News
Australia - Week 3
Posted December 5, 2008 07:46 PM
In just a few short hours the main reason for our being in Australia will be upon us - the 5th edition of Ironman Western Australia.
This week began with us still in Cottesloe outside of Perth. On Tuesday we took the train to Perth and picked up our rental vehicle - an 8 passenger van. Overkill perhaps, but we needed it to transport our suitcases, bike boxes and partially disassembled bikes to Busselton. It feels like we are driving a small school bus. We took advantage of having a vehicle to go to a cinema that evening and saw "Australia" by Baz Luhrmann which, sadly, was a fairly disappointing and excruciating long and over the top epic. The next day we drove an hour north of Perth and viewed an incredible wildlife park that showcased Australian birds and animals from the various regions around the country. We fed and were able to touch kangaroos and koalas. We also saw a wombat, dingoes and tasmanian devils and a ton of other creatures, plus a multitude of different colourful birds. It was an excellent afternoon and a real highlight of the trip so far.
Thursday saw us driving from Perth to Busselton - a 3+ hour drive south - and linking up with the two other couples that we're sharing a rental house with. We did our race registration that afternoon and finally felt like we were going to do a race in a few days. Yesterday we did a short swim down at the jetty (very calm conditions with good visibility under the water). We were able to see quite a few fish including some "bait balls" of thousands of tiny fish swirling together. Of course, this begs the question - what are they bait for? I don't think we really want to know the answer....! We also did a short cycle and run before heading down to the carbo load party which was excellent. Really good food and entertainment. This morning was the pre-race briefing and a quick bite to eat downtown, before heading home for a nap. We'll then head back down to the race site with our bikes and swim-to-bike and bike-to-run transition bags.
In hindsight I think we needed at least one extra day in Busselton. Arriving Wednesday or ideally Tuesday would have made the time here more relaxed. As it is we seem to have been behind the power curve since arriving. We didn't have a chance to get all our gear and transition bags organized earlier and ended up dealing with that issue after we returned from the carbo load party last night at 9pm. Needless to say we didn't get to bed until quite late. After coming back from dropping off the bikes etc this afternoon, we'll prepare our usual pre-race dinner and try to have a quiet, relaxing evening with an early bedtime. As this race starts 45 minutes earlier than any other IM we've done, the alarm is going to sound at 3:15am rather than the usual 4:00am - horrible....
The forecast for the morning is looking pretty good so fingers crossed that the water is calm, the headwinds are gentle, and it's not too hot out on the course. Apparently the "stingers" (jellyfish) have arrived early this year so we may encounter some of those during the swim. The unbelievably annoying flies (about 1/3rd the size of those at home) that incessantly fly around and land on the face, eyes, nose and ears are apparently only about 25% as many as last year. I can't imagine what that must have been like as it's enough to drive you batty as it is...!
Next update will be my race report - stay tuned!
