Hello Everyone
I went for a swim in the lake yesterday. It was pure madness. Cold. Rough. Stirred up. I crashed and bashed around for 18 minutes. And then I got out.
Today I packed my bike. No. I watched while it was packed for me. My spatial perception couldn't have managed that feat without prior education. I just hope I am going to be able to unpack it and put it all back together. In an appropriate arrangement, not just my usual "anything goes" type of approach.
I am starting to get everything washed and dried and ready to go. I have washed and scrubbed the soles of my running shoes and my cycling shoes. I also washed and scrubbed my beautiful bike before it went all Transformer and tucked itself into a tardis disguised as a cardboard box. I hope the Aussies are nice to me and don't demand too much unpacking in Customs.
I don't feel fit. I feel sleepy and low. But I think I don't have any benchmarks - prior to March 3rd I had been doing lots of events, but I haven't done any since, so I really feel like I am taking a leap into the unknown. And by unknown I don't just mean New South Wales (can you get Marmite there?).
OK, well, this will be my last post from Aotearoa. Next stop West Island via Vegas (that's RotoVegas obviously).
Until next time, remain open minded about going commando.
love
Ironmaiden
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Reality Check
Far out! Time goes fast. It is now only eleven sleeps until I go to Australia to knock the bastard off. Not Australia I mean, just the Australian Ironman. I'll leave Australia just as I found it. Well mostly anyway. I'll try not to cause too much carnage.
It doesn't seem that real. I have been trying to get prepared - I have bought flights, got accommodation, figured out how to get from Sydney to Port Macquarie. Figured out how to get to Sydney. I have some of those odd Australian dollars. I even got travel insurance. I also got travel insurance for my beautiful bike. My beautiful bike cost more to insure than I did. The travel insurance people value me less than a low-mid range carbon fibre endurance geometry bicycle. It doesn't even have an engine. I wonder what they know that I don't know yet?
But I have so many questions! Will there be cane toads all over the road? What happens if you hit a cane toad on a low-mid range carbon fibre endurance geometry bicycle? Will there be sharks and crocodiles? Will there be snakes? Do they all cancel each other out? I mean, the sharks will be busy fighting the crocodiles and the toads will be fighting the snakes and I can slip by unnoticed? What if they hear me wheezy shuffling? Should I have developed stealth-mode? How do you wheeze stealthily?
Are there hills? Are there hills anywhere in Australia? Will the water be cold? Will it be warm? Will the Australians be mean to me because I am not a freakish over achiever?
Great. Well, the t-11th sleep promises to be a restful one....
Till next week, don't worry about things you can't change or influence!
love
Ironmaiden
It doesn't seem that real. I have been trying to get prepared - I have bought flights, got accommodation, figured out how to get from Sydney to Port Macquarie. Figured out how to get to Sydney. I have some of those odd Australian dollars. I even got travel insurance. I also got travel insurance for my beautiful bike. My beautiful bike cost more to insure than I did. The travel insurance people value me less than a low-mid range carbon fibre endurance geometry bicycle. It doesn't even have an engine. I wonder what they know that I don't know yet?
But I have so many questions! Will there be cane toads all over the road? What happens if you hit a cane toad on a low-mid range carbon fibre endurance geometry bicycle? Will there be sharks and crocodiles? Will there be snakes? Do they all cancel each other out? I mean, the sharks will be busy fighting the crocodiles and the toads will be fighting the snakes and I can slip by unnoticed? What if they hear me wheezy shuffling? Should I have developed stealth-mode? How do you wheeze stealthily?
Are there hills? Are there hills anywhere in Australia? Will the water be cold? Will it be warm? Will the Australians be mean to me because I am not a freakish over achiever?
Great. Well, the t-11th sleep promises to be a restful one....
Till next week, don't worry about things you can't change or influence!
love
Ironmaiden
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Dogs and shoes...
What is it with shoes? I keep spotting shoes in weird places. Always a single shoe, on its own. I see them out cycling, in the grassy verge MILES from any driveways or houses. I see them on the bottom of the lake - out really deep, just one shoe on its own, then further own, a completely different shoe, all on its own.
