would NOT normally have here in Australia? They are ones that people own and move with them. Give it a guess. I'll post the answer in the next blog...

Noosa Ocean Swim

2006-05-22T21:04:00.000+10:00

This past weekend Jim and I went to Noosa to do an Ocean Swim. We got up at 4:30am so we could make the 2 hour drive north and get there in time for check-in and numbering (yep Jim and Mieke up at 4:30 in the morning to go swim in the ocean)!

Both Jim and I completed our races. Jim swam in the open category for his 2000 meter race against some of the best swimmers in Australia. Had he registered with his age group he would have finished 3rd. Me, on the other hand, swam in the 1000 meter race (which turned out to be more like 800 - much to my liking)! I finished ahead of 3 people in my age group, so I'm moving up from not being able to swim at all last fall to smashing people in races! The full results can be found at http://www.usmevents.com.au/series/waterSwim/results.cfm.

The top picture is of Jim playing on the rocks after his race. Then there's me checking out the water before hand. The last picture is of Jim and I just before I was about to do my race.

Noosa is a very nice little town located on what the Australian's call the Sunshine coast.

Western Oz

2006-05-09T10:03:00.000+10:00

Jim and I arrived back in Brisbane yesterday morning at 5:50am, just in time for me to get a few hours sleep before my first class of my next teaching period. We spent the last 8 days over on the other side of the country, in the state called Western Australia.

The original reason for heading over there was for Jim to compete in the Busselton Half Ironman. He had a grea race, finishing in 4:15:56! That was a personal best for him at that distance by 14 mintues. He raced in the open category again. It was a mass start with about 800 people. He placed 15th overall and had he registered in his age group he would have won it by 10 minutes! The entire results can be found at www.busseltonhalf.com if you want to see his splits.

We rented a campervan for our trip. It was perfect for the two of us. It had a fridge and a gas cook stove, so we were pretty self sufficient. Two of the nights we just camped out in the middle of nowhere, one night on a nature reserve, the second time just off a gravel road by a bunch of sheep. We saw our first live kangaroo in the wild and lots of cool birds.
Jim was finally able to catch a wave during a surf attempt! One of the photos is of him surfing at Wave Rock.

The photo with the nice green grass is of the oldest racehorse track in Australia. It was supposedly given to them by the queen herself many years ago. At least that's what the caravan park owner told us. We had been looking for a place to run that day and started by trying to locate a track in Perth before we headed out. However, it was a week day and the parking lots were all full at the colleges that had tracks. In the end, it worked out as the campervan owner sent us to the horse track that evening! The grass was actually too difficult to run on because it was so think and had divots. However, there was a gravel/dirt road just to the inside of the grass that we ran on.

Western Australia is great! We'll definitely be heading back there some day in the future.

Jim's first day of work in Oz!

2006-04-27T20:02:00.000+10:00

This is Jim at his first day of work. Yes, I did say work! He stumbled into a job as a bike mechanic at the shop that he signed up to race with.

Because he wowed them with his bike mechanic skills, they'll probably have him doing extra things like answering the phone or maybe even selling a bike.

It all happened last week when we stopped by the shop to see if they would let Jim use some tools to true a wheel. They said no problem since he had already impressed them with his racing skills. During the conversation they found out Jim used to be a bike mechanic and they are a bit short handed so they offered him a job right then and there. He'll be working about 3 days a week. We're pretty happy - it's the perfet fit for him and now we'll be able to upgrade from ramen noodles!

Now for a little update on my schooling. The photo of me is one taken on my way to a final presentation for one of my classes. It was a finals week again last week. I have now completed 2 out of the 6 teaching periods required for the MBA degree. For those of you who didn't know or don't remember, each teaching period is 6 weeks of classes followed by 1 week of finals. I get a 1 or 2 week break in between each teaching period for rest and relaxation. In other words, I am a third of the way done! I've been meeting a lot of diversified people to keep making it interesting.

Jim and I are heading to Western Australia on Saturday for 8 days. He'll be competing in a 1/2 ironman in a town called Busselton. We'll have the results and photos of the trip posted when we get back.

Sunshine Coast Tour

2006-04-20T20:45:00.000+10:00

This past weekend Jim and I went to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. It was here that Jim competed in a 4 stage cycling race. The racers were ranked according to their overall times after 4 events.

The first race on day one was 75 km (3 laps). Jim finished with the bunch and felt like he had a good race. Day two started with a 7km hill climb. Jim did great and finished 2nd. That afternoon was the third event, a 10 km individual time trial. Jim biked well enough to get 4th in that event. Day three was the last race, an 80 km (4 laps) race. Jim had a very strong finish near the front of the pack.

