mytrilife

It was a close call but...

I almost thought about putting on jeans today. Low 20's... brrr!

Not sure I can handle this cool weather. :-)

How's everyone doing back in Canada?

posted by Greg @ 11/30/2006 0 Comments

Sydney to Adelaide and.... PICS!

On Thursday we drove from Sydney to Adelaide. The first day we didn't get out of Sydney til noon (after a couple of missed turns), stopped in Canberra to pick up our gear from storage. Then we made our way to Albury-Wodonga on the NSW/Victoria border, where we stopped for the night. Australian highways are slooooow. Everyone obeys the speed limit as cameras strictly enforce everyone. Our gas-guzzling 4WD outback-equipped SUV wasn't going to go much faster anyways. I scored a "relocation" deal from Britz-Maui. Basically, I paid only $5/day for the vehicle and was given $250 gas money to take it to Adelaide. The only stipulation... It had to be there in 4 days and my km's were limited (although the limit was quite high).

On day 2 we had a long haul from Albury to Adelaide. We decided early to stop outside of Adelaide somewhere and drive in Saturday morning. Victor Harbour, a tourist town south of Adelaide seemed a good choice, I wasn't keen on any of the small-town motels we passed earlier. Taking longer than expected, we arrived in Victor Harbour just after 10pm to find out the town was full of "schoolies". 7000 high school kids, drunk and partying for the weekend to celebrate graduation (as far as I can tell). Not a chance of getting a place to sleep.

So... off to Adelaide, our only hope of a bed for the night. After an hour or two of searching for a place with a front desk that was open, we ended up driving to a suburb and sleeping in the truck for the night... no fun. We found this great hostel the next morning, where we are currently staying until we find long-term accommodation. However, we only have 7 days, as this coming weekend the entire city accommodation is booked up for the Ashes cricket tournament. A bit stressful for sure.

Our hostel offers free internet, so I took advantage of the bandwidth to upload the first batch of photos from the trip. Unfortunately I keep forgetting to have the camera on me... so what you see is only a moderate sample of what I've seen and done. Just click on the photo gallery link in the right column and have a browse. Don't be afraid to leave comments!

Notes to a couple of people:

Carson - we listened to Triple J for about 6 hours on our trip. Good stuff!

Brian and Darlene - walking through Sydney.. met some Canadians on the street that were there with the military... the one guy had an HMCS Calgary shirt on. I mentioned Brians name and some of them knew you well! Small world. I think they were all stationed in Esquimalt...

Anyways.... I really should write that race report tonight! I will post here as soon as it's finished.

posted by Greg @ 11/26/2006 2 Comments

ITU Long Course Champs....

Ok, I've been meaning to write up a race report from Sunday... but I've been way too busy. We had to pack up and leave Canberra. Heather and I are now in Sydney til tomorrow, when our vehicle will be ready to drive to Adelaide.

Some people have been texting me. Well... I found out the sim card in my computer broadband card can accept text messages.. probably a better way to text me, as sometimes Heather has the phone and not me. They pop up the next time I log onto my computer.. which is pretty much every day.... and all day.. so I'll usually get them pretty quick.

You can text me at: +61410598533
So from Canada you would dial 011 61410598533. I think...?

That is NOT a phone... so incoming calls will not work. Try my other number for that.

Ok... the race. HOT, WINDY and TOUGH. I melted... big time. I toughed it out for an 8 hour finish.. which I was ok with. More report later...

posted by Greg @ 11/21/2006 1 Comments

Phone number in Australia

I have a phone number in Australia. It's a pay as you go phone.. so it's incredibly expensive to make outgoing calls (60c a minute!), but free for incoming calls and text messages. So if you really, really need to get a hold of me:

61 4 1550 9141

61 is the country code
4 is area
8 digit number

posted by Greg @ 11/12/2006 2 Comments

6 White Boomers

An interesting day in Oz.

First up, a local 6k fun run to tune up for next week. The race was part of the local community festival, and 1400 people showed up to race! It was great. Only $13 to enter, all going to charity, with race entries allowed on race day. No t-shirts, No BS. I loved it.. why can't we do races like this in Canada?

At 10am race start the temps were already in the low 20's and climbing. With tired legs, and very little speed work.. ok NONE.... I managed to crack the top 10. Some fast local dudes showed up, I think the race was won by a 15yo track star. Heather, despite having some down time from running in the last two months, was able to place a respectable 4th. First loser, again (she's placed 4th a couple times). :-P

After the race we went over to the mall to pick up some groceries. Nothing is odder than seeing xmas trees, carolers, and people in santa claus toques when the temperature is now close to the high of 30C. It just doesn't feel like christmas when I'm not running in the snow and freezing my ass off on a daily basis.

We went out for a quick ride later in the day... a shame not to ride when the weather is so perect. A quick swim after that, followed by a meal of lamb chops and ravioli, and I'm pretty content. :-) Oh wait... now were off to have a few beers! Can a day get any better?

posted by Greg @ 11/11/2006 0 Comments

GO RIDERS!

