BigBlog

A quick post to announce the birth of Samantha Charlotte. Born 22/12/2009 16:55 CST. Weight 3160g. Mum and baby recovering well after a very drawn out couple of days.

As for me.... sleep beckons.

In my post before last (does that make it the penultimate post??), I promised a further update on things that have been going on in my life. With my talk of imminent time management challenges and my wife's fatigue and nausea, many of you will not be surprised with the content of this post.

As of today, my wife is just over 34 weeks pregnant. We are expecting our first baby around the 20th December. As first babies are often late, ours will probably be born on Christmas Day, in which case I will feel obliged to call it Jesus (only joking; and no offence intended to any religious types out there). Other than a baby, we do not know what we are having, but I reckon it will be either a boy or a girl. We have decided on names for both, but no, I am not telling. Both of us started off thinking it is a girl, then after the first ultrasound, we both thought it was a boy. I kind of still do, but we have both had dreams that it is a girl. As long as it is healthy, I don't mind either way.

My wife's pregnancy has been pretty much straight forward. Other than the normal first trimester morning sickness (which wasn't severe) and fatigue, the only real issue has been swollen ankles/varicous veins/spider veins. All of these a quite common, however my wife has been suffering a lot, particularly from swelling. The climate up here definitely doesn't help in that respect.

My wife finished work the day before we went to Port Macquarie, and is now enjoying time at home preparing for "chickpea's" arrival. We still have quite a long list of things to buy, but it's all little stuff. I have a month off work from 18th December, so provided he/she is on time or late, I will be around when labour starts. If he/she comes early, it could be fun. Trying to finish a shift early (especially an evening or night shift) can be difficult at short notice. Hopefully it all works out ok.

Three years ago, I did the ‘Ironbum Challenge'. This year, I challenged myself to a half ironman triathlon. And now, my wife and I are facing the next challenge - parenthood. As with the ironbum challenge (take a challenging ride and make it longer/more challenging), again I am thinking of upping the ante. Can I, over the next 20 weeks, train for and race in an Ironman triathlon (3.8km swim/180km ride/42.2km run) while at the same time, rise to the challenge of caring for a newborn? Only time will tell, and at the end of the day, whatever happens will happen (naturally, training will be the first thing to go should it come to that). But I'm gonna give it a crack!

Prior to going on holidays earlier this year (see previous post), I was starting to get a bit over the whole triathlon thing. It seemed as though I was training with no real purpose - just completing the local races but with no clear goal in mind. While on holidays, I decided that it was time to finally get around to doing a half ironman triathlon (1.9km swim, 90 km ride, 21.1 km run). So, when we got back, I started a 20 week half ironman training program, with the intention of competing in either the Gold Coast Half, Port Macquarie Half or Shepparton Half. As chance would have it, I could only get leave from work for the Port Macquarie race. This worked out well, because my wife's mum and brother live fairly close to Port Macquarie, so they could catch up while I was down there for the race.

The race was Sunday 1st November, 09. After my training program was lengthened to 24 weeks (the allow tapering to occur the two weeks before the race), we finally arrived in Port Macquarie on Friday 30th October. After the overnight flight from Darwin then the quick flight up to Port, the only thing on the agenda for the Friday was to ensure that I got some sleep. Later in the day, my wife's brother and mum turned up. We all stayed together in a cabin at a Port Macquarie caravan park.

Saturday morning, I had to do my last little bit of training. Only 15 minutes of each discipline - just enough to get the muscles moving. After completing the training first thing in the morning, the rest of the morning was filled with relaxing and enjoying the cooler (actually, at around 16 degrees, it felt cold to us) temperatures. The afternoon was spent registering for the race, looking around Port Macquarie and attending the pre race briefing.

An early start on the morning of the race - 4am, to ensure that I had adequate time to eat a big bowl of porridge (actually, I ate it straight out of the saucepan) and get everything prepared in order to be at transition by just after 5am. This gave me plenty of time to check in for the race, set up my equipment in transition and get my wetsuit on. By 6am, I was ready to go.

The race attracted around eight hundred individual entrants, and a further 90 teams. The individuals were made up of the normal age group and elite categories. Amoung the individual entrants were Neil Brooks (Olympic swimmer, member of the ‘Mean Machine') and Tony Abbott (Federal Politician). For the individual entrants, the race began at 6:30am with a deep water swim start in the Hastings River. It was a mass start, meaning all 800 individual competitors started at once, using a self-seeding system. A number of coloured buoys were placed in the water approximately 30 m apart. Faster swimmers started at the front buoy, slower at the back. I started at the buoy suggested for swimmers who would take 34-40 minutes for the swim. The swim leg consisted of 1 lap of the 1.9 km course (essentially, an ‘out and back' course). My swim training had been progressing well, and my only concern with the swim was how I would go wearing a wetsuit. Whether wetsuits are permitted to be worn during triathlons is dependent on water temperature. Below a certain temperature they must be worn, above a certain temperature, they are not allowed and between these temperatures, they are optional. At Port Macquarie, the water temperature was such that wetsuits were optional. However, as any triathlete would agree, if they are optional, you wear one. A wetsuit gives the body added buoyancy and allows you to swim significantly faster. The only drawback is that if you are not used to them, they can cause premature muscle fatigue. Not surprisingly, since living in Darwin, I have not had much use for my wetsuit, so I was a bit out of practise. In any case, I need not have worried. As usual for self seeded swims, I seeded myself too far back, finishing the swim in 28:19. The swim itself was fairly uneventful. I had one goggle fill with water and only managed to clear it at the turn around point, and a got a few kicks etc from the other swimmers around me, but that's part of the fun of triathlon.