Due to Jim's consistent hard work over the weekend, he was able to bike himself into 2nd place overall in his category and make us $300 richer!

The guy (named Gavin) that got first place (by only 17 seconds) races with the same club that Jim signed up with, so it was nice for them to be able to work together out on the course to keep an eye on their competition. We stayed with a friend of Gavin's to save on lodging. He lived in a cool rural area right by a river. You could fish off his deck, but you had to watch out for the water skiers and jetskiers that were zipping by.

Ironman Oz Weekend at Port MacQuarie

2006-04-05T22:02:00.000+10:00

We headed to Port MacQuarie to watch Ironman Australia last weekend. Neither of us were competing (I know, I probably could have done it!), but we were able to at least do a 5km fun run and Jim competed in a 1000m ocean swim. We both ran a personal best in the 5km; Jim finishing in 17:22 and me in 22:55.

The above pictures are from the ocean swim. It was a 2 lap swim; they had to come out of the water and run around a buoy before they could head back out. The first picture is of Jim before the race. Photo two is of him coming out in the top three after lap 1. The third photo is of the leaders heading back out for lap 2. Notice, everyone is running in except one person who is diving. Guess who that is? How deep does the water look there? On an unrelated (or perhaps related) note Jim thought a bee had stung him on his forehead during a bike ride later that afternoon. It really appeared to be more of scratch....hmmmmm.....maybe from the sand, or perhaps a seashell?

The forth photo is of Jim receiving his 3rd place award for the swim. He won a $50 gift certificate to a local swim shop for his effort. He was only about 2 seconds from winning 1st, so a great race. (Although he did miss out on $200 cash.) The winner was a pro triathlete Pete Jacobs and the 2nd place guy was a local lifeguard / swim rescuer - he was really good at entering and exiting the water.....

Mooloolaba Triathlon

2006-03-27T20:25:00.000+10:00

Jim found this spider in our garage tonight. He's not sure where it went after he took the photos of it. He tried to swat it to death with sandpaper, but somehow missed. (For you spider lovers, its still alive down there some where).

The second picture is of me (in the red suit w/ the white visor) close to the end of the 10km run during the Mooloolaba triathlon (Olympic Distance - 1500meter swim, 40km bike, 10km run). I had a better than expected day. The swim was a bit short - much to my liking, but then it was a long run from the swim exit to the transition (450 meters). After I made it out of the water in 46th (yippie - I wasn't last!) out of 56 people in my age group, I was off on the bike. Between the bike and the run I made up some pretty good ground, finishing 23rd out of 56 in a time of 2:37:42. My goal was to finish between 2:45 and 3:00 hours, so I was really happy.

Jim had a good race too, though he slacked off a bit on the run in the end. He raced in the open category with the fast guys again. After making a great tactical move by swimming straight to the swim exit (instead of following a pack of guys that were swimming to the wrong thing), he hopped on his bike in a decent position and felt like he had a good ride. Once he started running, he realized even if he ran his best 10km time he'd still finish in the middle of the group. He decided to conserve a bit of energy and take it easy on the run (44 minute 10km) since he is training for a half ironman coming up in about a month. Even with that, had he raced in his age group he would have finished 7th out of 87 in 2:08:03, so a job well done for him as well!

Cyclone Wati

2006-03-24T15:09:00.000+10:00

See the swirling white clouds on the right side of the photo? That's cyclone Wati - we're the X in the southeast part of Queensland. The cyclone is expected to stay out in the ocean and move southeast. Only problem for us might be huge waves for the triathlon this weekend...don't worry moms, they won't make us swim if they're too big and dangerous!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZWEIT!!

2006-03-21T21:58:00.000+10:00

As all of you in the northern hemisphere welcome in the coming spring (even if it's still snowing), take a few minutes and wish my little brother happy birthday.

Zweit turns 29 (for the first time) today!!

Happy birthday bro!!

That's Zweit and his cute little son Beck in the photo.

Taiwan

2006-03-20T21:34:00.000+10:00

For those of you who haven't heard yet, the mystery destination was Taipei, Taiwan. Jim and I spent 6 days there attending a bicycle show. Most of the exhibitors were manufacturers, but there was a mix of everything.

We didn't have a lot of extra time for sight seeing, but we did find a local market and spent some time wandering around the part of town where our hotel was located. We also took a trip up the Taipei 101 building, currently the tallest building in the world. It was a pretty nice view from there. You can see the building in one of the photos. The other photos show the scooters that were everywhere (kind of like Rome), us at the local market (the one with the shoes and one with Jim in front of local food stands), and the last photo is of the socks and toothbrush that they gave us on the airplane (Singapore Air rocks!). - Desa, I saved the socks for you because if I remember right, you'll need them for you flight over!

Where are we?

