Monday, March 27, 2006
Mooloolaba Triathlon
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!
Friday, March 24, 2006
Cyclone Wati
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!Tuesday, March 21, 2006
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZWEIT!!
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.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Taiwan
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!
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Where are we?
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...
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Triathlon Cancelled!
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...
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Australian Animals
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...