T1 (first transition, between swim and bike) was pretty swift, albeit wobbly. Something that I tend to notice when I do longer triathlons is that I find it hard to stand upright while back in transition preparing to head out on the bike. I'm pretty sure it isn't an over exertion issue. I think it is just a matter of not having ‘land legs' after being in the water for a fair while. In any case, I was out on the bike in less than a couple of minutes to face the 2 lap, 90km bike course. The course took in Pacific Drive and Matthew Flinders Drive in Port Macquarie, before joining onto Ocean Drive out to Lake Cathie (pronounced Cat-Eye) and returning to Port the same way. The bike leg was my biggest concern at Port. And having driven the bike course on the Friday, my fears weren't allayed. For those of you who know Port Macquarie, you would know it has some descent hills. For those of you who know Darwin, you would know it doesn't. Trying to train for the types of hills found in Port Macquarie in Darwin was difficult. Again, I need not have worried. My goal was to get around a 33km/hr average for the 90km. I ended up getting 33.1, so pretty much right on my target. The hills weren't really a concern for me. When living in Melbourne, riding hills was something I enjoyed and was pretty good at. It seems I haven't lost a great deal of that since being up here.

T2 was quicker than T1. A quick change of top and shoes, and I was out on the three lap, half marathon (21.1km) course. The course pretty much followed the Hastings River through Port Macquarie out to Town Beach and back to transition. During my training, I had done a few 90/21.1 km ‘brick sessions' (ride followed immediately by run). I struggled a bit with these, either getting a stitch early in the run (alleviated by having a good hydration plan) or just being slow on the run. My aim was to run around 4:30km's on the run, which I easily did over my 21km and 27km run only training sessions. But off the bike, I wasn't too sure whether I could sustain this. Once again, I should not have worried. I finished the run in 1:33:44 (4:27km's). Considering this included T2 and a toilet stop on the run course, I was pretty happy.

All too soon (I really was having a lot of fun), the finish line was in sight. Up the finish chute (with pretty much no one around me), and across the line in 4:46:54. A couple of bowls of fruit salad and ice cream and some water in the finishers marquee, and I felt like I could have gone around again (well, maybe not, but I didn't feel much different to when I finish a sprint distance race). Checking the results later, my time of 4:46:54 placed me 16/120 in my age group and 76/730 overall (not including DNF's and DSQ's). A pretty good day out for my first race over that distance. I'm also happy to report that I beat Neil Brooks and Tony Abbott. The race has certainly reignited my passion for triathlon. I would really love to complete the full ironman in Port Macquarie in March next year. That would really be a mammoth effort, not so much for the distances involved, but for the time management required. But that's another story....

Those of you who have been observant when reading my last three posts might suspect there is a further update to come. Stay tuned.

Triathlons are chugging along just fine. The good thing about living up here is that there is some type of racing all year round, whether it is triathlon (swim, bike, run), duathlon (run and bike) or aquathon (swim and run). The local club up here holds races often, and I try to get to as many as these as my work roster allows. The last one I competed in (750m swim/26km ride/5km run) I finished first in my age group and 4th overall (field of 35).

Prior to going on holidays in May, I was finding that my training was really just plodding along and I was just going through the motions. So, after our return from holidays, I decided to follow a half ironman (1.8km swim/90km ride/21km run) training program with the aim of competing in either the Gold Coast (October) or Shepparton (November) half ironman. I have wanted to compete in a ½ for ages but injury and/or perhaps lack of direction and motivation has been a problem. But now, 12 weeks into the 20 week program I am as motivated as ever to compete and provided that I can get the time off work, that is what I intend to do. It is also pretty vital that I complete one before the end of the year, because after that, time management may be an issue and I may have to put it on hold for a couple of years.

One of the great things about Darwin is nothing is far from anywhere, so it is very easy to commute to work by bike. I do this pretty much everyday, including when I work night shifts (it can be interesting being a cyclist on the roads in the drinking capital of Australia on a Friday or Saturday night). My commutes, and indeed my training, are generally mishap free. However, I did have an incident about a month ago where the bike slid out from underneath me as I was going around a corner. The end result was a bike that needed some fixing, some gravel rash and a sore wrist. After getting to work and controlling for a while, I decided that I probably should see a doctor about my wrist. The fact that I couldn't really write kind of enforced that. To cut a long story short, arm was put in cast due to suspected scaphoid fracture, x-rays were done, bone scans were done, patient got sick of having arm in cast so removed it himself after six days, occupational therapist was visited, soft splint was put on wrist, splint fell apart after a couple of days and further x-rays were done. That's where it is at now and the doctor is pretty sure it isn't broken. But he wants me to see an orthopaedic surgeon just to ensure that it isn't. I'm sure it isn't. I have only a little bit of pain that I suspect is soft tissue/bruising (in the palm of my hand) and full movement of my wrist. And I've been training since I removed the cast, so I reckon it must be ok.