Random Summer Happenings Post

Because I still haven't sorted through my pictures from our time in Byron Bay, or when my parents and aunt and uncle were here, or the Australian Open, today you get a random blog post with some phone photos of things we've been doing this summer. In no particular order, here's some of what we've been up to in January and February...

I met up with Zack one day in the city for a run and lunch on Degraves Street afterward. These camera-wielding dogs are in Federation Square. I'm not sure why they're there, but I thought I'd better get a picture with them.

We have salmon for dinner nearly every week, because it's so delicious fresh from the market. Here's one of my salmon creations...pan fried salmon with homemade pesto sauce atop quinoa. Yum!

We watched the National Championship Game for college football at our friends' place. While we enjoyed cuddling their dog Roo, we didn't enjoy Notre Dame's performance in the game and the resulting score. Let's not talk about it!

I had a celebrity sighting at the South Melbourne Market. The girl with the skirt in the back is Ellie from MasterChef 2011. You may recall that this was the show we watched religiously when we first moved here, and Ellie was one of our favorites. I just had to snap this stalker phone photo to show Zack while pretending I was looking at potatoes!

Speaking of potatoes, these potato swirls, which are found at the Queen Victoria Suzuki Night Market, are delicious. The sangria is tasty too. This night market runs every Wednesday night during the summer, and it's a great place to go to try all sorts of delicious food (I even got an American pulled pork sandwich one night) and listen to some fun live music. We've gone a couple of times, and it's been a great way to spend a summer evening.

And last but not least, I decorated our house a little bit for Australia Day (which was January 26). I'm not sure if you can even see the little flags strung across the top, but they are there. Yes, even though I'm American, I've got some Australian spirit!

Anyway, that's a little glimpse into our summer so far. The weather has been incredible (which is rare for Melbourne), so we've been soaking up the sun and making the most of it while we can. That's probably why I've been slacking on keeping up with the blog!

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!!!

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!

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!

Running on Empty

So the third and final Spring into Shape Series run was held just two days after my sister left town. Having family in Australia meant that for the previous three weeks, I had not run. At all. Well, unless you count running through the airport to catch a plane. But more about that in a later post. Anyway, the fact that I had done ZERO training, coupled with the fact that they changed the course route because of flooding on the original one down by the Yarra River (and we now had to do laps around the Tan at the Botanic Gardens which has an even bigger uphill climb than the original course's hill), meant that I wasn't trying to set any personal records on this run. So I had fun with the photographers again!

I think this karate kick one is my personal favorite. Awesome. So, here are my official (slow) results:

12.7km Races-Sept/Oct/Nov

#1: Time 1:10:10, 29/90 in age group
#2: Time 1:08:16, 20/114 in age group
#3: Time 1:11:39, 44/86 in age group (possibly only a 12km race for the last one-not measured exactly with course change)

So I guess when I train normally, I end up in the upper third of my age group; when I train kind of hard, I end up in the upper 20th percentile; and when I don't train at all, well, I guess at least I'm still faster than half of the gals aged 30-39 out there!

Side note: I think it's "cheating" when people don't run for the entire race. There were SO many people walking up the big hill. Then they had energy to pass me on the downhills or straightaways. Not fair. I say you have to run the whole thing, or it doesn't count! Okay, maybe it's alright to stop for a second to take a gulp of water, because it's really hard to drink while running. I'll get off my soapbox now before I make too many enemies. Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately. Tomorrow's post will be called, "Why I Hate Tiger Airways!" Something to look forward to...

I Entertain Photographers!

This has nothing to do with Australia, but there's not much else going on this week. I'm quite sure most of you dealing with the now-turning-chilly weather back in the States don't want to hear about me enjoying an afternoon spent reading a book in my bathing suit on the beach across the street in Monday's 80 degree weather. So I'll write about something else! 

When I'm in a running race and I see the photographers snapping away so that they can sell their shots later online, I know I will never buy them, so I entertain myself (and the photographers) by doing ridiculous things for the camera. I leap in the air, stick out my tongue, wave my arms and legs, do a "Newsies jump" (Google that if you don't know what it is!), get really close to the lens, etc. The photographers are always excited to have something interesting to focus on rather than boring runner after runner, so they often laugh and take extra pictures of me. Zack has a cool feature on his computer where he can copy the pictures from the website and we don't have to pay for them, so I thought I'd share a few choice ones with my lovely readers.  Enjoy! 

Spring Into Shape

Just about to start the race.

Yesterday, I ran the first of three running races that are part of the Spring Into Shape Series in Melbourne. There is one race every month for three months. Zack came along as my cheerleader and photographer, and I completed the 12.7km (about 8 miles) run in 1 hour and 10 minutes. I was decently happy with my pace and placing 29th out of 83 females in my age group.

Pushing hard at the finish.

After the race, we walked around Federation Square for a bit and then went out for brunch on Acland Street. I was even able to get the restaurant to cook my bacon "American-style." Here in Australia, "bacon" is actually more like pieces of ham...not thin or crispy at all. So it was awesome to have some "real" bacon with my scrambled eggs and hash browns. Yum!

After brunch, Zack convinced me to get a foot massage at the Thai place down the street, which felt great after my run. We spent the afternoon hanging out in the sun on the beach and took it easy last night. Not a bad Sunday!

Fog, Jog, and a Dog

How was your weekend? This was the view from one of our balconies on Friday afternoon. The fog rolled in big-time; it was almost kind of scary! At one point, all I could see was white out the windows. Anyway, on Friday night we ordered in some pizza and watched Back to the Future Part II (I had never seen it).

On Saturday, we had cappuccinos and lattes with Heath and Isabelle on Acland Street. Then Zack and I walked around St. Kilda and enjoyed the beautiful sunny weather. We have never seen so many people out and about! I guess this is a hint of what's to come this summer. Anyway, we ended up on Fitzroy Street where we used a Groupon-type deal that I had for a rum tasting at a place called 29th Apartment. We got to try six different rums with accompanying desserts as we sat outside in the sunshine. Yummy! This restaurant had fun games to play, and we ended up playing a Connect Four tournament with two Australian guys. Then we ended up doing shouts with them for the next few hours. A "shout" is when someone buys drinks for everyone else; you take turns "shouting" the round. When it started getting cold, Zack and I got some pasta for dinner and went home for an early bedtime.

Sunday morning came quickly, and Zack headed off for a 110km bike ride with Adam and Heath and Isabelle. I met up with Emily for a ten mile run. She's training for a half marathon, and I try to join her for some training runs for the heck of it. Later that afternoon, we had lunch at a Japanese place with Adam and Emily and two other couples from a Meetup group and got some frozen yogurt on Fitzroy Street.

Because I was missing my dog Molly, I posted an ad on Gumtree offering to walk dogs in the area. I got a response from a lady who lives nearby, and now I get to walk her family's dog a few times a week. I can bring Emmey to the beach, take her on a run, or whatever I want...and I get paid! This morning was my first time, and I took a picture down at St. Kilda Beach. Isn't she cute (though not nearly as cute as Molly!)? She's a mix between a beagle and a lab. Emmey is my pseudo-dog here in Australia-yay! So that's what's going on with us lately. Hope you had a good weekend too!