WOOOWOOO!

Wish I could catch the semi-final game here.. but unlikely someone will have a 7am CBC satellite feed in Canberra...

posted by Greg @ 11/09/2006 0 Comments

How ya goin' mate?

I FINALLY got connected to a decent internet connection two days ago. I signed up for mobile broadband with Vodafone (largest mobile provider in the world.... but they aren't in North America). It's a PCMCIA card modem/phone and I can connect anywhere there is cellular coverage. I figured it would be pretty handy for moving around the country. I can even roam in NZ, Europe, and other places with Vodafone coverage if I wish. Connection speed is only 1.8Mbs and my data plan is 1Gb/month for $99AUD. OUCH!

The same day that was setup, the University here finally set me up with an account to use thier internet. I've never been to such a technology backward university... students get 1Gb PER SCHOOL YEAR on thier account... or they have to pay for more. They figure this is enough to do thier studies! HA!

All in all, it's been a bit of shock, coming from North America, where I can open my computer and pick and choose from 5 free wireless connections at most times. My roommate in Calgary took his wireless router when he left, and for the last two months I was using our neighbours internet! Anyways... with internet connected, I have been madly catching up on work, so no time to update this blog.

For those of you who read my training logs... well... I just didn't have the connection to update them. I probably won't be updating them til I get back into training in December. I've been putting in a bit of volume here in the last week to get my body tuned up for the race. This weekend I plan to run a 6k fun race, since it starts only 2k from here, and is perfect for my usual 8-day-out hard run session I do for major races.

Heather and I are settled into the University now. The partiers get less each day as students leave for summer break. It's great having a kitchen to cook, as eating out in Australia is very expensive compared to Canada. Heather has been applying for jobs all over south Australia, but no bites yet. If she does not find a job by race day then our plan, at the moment, is to leave for Adelaide on Tuesday, November 21, and set up our permanent base there.

I should mention more about the training in Canberra. It is outstanding. There are more 50m pools in this town than all of Alberta, with one only a 5min walk from our dorm rooms. I'm off to do another swim right away, in fact. The riding... the roads are very smooth chip-seal for the most part, and there are TONS of routes to choose from, and bike lanes all through town. However, since we're in a desert-like region, we've encountered more than our fair share of thorns. We've had to replace some worn out tires that were ok to ride in Canada, but not robust enough to repel the nasty thorns here. Canberra is a runners paradise, more x-country tracks than you can imagine. Oddly, we see plenty of cyclists and swimmers, but very few runners here... it must be because they are so spread out on the massive trail network!

One more thing to mention... the wildlife. I've never seen so many off birds and animals as here!
The most common and annoying is the Australian Raven (I googled it), it has the most distinctive call that sounds almost like a human voice. There are loads of them around our dorm. We also saw a couple of dozen kangaroos on our run two nights ago... first time i've seen a kangaroo in person. There are road signs everywhere here warning of kangaroo's crossing the road. A lot of cars here have the bars over the front grill... I can see why!

Sorry, no photos of ANYTHING at this time. I keep forgetting to take my camera out. I'm sure you can all google pics of Canberra to get an idea...

Anyways... time for a swim.... hmm... maybe a coffee first. :-)

posted by Greg @ 11/08/2006 0 Comments

2 weeks to race day....

Checked out parts of the race course in the last two days. Did some shorter, easier rides... still jetlagged.. my body is not responding full-on yet. Looks to be an incredibly beautiful course. Canberra is amazing.. a little over the top for a country of 20 million people... I think even the Aussies complain too much of thier tax money gets spent around here.. I can see why.

Still working on getting a real internet connection, I swear the Aussies have learned bureacracy from the brits... ARGGH!!!

posted by Greg @ 11/05/2006 0 Comments

Canberra - Day 2

Staying at Uni of Canberra now.
A little dodgy.. and noisy as hell.. as students are finishing up for the year... party party.
Hopefully it will get better as they move out for the summer.

Internet is costing me a fortune here. Forgive me if I don't email much, or go on MSN.
I'm working on a solution....
I'm beginning to wonder if I can even do my job from this country... *sigh*.

Going for a long bike ride today, and a good swim now. Later....

posted by Greg @ 11/03/2006 1 Comments

in Canberra

quick update as internet is costing me a fortune here...

Airport baggage limit is now 50lbs, not 70lbs. You don't want to know what overweight costs
Got dinged on oversize for the bikes too. FUN.

Flight was ok.... but Air Canada was late out of Calgary. We managed to make our connection in LAX, but our bags did not. Luckily Qantas had a second flight 45mins later to Sydney. We had to sit around the baggage claim check in Sydney for an hour wondering whether our bags would make it.

Travelling with 5 bags is a PITA. We took a mini-bus to the central train station in Sydney to catch the train, then found out that the train wasn't running due to a crack in the track. So we got on a bus.... which we could have taken from the airport. *sigh*

Off to find a place to settle for a couple of weeks..... more later.

posted by Greg @ 11/02/2006 0 Comments