Pre-Ironman Photos

This marker is what guides us through the course!













Tim and Jase at the race start - looking confident.

Ironman New Zealand 2 days to go!

About 3 years ago, Kerryn, my Kiwi friend and swimming tutor said "Let's do Iman NZ in 2007" and my first thought was "Doing an ironman is crazy but sounds fun (and anything sounds fun that far in advance)!" The seed was planted and we decided to do Austria in 2005.

It is a scary feeling knowing that you will begin the day with swimming with 2000 people at once (similiar to a washing machine), then cycling for at least 6 hours and running a marathon - so many thoughts go through your head "What if my bike breaks down" is the biggest worry on my mind. Since Tim and I are not the top athletes in our tri club, we hope to earn a bit of street cred by doing these longer races - and endurance races are definitely meant for us! It is such an amazing feeling crossing the finish line after all the months we spent training.

Our first race, we wanted to finish. This race, we would like to beat our time from Austria (as we did spend 7 weeks training in sunny and hilly Australia). But as we felt yesterday, the wind can kick up and slow our bike time down by an hour! So every race is very different.

We are at the tri expo right now and feeling very excited (the coffee we are having is giving me eyes of grandeur - we are going to conquer this race - grrrr!). We cycled part of the course yesterday, registered this morning, going to swim part of the course today and get pre-race massages later this afternoon. We have the pasta party tonight which is always great fun to size up the competition.

We will give a post race report when we can. Please send us positive thoughts for the race because it is a tough one! The race starts this Sat at 7am - that is 8pm on Friday night UK and noon on Friday for the Californians. Check it out here (keep your eye out for Kerryn Gardiner, Jason Bell and Elliot Keys as well as the Phillis duo): http://www.ironmanlive.com/events/ironman/newzealand

Final Last Moments Sydney

Final Dinner with Lisa, Steve and Dave Vaughan at Maclean St Bistro

Last day in Sydney

We had a nice catch up with Narelle and Kirsten (friends Shannon met thru Tracey in London) last night at the Sheaf in Double Bay. We also went to lunch with Narelle in Bondi Beach and had a quick glance of her flat. This photo is taken from her balcony. Imagine waking up every day to this view!

Lisa and Steve in Sydney

We have visited Sydney 4 times over the course of our trip in Australia. Lisa and Steve have been great hosts in having us stay with them each time. Tonight is our penultimate night in Australia and are sad to be leaving. Last night we saw an amazing site: The Queen Mary 2 docked at Wooloomooloo wharf and the Queen Elisabeth 2 sailing into the harbour. It was fun to watch from Steve and Lisa's balcony as there were hundreds of smaller boats sailing up to it to get a closer look. What a rare site to have 2 of the most famous cruise ships in one harbour! My dad (Lee Miller) sailed on the Queen Mary 1 back in the 1960s on his 6 month 'round the world tour - he was carefree and single in those days so I'm sure that ship logged a few interesting stories!

Brisbane with Rich and Bron

We visited Rich and Bronwin Dunks (friends we met in London from tri club) in Brisbane for a few days. We had a great BBQ and other fun dinners out on their balcony. They live in a traditional Queenslander house that had beautiful views of the area. Max, their latest addition to the family kept us entertained - who wouldn't love a 7 month old Golden Retreiver! The mornings consisted of training - 100k bike, 30k run and a 2k swim (by that time, we were too tired to swim). And lots of coffee/cake/fresh juice stops... We drove up to Mt. Cooth'a and had coffee/cakes.

Armidale & Nambucca Heads with Suz & Deon

Our final leg of our Aus trip was to head north towards Brisbane. Taking us off the coastal route to Armidale, we met up with Suz & Deon Moss- two friends that have moved home having had some time in London.
Driving inland provided some different views & experiences-

1. Leaving the township of Scone ("the home of Australian Horses") the one street town was completely cut off from electricity following a sudden rain storm. I include ''rain'' as the area has been be in drought for last 4 years. The rain was welcomed but the cut off not- we ended up having dinner from a microwave heated sandwich in a petrol station. Not great for training or our health!
2. Speed Cameras- there are plenty on the roads which we think we have negotiated successfully. Watch this space!
   
3. Lightening Storms- entering Tamworth the dry storms were stunning if not distracting for the driver. The following sunset was stunning with lavender, red's and orange covering the skyline and defining the rolling hills.

Cycling around Armidale provided yet more rolling hills and good stamina work. Cycling with both Suz and Deon around the area they grew up provided a good work out and insight into the local area.
Deon works for TAS (The Armidale School) in town. For the weekend the whole school was taken off to the coast for start of year bonding. We were really pleased to be able to join them at Nambucca Heads for the weekend.

Both the staff and pupils were so friendly & made us feel very welcome through out the weekend. Shannnon and I stayed and extra night to relax before continuing further north.

Today we are in Byron Bay, about 2 hours south of Brisbane. As mentioned in a few emails, Byron is similiar to Berkeley on the Sea. It's a new agey, health foodie, surfer, backpacker and a spot of upscale resorty place in a nice little town on a dramatic coastline. The views from the lighthouse are amazing. We will post pics soon.

