Dunkeld Country Cup

A few weekends ago, we went to the Dunkeld Country Cup horse races. It was less crowded than the Tatts Cox Plate we went to back in October, and a little more laid back in that we could get right up to the fence and see the horses run right by. Thanks to Alena for loaning me her fun hat/fascinator!

Nigel and Zack placing bets.

We went with our friends Adam and Emily (who had Colorado friends visiting), Nigel and Kristy, and Todd and Alena. Everyone brought food, so we had a nice picnic to enjoy between races. Zack and I would usually place $5 bets on each race. As usual, we won some and lost some-nothing too major in either direction.

Alena organized us getting an "umbrella package," so we had a table and seats reserved for us to use all day. It was nice to have a place to set our stuff and relax and eat.

Depending on the length of the race, sometimes they started right in front of the audience. In this particular one, a horse got pretty rowdy in the starting gate and the jockey fell off and hurt her wrist. She and the horse had to drop out of the race.

It was a beautiful Saturday in a very pretty setting, and we had a great time at this country race. Along with Todd and Alena, we spent the night in the nearby Grampians National Park, camping and then rock climbing the next day. But I'll leave that for my next post!

Nigel, Kristy, Scott, Cierra, Emily, Adam, Alena, Todd, me, and Zack

City to Sea Sunday

We interrupt your regularly scheduled posts about our Northern Territory trip to bring you an update on today's City2Sea race. Zack ran this 14km race this morning, as did our friend Emily. It started near the Arts Centre and ended in St Kilda. Here's Zack stretching before the race.

Today is Remembrance Day in Australia, which is basically like their Veterans Day. Here's a guy playing a trumpet as part of the commemoration before the run started.

And he's off! This is Zack at the starting line. I found Emily before she started as well!

Adam and I rode our bikes and met up with our spouses at the finishing line. They both ran a sub-9 minute mile pace! Zack was pleased with his 1:17 finishing time, considering he barely trained at all and hasn't even run in a couple of weeks!

Zack's company sponsored a swanky post-race party complete with catered food (including a full BBQ), unlimited drinks, and a jazz band. We sat in the sunshine outside the tent for awhile enjoying the free food. What a beautiful spring day for a race-nice job Zack and Emily!

P.S. As of about an hour ago, Notre Dame is now 10-0 for the season. Go Irish!!!

Tatts Cox Plate Take Two

Last year, we went to the Tatts Cox Plate with some friends. You can read (or reread) that post here. We went again this year (yesterday) and had another good time. I wore the dress I had worn to my bridal shower way back in 2008, spruced up with some blue shoes and a blue fascinator. Zack looked dapper in his snazzy gray suit with his skinny tie.

We started the day with a champagne brunch at our friend Kelly and Nick's house. It was actually Kelly's birthday, so several of her friends from Perth had flown in for the weekend's festivities. Check out how they dressed their dog for the occasion!

The weather was pretty nice when we first got to Moonee Valley Racecourse. The sun only came out for a few minutes here and there, and it got chillier throughout the day, but we were just happy to not have any rain (as was predicted earlier in the week). Unfortunately, the cold wind meant that many pretty dresses were covered up with coats!

This guy was standing out front when we first arrived (I'm not sure what the point was-a mascot of sorts?). He let me hold the whip for this picture-ha.

Like last year, Zack and I put down $5 bets on each race just to make it more interesting. I always picked mine based on the horse's name I liked best...Super Cool, More Joyous, Crack A Roadie, I Get Around, Rangirangdoo, etc. Zack bet based on the odds and what some other guys around us were doing. We did decently well between us, and we probably ended up about even for the day. Our biggest win was around $50! Here I am posing with one of our winning bet slips.

The main race of the day (there were eight races total) is the second to last one, and it's the actual Tatts Cox Plate race. The plate is pictured to the left, along with a lady who had a ridiculous fascinator with a plate on it! A New Zealand horse named Ocean Park won the race, along with three million dollars.

Though it was kind of a pain, I was glad I brought my good camera along to get some pictures. With the crowds, it was hard to see the horses as they whizzed by, but I was able to get a few shots like the one below when I went up near the fence.

It was kind of sad to leave at the end of the day and realize we'll probably never go to this race again. We're talking about going to a country race in November, but if that doesn't happen, it may be our last Spring Carnival race ever. Boo! I kind of like dressing up and wearing a fascinator; I might just have to bring mine back to the States and find some reason to wear it!

Nigel and Kristy pose with us for a picture.