Are these shoes getting their by their own free will? Are shoes by nature solitary characters? When we force them to hang out in pairs are we actually damaging their delicate sensibilities? Or, and I must admit, this seems a bit more likely, are the shoes there because they have been put there by people? If this is the case, who does that? Who tosses a shoe (just one!) out the car window, or over the side of the boat? If you do, what do you then do with the other shoe? Who has a use for just one shoe? Well, apart from one-legged people. Is there a strong correlation between being one-legged and having a tendency to litter? With footwear?
I got chased by a dog the other night. It wasn't too serious, I was shuffling by wheezily, and it was inside a fence. I was a little perturbed to here its owner call it off, saying "Leave her alone, she ain't got no wallet".
OK, well until next week, make sure you don't have any wallet-sized bulges in your running shorts, it will protect you from dogs!
love
Ironmaiden
Are these shoes getting their by their own free will? Are shoes by nature solitary characters? When we force them to hang out in pairs are we actually damaging their delicate sensibilities? Or, and I must admit, this seems a bit more likely, are the shoes there because they have been put there by people? If this is the case, who does that? Who tosses a shoe (just one!) out the car window, or over the side of the boat? If you do, what do you then do with the other shoe? Who has a use for just one shoe? Well, apart from one-legged people. Is there a strong correlation between being one-legged and having a tendency to litter? With footwear?
I got chased by a dog the other night. It wasn't too serious, I was shuffling by wheezily, and it was inside a fence. I was a little perturbed to here its owner call it off, saying "Leave her alone, she ain't got no wallet".
OK, well until next week, make sure you don't have any wallet-sized bulges in your running shorts, it will protect you from dogs!
love
Ironmaiden
Monday, April 2, 2012
You think I'm mad?
Well, you are right, I am sure I am. But not as mad as three blokes I met out riding on Saturday. They had just finished the Rotorua-Taupo 100km flyer, and were riding home. To Tauranga. Having ridden to the start line. For a warm up. Yeaup. Cos how hard can that be? No wonder they snuck up behind me and sat in my draft for a few kms. When I discovered them there and accused them they said "Don't worry about the slow pace, any drafting is good after the distance we've done so far"...hmph... fairly thinly veiled insult there fellas...not to mention the unsaid comment on my ability to separate a head wind. You know why. And I am good at it, but I don't like to be reminded of the underlying reason.
Additionally after all my efforts to plaster a dogged (if false) smile across my countenance when on long runs, a friend who saw me yesterday reports that I definitely have the Orc-look back in style. Apparently I looked to be hating it. I wasn't, but I was negotiating a footpath deep in high-speed waterskiiers, dogs, small children, bikes and bogans. So chances are it was just my "concentrating and slightly concerned" face.
It is now less than five weeks until Ironman. I have a strange sense of de ja vue. Like I've been here before. I officially entered IM Australia tonight - money paid, emergency contact details provided. My flights are booked and paid for (because why wouldn't I go to a whole different country to do a race I could do in my home town?). All that remains is accommodation, transport, and figuring out how on earth to travel with my favourite hunk of carbon fibre. How hard can it be?
Until next week, tie me kangaroo down, sport,
love
Ironmaiden
Additionally after all my efforts to plaster a dogged (if false) smile across my countenance when on long runs, a friend who saw me yesterday reports that I definitely have the Orc-look back in style. Apparently I looked to be hating it. I wasn't, but I was negotiating a footpath deep in high-speed waterskiiers, dogs, small children, bikes and bogans. So chances are it was just my "concentrating and slightly concerned" face.
It is now less than five weeks until Ironman. I have a strange sense of de ja vue. Like I've been here before. I officially entered IM Australia tonight - money paid, emergency contact details provided. My flights are booked and paid for (because why wouldn't I go to a whole different country to do a race I could do in my home town?). All that remains is accommodation, transport, and figuring out how on earth to travel with my favourite hunk of carbon fibre. How hard can it be?
Until next week, tie me kangaroo down, sport,
love
Ironmaiden
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