Sunday, October 29, 2006
Jim smashes 2 hours at the Noosa Tri!
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...
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Bribie Island Triathlon
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.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Gold Coast Half Ironman
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.