Great Ocean Road Half Marathon

This past weekend, we ran the Great Ocean Road half marathon. Emily convinced us that it was a good idea, and I'm glad she did! I've decided that three marathons is enough for one lifetime, and the only other half marathon I've run (three times) is the completely downhill Georgetown to Idaho Springs one in Colorado, so I was a little hesitant about this course, because it definitely had some hills. But Zack and I both signed up for it a few months ago, and knowing that our friends had signed up as well gave us some motivation to train. Zack tried to squeeze in at least one run during the week if work wasn't too crazy (I usually ran about three times during the week), and we usually did a long run with Adam and Emily on the weekend.

Adam, Emily, Nigel, Zack, me, and Todd before the race.

In the dark, early morning hours on Sunday, we had to drive to Apollo Bay and then take a shuttle bus to the starting line at Kennett River. At least we got to see a beautiful sunrise! But it sure was cold. The start was kind of a crazy mess with slow people in the way and everyone trying to get going. We all got separated and started the run, warming up as the sun came out.

My first mile was probably the hardest. The arch of my left foot was so tight that I thought I was going to have to drop out. A few weeks ago, my inner ankle started hurting every time I would run over five or six miles. I finally went to a podiatrist last week, and it sounds like I have posterior tibial tendon dysfunction caused from overuse (yet another reason to not do another marathon!). He told me to stay off of it for the week before the race, ice it, tape it up for the race, and get an orthotic and do other forms of exercise afterward. My arch loosened up after about a mile, and even though the tape fell off after just three miles, my ankle amazingly didn't hurt much at all during the run, so I guess it was good advice!

I don't like to run with people when I do a race. I think it messes up my pace, so I create a special playlist of songs, put in my headphones, and live in my own world for a couple of hours. I did see Emily out ahead of me for most of the race; I only passed her with a couple of kilometers left and only ended up only one minute ahead of her in the end. For the first part of the race, I noticed a shadow behind me. I just thought it was some other runner who was close by for some reason, but I eventually realized it was Zack! He paced off me the entire time! I wouldn't let him run next to me until the end, and we ran across the finish line together in Apollo Bay.

There were a few highlights throughout the course. One was seeing a koala up in the tree alongside the road. Another was the amazing view around every corner; it was definitely the most beautiful course I've ever run. And we totally lucked out with the weather. We had no rain, and the temperature was cool and perfect for running.

I was also happy to run the half marathon in under two hours (1:56:45). This course was actually 23km (a half marathon is 21.1km), so we had to run a couple of extra kilometers after the real half marathon. I ended up in 95th place out of 216 women in my age group, so I guess I'm quite average. I had a 5:32 km/min pace, and my (and Zack's) total time for the whole race was 2:08:23. The first four finishers (Adam, Nigel, Todd, and me-even though Zack finished at the same time) scored for our team. We placed 25th out of 48 teams; again, pretty average!

Emily-my running buddy! Post-race picture.

I didn't feel very good after the race, but we all went out for lunch at the brewery in Forrest and my stomach started to settle down with some crackers and soup. Zack and I spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch, ordering pizza and going to bed by 9pm! We were all very sore the day after the race. Everyone's quads were especially bad; we assume this was because of the hills. Going down steps was extremely painful!

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend, and we're so glad that we signed up and trained for the Great Ocean Road half marathon. If you're looking for a beautiful race course, it's definitely at the top!

Fun Before the Run

Yesterday (Sunday), Zack and I ran the Great Ocean Road half marathon with some friends. I'll write more about the actual race in the next post, but we spent the weekend in a rental home in Skenes Creek. Fellow American expat couples Adam/Emily and Todd/Alena, along with Aussie Kristy/English Nigel rounded out our crew.

Saturday morning started with a delicious French toast breakfast cooked by Adam and Emily.

Kristy enjoying the view.

Adam and Emily cooking.

Then we drove to Apollo Bay and hiked part of the Great Ocean Walk. We had sunny weather at the start, but that turned into a little bit of rain near the end. It was a still a beautiful walk with gorgeous views. We also saw a little bit of the 14km race that was taking place in town on Saturday afternoon.

Nigel with the dogs and the rainbow.

Kristy and Nigel brought along their little dogs named Ralph and Flossie. They were funny and cute, and they got plenty of attention from all the dog lovers in the house! On the drive back to our place after the walk, there was a little rainbow over the ocean.

When we got back to the house, there were cockatoos on our balcony! We fed them some birdseed and enjoyed the view of the ocean in the background.

Saturday night's dinner was a pasta feast to help us carbo load for our run the next morning. Todd and Zack cooked up the deliciousness, and we all pigged out. For dessert, Alena tried her first Tim Tam slam, and Emily made some amazing chocolate chip cookies. Yum!

Alena's Tim Tam slam!

Todd and Zack hard at work.

No, there are no pictures of me today. That's what happens when you're the photographer! Anyway, we had a fun weekend of enjoying the Great Ocean Road, playing games, laughing together, and running the race. But more about that in the next blog post!