2006-03-11T12:07:00.000+10:00

Here's a clue as to where we've been spending our week. This is not my photo, just a borrowed one off the web. We'll post our photos when we get back to Brisbane since right now we don't have the means to connect the camera to the computer.

Any guesses as to what and where this tall building is? No hints from those of you who know! Feel free to comment below...

Triathlon Cancelled!

2006-03-05T10:26:00.000+10:00

Check out the surf! We went to the Gold Coast (45 min drive from our house) for a sprint triathlon this weekend. However, due to unfavorable weather conditions, the race was cancelled - see above photos. We weren't actually supposed to swim here where the photos were taken. The race venue was up the coast a few kilometers from here in a more protected area. The age group race turned into an aquathlon (just the swim and run) since the race officials determined the roads were too wet and windy for biking. My favorite part is the bike, so with the winds and rain coming down, it was easy to talk myself out of racing.

Jim was signed up to race with the elites. He was really looking forward to it as there were some big names scheduled to race - plus it was draft legal. It would have been his first chance to race with the big boys in a draft legal race (ITU style). His race was cancelled all together. There is rumor that they may reschedule it for next weekend. If that's the case, he'll have to miss it since we'll be out of town. Stay tuned to find out where we're going...

Australian Animals

2006-03-01T21:18:00.000+10:00

Jim and I finally saw our first live kangaroos! (I had previously seen one kangaroo on a bike ride - unfortunately it had the same fate as a lot of deer along the South Dakota highways).

We took an afternoon last Tuesday and drove to a town called Ipswich, about 45 minutes from our house. It was here that we saw the animals pictured. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite like seeing these in the wild, but none the less still fun to see. This was a little nature park that you could walk through for free - so even better!

The sign on the bird enclosure said the cockatoos could talk (and bite); they did neither for us even though we tried to carry on a conversation with them.

Hopefully one of these days we'll be able to get out of the city and see some of these things in the wild...

What really happened...plus the local eatery

2006-02-25T19:41:00.000+10:00

Here's the local eatery a few minutes from our house. We like McDonald's (aka Maccas in Oz) a lot more over here. Notice the yummy and low fat baguettes. I haven't tried the McOz, but Jim has. He's not a big fan of the slice of beetroot that comes on it. Most of the McDonalds also have a McCafe in them. It is actually a decent looking coffe / dessert place.

Now for the rest of the story...For those of you who are wondering what really happened in the last entry with the power steering fluid and broken wrenches; here's the answer. Earlier in the week while we were driving around town we noticed the power steering making noise. Jim bought some power steering fluid and added it. That seemed to fix the problem.

The following weekend we were headed to the triathlon in Caloundra (about an hours drive north of here). Jim also had a 4-5 bike ride scheduled for that day as part of his training plan. He left northern Brisbane on his bike and I drove the car ahead of him to a designated meeting spot. The plan was for me to leapfrog ahead of him, but not too far in case he had bike trouble.

As I was driving along I noticed the noise returning in the power steering. I stopped at a gas station and bought the first bottle of steering that you see in the photo. When Jim caught up with me we added the fluid and he continued on. As I drove away from the parking spot I noticed a sizeable puddle of what appeared to be fresh fluid. I drove just ahead of Jim and stopped at the next gas station. He stopped there with his bike to have a closer look. It was then when we realized it wasn't just a slow leak. The fluid was rapidly leaking out the bottom.

As we were standing there with the hood open, pondering what to do a hippie/biker guy came over to see if we needed help. I had already been next door to an auto store (kind of like NAPA) and they informed me that all the garages / car repair places close at noon on Saturdays. The hippie guy told Jim it looked as though the pressure sensor thing that is attached to the steering rack was leaking. He said that is a common thing to happen. He figured the auto store next door would have one. Sure enough, they did for $45.

Next question was how to get the old one off and the new one in. We only had bike tools with us and the tools used to change the tire. The salesman at the store showed us to the rack with the $15-$30 wrenches (for an individual wrench that is). Ouch! After looking around a bit more we found a sale bin full of odds and ends tools. In there was a pack of five standard wrenches that had fallen out of the pack and were scattered throughout the bin. We found the 9/16 and ask them if we could buy it. In the end they sold it to us for $2. As we were paying a "mobile mechanic" guy told us we'd never it get the sensor thing in and out with that wrench as it was too long. Guess he was off the clock, because he had a prime opportunity to make some money off us!