Ironman- 3 weeks to go....

With 3 weeks to go training is going well as we feel we have been able to combine both travelling with our training.

We are getting in some good mileage on the big, along with some good runs. Unlike Austria we have been trying to get some good brick sessions in to help our run off the bike. Now we are not going to be breaking any records but hope that it will make the final discipline slightly less painful....we'll let you know if it works!

We only have 1 more week in Oz before heading to NZ for the final leg of preparation. Our main focus is really on the bike to ensure we have enough speed and stamina on longest discipline.

Shannon's overall comments:
Tim has managed to train better than I have - he's a strong man (grr grr). I have been constantly in a whiney "Maria Sharipova" state (i.e. I'm tired, it's hot, my muscles hurt, poor me) but hope to redeem myself on the glorious day of 3 March. Training has been character building in this heat as well as torrential lightening storms north of Sydney. It's been fun integrating other activities such as surfing, river rafting, hiking, and climbing large scary structures into our training regime. It has been great having time to train without working full time but travelling around searching for pools/cycling routes can be exhausting in it's own right. It's all an adventure!

Training Upate Feb

Since arriving we have been training hard, combining all three disciplines with the training.

Swimming
It's amazing that nearly every town/ village has at least a 25m or 50m pool- most of which are out doors.

Needless to say I have been caught out once or twice and ended up with a rather red back from the sun. Having swam mostly in 50m pools, the 25m feel so much smaller.

A real highlight was the pool in Melbourne where they held the Commonwealth Games. 2 50m pools and a cheeky 25m for good measure. Shannon was particularly impressed with the Melbourne Aussie Rules Team when they turned up to train.......

Running
It's been a great way to see some of the towns we have stayed in. Running along a beach for 2 hours without coming across many people is lovely- if not a little tiring. Great for getting a tan though. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to get a tan I ran with only the heart rate monitor on top- a unique tan line has been created to compliment the standard triathlon lines........

Cycling
It doesn't seem as if we have found any flat routes for good long spins.

Having said that there have been plenty of hills to enjoy. The best was shared with Suzie & Deon in Berrigen down near Coff's Harbour. A 14km ascent, non stop with great views over the coast and national park. Unfortunately, a serious flaw in my cycling has been discovered (for Tim that is)- I am hopeless at descents. Any time made on an ascent is quickly lost as Shannon comes charging past. Something to work on I guess.

Climbing Sydney Bridge

Certainly worth doing- once you get up there....a kind gift from B&B was to climb the brigde. With great views over the harbour and the rest of the city it was wonderful.

Shannon and I are not great with heights but after a little coaxing & support from the organisers we made it too the top. If you could see the other hands you would notice they weren't letting go of the rail!

Unfortunately we did not buy the rather sexy looking jump suits as our bags are a bit full already. ....maybe next time.

Photos Port Douglas

Here are more photos!









There are croc warning signs everywhere! This one is on the beach near our hotel.

Mission Beach / Tully River

Staying in another YHA it seems as if we had been riding our luck so far in this trip.

The hostel itself is in a great location overlooking the rainforest, only about a mile from the coast. As with Mallacoota (in NSW) there are plenty of quiet coves to explore and have miles of beach to ourselves. Coupled with rainforest literally falling onto the beach it is gorgeous.

This was the first YHA when I feel we really encountered the first 'travellers'. A fine array of travel kit and ethnic clothing- but no toe rings. I must have been ahead of my time all those years ago in India. Anyway- mid night table tennis went down well as we tried to sleep.

We were lucky to make it up to Mission Beach as the roads were shut be torrential rain shortly after we crossed the Tully River. Shannon drove like a legend and did well to get us there in one piece. All the rain was however great news for our River Rafting on the Tully River.

A day long trip down the Tully with 6 people and a guide padding away madly. Despite the guides best efforts we did not flip, though did loose one of our crew overboard. Shannon is the one up front with the light blue arms. *Please note the expressions in both photos!*

You could see the impact of Cyclone Harry, back in 2005, as the rainforest was not quite as dense as it would normally have been- the scenery and waterfalls were stunning- shame we were unable to get any photo's of them.

The photo's of the day should give a good idea of the day we had. Along with the reef dive the time in Queensland has been fantastic....

Port Douglas

A lovely town a about 62 km's north on Cairns. Although the guidebooks don't write much about it - it's well worth a visit. It's a lovely little town with great restaurants and laid back feel to it.

There are a few things you should know-

1. January - Febuary time is pretty much the wet season, as well as summer....makes sense.
2. It's still very hot and humid- though the rain gives some respite from the sun, it's still hard work training. Very satisfying none the less.
3. Roads are cut off for days on end- luckily we made it across the River Tully (following in the wake of two large lorries) to cross the bridge. It is now three days since we passed. The road has been shut ever since.
4. Crocodiles seem to be quite prevelant. Visiting a nearby beach village and stopping to look at the beach, standing in a childrens play ground, we saw a No Swimming sign, next to a crocodile sign. Luckily for campers they were warned not to stay there- but it seems OK for the little kids to play on the swings!