swimmin in the bay

here we are (me, ian, george) about to get tossed around in the bay. it doesn't look all that inviting, does it? this was taken over the christmas holidays.

and now, because the water is warmer than in past years and there has been prevailing southerly winds, the north part of the bay where we swim is chocked full of jelly fish. now these aren't the super stingers e.g. box jellies that can kill you (those are up in queensland), but they do give a slight sting and are a real nuisance. i personally get freaked out by coming across wildlife in the sea. much prefer fresh water swimming.

thanks to lavinia (ian's wife) for taking the picture of us (and for being our onshore lifeguard on a rather unpleasant day).

finally did it

Well, it happened. I won my age group in a half-ironman triathlon. Obviously, this depends on who shows up on the day, and the 25-29 group was much tougher. Good thing I'm 30! Finished in 18th place overall in a time of 4.22.31 (~29 swim, 2.27 bike, 1.25 run), 6th amateur.

I pretty much put together the best possible race I could and finally ran to my potential. Actually, I think I had a really good race back in Shepparton in December, it just happened to be 38 degrees that day.

So, all is coming along well for the big show, Ironman Australia in 4.5 weeks. Hope to have some heart rate data posted shortly, in addition to some pictures from Tassie.

here is lynn cruising through the run.


here she is hammering down the finish chute.


the name on the board at the awards ceremony.


the 'G' on the calf.

the great australian pastime

Aussie youth drinking till they drop


I've certainly seen some evidence of this. Of course, it may well exist back home, just that I was never awake to see it. Here, before 7am on a Saturday/Sunday, there is always a good number of young folks either passed out in the street or randomly meandering through the streets (presumably to their homes?).

heart rate data

i find this stuff very interesting. plotted below is my heart rate, taken every 15 seconds, for ironman uk last august and the half ironman in shepp in december. swim plotted in black, bike in blue, run in red.

you can right click on it and 'view image' to get a larger view.

ironman uk (august 2006)


the major thing to notice for ironman uk is that i had a really tough time after about 7 hours. notice the hr dropped considerably on the run and never returned. my run speed also dropped. if i can find a way to keep that up for longer, i should be able to go faster, even if that means going slower earlier in the race.

shepparton half ironman


in shepp, i deliberately went conservative on the bike, with the occasional 'lazy' period.

my new favourite sport (to watch) ... cricket

it took a long time, but i've discovered cricket. since i don't care much for most of what television has to offer these days, cricket is a reasonable alternative, as there is a fair amount of it on in the summer time. there is the 'ashes', played every year between australia and england, which is 5 test matches, each test match lasting up to 5 days (and even after 5 days, it can sometimes end in a draw). and now, there is a tri-nations series (australia, new zealand, england) and later on is the world cup.

i don't think lynn is really into it, but i forced her to go see day 2 of the ashes match held at the melbourne cricket ground (MCG or just the 'G').

from our original 'cheap' seats.


a friend of ours scored us seats for the 2nd session of the day, 3 rows from the field.


cricket is strictly a spectator sport for me. you'd think with a background in baseball, some of the hand-eye coordination would carry over. it doesn't seem to for me. bowling is also suprising difficult.

shepparton half ironman -- hot and smoky

Skinny:

Swim: ~30min
Ride: 2h 24min (pb)
Run: 1h 31min

Total: 4h 25min (pb)

Click here to find out when the hottest day of December was in Shepparton, a town about 1.5 hours north of Melbourne.

That just happened to coincide with the day Lynn and I were doing a triathlon, me a half ironman and Lynn a sprint distance race. I did this race last year, when it was scheduled in mid-November. December in Shepparton can be very hot, and we drew the short stick for this one.

A couple of weeks before the race, I had high hopes, felt I was in good form and thought, given a good day and a good effort, I could smash my last year's performance. Once we got the forecast about 6 days out, all bets were off. A top of 42 degrees! I had done some long runs in the heat of the day, but expecting a temperature of ~38 degrees for the run was far beyond my tested limits.

Thanks to the forest fires in the northeast (... still burning to this day ...), there was reasonably thick haze and a strong scent of smoke. This would affect the ashmatics more than I, so I felt pretty lucky. Its the same for everybody. Actually, the good thing about the smoky haze was that it blocked the intense early morning sun, already 25 degrees at race start.

So, off we went, into muddy lake. For the first time, I wasn't in the first swim wave. Now being the ripe old age of 30, the young guns got a 3 minute lead. This has some benefits of course, as there are more people to chase. The swim was average, went back and forth from feeling good to feeling average. Pretty uneventful.

Onto the bike, the plan was always to be conservative, especially with the heat. Aimed to have a solid ride, but not too hard. Went through 5 bottles of sport drink/water in the 2.5 hours. That's about twice the regular intake. In the past, I've hammered the bike (mostly because its enjoyable) and suffered on the run. My plan here was to be conservative on the bike and save something for the run. The bike was good fun. Roughly hit 48 minutes for every 30k lap.

The good thing about the run course in Shepp was that it was 3 loops of ~7km and in each loop, there were 4 aid stations, 3 of which you passed in both directions. So, 7 opportunities per 7k to dump water on your head. Playing it conservative worked out ok, as I managed to have solid run and a personal best time for the distance. Finished 7th place in the 30-34 category, so there was good competition on the day. It was enough to secure my spot for Ironman Australia.

I felt for the older competitors, some of them finishing in the heat of the day. Most went straight to the medical tent.