Jim gave it a good attempt anyways since that is all we had. After about a half our of trying, he remembered seeing a hacksaw for $8 in the sale bin. We bought that and began to saw the end of the wrench off, but in the process broke the hacksaw blade - bummer we thought we had it figured out! Luckily the wrench was cut enough that, with some prying using the box end of the tire iron, it broke the rest of the way. That was all Jim needed, a shorter wrench and a lot of patience. He successfully got the leaky one out and put the new one in. I bought the second bottle of steering fluid and we filled it back up. It's been running like a charm since! All in all it was a 2 hour delay. Jim did a great job ad libbing in the parking lot - guess it paid off to marry an engineer after all!!

What Happened Here!?

2006-02-18T17:37:00.000+10:00

For those of you who like puzzles (and even those who don't), here's one for you to work on. The items in these top two photos are all related somehow and used in a sequence. Can anyone identify all the objects, figure out in what order they were used and why those particular objects were used? Bonus points for anyone who notices anything unusual about the objects. Note: the two photos are exactly the same, just filling up the page is all.

The story starts with us leaving Brisbane and heading to the triathlon in Caloundra last weekend. Jim left on his bike, me in the car. We'd love to hear how you think the story ends (if it does really end)...

On an unrelated note, the following picture is of Jim preparing to deliver his resume to a few businesses in hopes of landing some employment. We are still waiting on my tax file number, which in turn lets us apply for the Australian Business Number for Teamlean. That is the company what Jim will operate his bike fitting business under. Once that gets taken care of, he can begin working more on that business. In the meantime, he has gotten some good leads on potential jobs. He will know more next week once he visits with those employers a bit more.Don't forget to solve the puzzle and the story....leave your guesses below! The winner may be eligible for some (number of nights negotiable) free nights lodging in Upper Mount Gravatt, Brisbane, Queensland (should they end up in the neighborhood).

Caloundra Tri

2006-02-14T19:00:00.000+10:00

Mieke and I did our second triathlons down under over the weekend. This one was 400m swim, 15k bike and 4k run. Mieke is now two for two on completing triathlons. We met a number of first-timers at the race and Mieke found she was no longer the least experienced - she is officially a seasoned competitor now! Mieke survived the swim (two for two) and wasn't the last one out of the water (yeah!). Once on the bike, she screamed past loads of slowpokes at like 110kph (or something like that). Check the photos - what a machine! Then it was time to run, she went out with her game face - but mumbled something to me about wanting to walk on her way past. But there would be no walking, in fact she felt better over the run and ran faster on the second half. In the end she finished 12th out of 33 in her age group and had the 5th fastest bike split in her age-group.

My race on the other hand was a bit of a bust. I raced open again and found myself struggling on the swim. I'm just a bit short on speed - not much - but was probably way short on aggressiveness. I think in order to make it work in the open category, you need to be super aggressive and brutal to get and hold a good position. Like the last race, I came out at the back of the group. I half expected this, so I ran hard through transition and took off hammering on the bike. I was able to pull from the back of the group all the way up to the lead pack. It is supposed to be a non-drafting event, but in the open nobody follows that rule. Coming into the second transition I was right with the lead guys. Then we started running. This is where my race went bust - I got a massive side cramp that wouldn't go away. My belly was feeling a bit heavy before the start from the cheap supermarket muesli bars I had for breakfast. I usually have a PowerBar before a race, but those are like $3-4 each over here and we've been too cheap to buy any. The side cramp had me walking shortly and I struggled through the rest of the run. It was a long 4k. On the bright side though, I did post the fastest bike split of the day, so that was cool. Someday I'll run well too. The guy that won (Matt Hopper) ran a 12:07 for 4k which works out to like 4:53 per mile. He is a pro was ranked around 4oth in the world last year.
So back to training, the next race is the Luke Harrop Memorial on the Gold Coast on March 5th. Check out the results here: Caloundra Results.

Follow up on parking

2006-02-06T10:45:00.000+10:00

As I was saying in the last entry, Jim and I are learning about the parking signs here. We are learning the hard way. Since Steve and Ann visited from Spearfish, we've been the unlucky recipients of two parking tickets. The first one was for $120, but we talked to the ticket guy as he was printing it out. He said we were lucky, as he was just about to call a tow truck when Jim came running up to him. The metered parking area apparently becomes a clearway after 4pm. The ticket man was actually really friendly and said if he hadn't already printed it he would have just let us leave and that we should call the number on back and tell them we are new to town, etc. Jim did that and they said to send a letter explaining why we should not have to pay the full charge, or any charge for that matter. The letter will go in the mail today. In it Jim says, "I spoke with the officer and found him very helpful in explaining the parking signs"; a good way to suck up to the traffic police!

I think we're stuck with the second ticket for $60. Jim had been parking there for the last few weeks to do an early Saturday morning bike ride with a tri group. People were always parked there to bike or run early (5:45am) on Saturdays on a little side street. But I guess that's not legal either.

We should have it all figured out by the time any of you come to visit!