Toughing Out the Tough Mudder

We survived! After several hours of running and obstacles on Saturday afternoon, we can now say that we are truly Tough Mudders! Here is Team AUSsome before the race looking clean and happy; our team included folks from Denver, Chicago, the UK, New Zealand, Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne.

I went into the race kind of scared about how difficult it would be and wondering if I'd be able to complete all of the obstacles. I had done plenty of running and some upper body work, but I didn't know what level of difficulty to expect. There really was no reason to be scared; it was fun! Here we are going over one of the many walls we had to scale throughout the course.

This ("Arctic Enema") was probably the "worst" obstacle. You had to jump into this freezing tub of water and ice cubes, duck under the barrier, and climb out the other side. It was so unbelievably cold that you immediately lost your breath and all feeling in your body. I seriously almost cried!









We didn't stay clean for long. There was SO much mud. We had to crawl under barbed wire through mud, go through tunnels with mud, march through trenches with mud, climb up hills made of mud...you get the idea. I guess it is called the Tough MUDder. Two days later, I'm still finding mud in my ears and when I blow my nose!

Our friends and teammates Kristy and Nigel had a waterproof camera that they took along with them during the race, so they were able to get lots of these pictures as we completed the obstacles (you'll notice water drops on some!). Our friend Orla came along as a spectator and got some other great shots of the team before and near the end of the race. I think Kristy took this one as she was swimming away from the platform from which we had just jumped!





The two obstacles pictured below were probably the most fun. The first one is a giant Slip and Slide. Of course, you landed in a mud pit. The second one is a giant pile of hay bales we had to climb over, which was cool because I could do it myself (versus the walls where the guys would have to yank us girls up in order to get over).

Our team didn't start the race until about 11am, so there were huge lines at some of the obstacles. That was kind of annoying, because we basically just stood around in the mud waiting for long periods of time. The whole course took about five hours for us to complete, but that included a lot of waiting. Though it was a sunny day and we got hot at first while running, we ended up pretty cold by the end because it was so windy and we were wet and muddy. I guess there were 15,000 people doing it on Saturday; 600 or so started every fifteen minutes.

The obstacle I was most scared about (not pictured here) was "Electroshock Therapy," which involved running through a tunnel of dangling wires, some of which were charged and could give you a nasty shock. Luckily, I didn't get electrocuted at all, not even in the surprise obstacle called "Electric Eel" where you had to belly crawl under and between wires. Zack got a small shock, but he said it didn't hurt at all.

In the end, I'm glad I did it, though I didn't want to sign up for this thing months ago when we first started talking about it. It was pure peer pressure that caused me to join in, but it ended up being a good excuse to work out more often and with friends, and we had a fun weekend hanging out on Phillip Island in a big rental house with everyone. And other than a few scratches, bruises, one twisted ankle, and some sore muscles, we didn't have any serious injuries on our team, so that's good!

Our dirty team is pictured above left partway through the course. I've since soaked our shirts in the tub with a stain remover and am currently washing them for the second time, hoping they are salvageable! And yes, my shoes are among the huge donated pile seen in the picture above right. Saving my old running shoes came in handy for this race!

Celebration time!

After getting back to the rental house and showering up (one of the best showers ever!), we all enjoyed some drinks, a huge pasta dinner, "dirt" for dessert, a few board games, and some footy watching on TV before crashing in bed. We were all pretty tired! There are lots more pictures on my Shutterfly site if you want to see more of the fun we had on Saturday. Tough Mudder Melbourne 2012-mission accomplished!

We are Tough Mudders!

Ironman Outside Our Door

On Sunday, the Asia-Pacific Ironman Championship race was held, and it finished out on St Kilda Beach. We could see it from our balcony, but we went downstairs to get a closer look at the action.

We got down to the beach in time to see the third place guy go past us. Then we hung out near the finish line for a little while, cheering for all of the athletes running by.

Caroline Steffen (pictured below) was the female winner. She's from Switzerland but trains in Australia for half the year. Her partner got 5th place among the men; can you imagine what that household is like? "Hey honey, did you run your fifteen miles yet today?"

It was pretty inspiring and emotional to watch these athletes come across the finish line. I also felt like a lazy bum when I thought about what I had been doing for the last eight hours (sleeping, eating, playing on my computer, etc.) while these people had swam over two miles, biked over 100 miles, and ran a marathon! It sort of made me want to do an Ironman, until I remembered the torture of training for "just" marathons and that this would be three times as bad. No thanks for now.

Finish Line

Later on Sunday night, I went back out to the beach to watch some of the people who were still finishing (in the dark). This lady is over 65 years old! Now I really feel like a slacker. People were still finishing up when we went to bed that night. Quite an accomplishment!