CURRENT DOINGS.......TRAVEL IDEAS.............

Howdy! Hope everyone is having a great week!

After my triathlon last Saturday I prepared to take the drive down to Busselton to watch the Ironman!

That meant I was up early and on the road by 5.30am on Sunday morning. I arrived in Busso about 8.30am. The race started at 5.45am so I missed the swim but saw the competitors going hard lapping it up on the bike!

To anyone who doesn't know:
* a full ironman is a 3.8km swim followed by a 180km push bike ride finished off with a marathon 42.2km run so a distance of 226km is covered all up! A great ultra endurance event! Therefore thats lots different than my 400m swim, 16km ride and 4km run I did last Saturday!

The atmosphere down there was unreal. The dedication of the athletes was mindblowing. People come all over the world to race in Busselton and some entrants were over 70 years of age! There was section for the pros then all the age group categories. The winning guy completed this feat in 8 hours and 14 mins and I think the first female was about an hour behind that. The winning female went in as a bit of an underdog but worked so hard and built up a lead of a few minutes in the run. She crashed in the last few hundred metres of the run and infact had to crawl over the line but still kept her lead and won the girls race!

One of BF's mates has been very dedicated with training for this event for many months or longer. Such training for him involved at least 2-3 hours on weeknights and weekend trainings involved such things as a 200km ride followed by a 20km run on say Saturday and some mammoth swim/run on Sunday. Therefore it was great to see him cross the line in just over 11 hours. All competitors have their name on them and it's amazing seeing them keep coming past. Lots of them look to be going well but totally crash in say the second half or even last 10km of the run. Getting so close to the end but totally crashing would be really frustrating I think......................but these types of athletes don't seem to let disappointments affect them for long!

I didn't stay until the end of the race, (11pm as there is a 17 hour cut off time which means if there are competitors still out on the course after 17 hours they aren't allowed to finish). I left it too late to try and find accommodation unless I fancied paying over $500 a night so I drove back. I didn't want to leave the drive back home too late either as these are unfamiliar roads still.

Now to put these distances into perspective for me...............the longest bike ride I've done in one day is 108.4km almost 2 years ago. Now that was a huge effort and included a few stops. I was buggered at the end of that. More recently, (about a month ago) I did a 90km bike ride one day covering quite a few hills but when I got home from that, - I was had! No way could I do double that, then run a marathon not to mention the swim!

I would like to do an ironman, - maybe someday! But for now I'm working toward a couple of Sprint Distance triathlons which will become my longest efforts and I would love to do these in good form (for me). There is one at end of Feb 2011 and one early April 2011 I'm thinking about. They include a 750m swim, 20km ride and 5km run. Will keep you posted! Probably these are more suited for me for now as my ideal training time is about 5 hours a week.

I have been getting quite excited about the prospects of holidays of late! My proposed plan of a 'round the world trip' in mid 2015 for about 8 weeks is still sounding so far away. I've been contributing funds weekly and consistently and have actually just reached the $2000 mark in my holiday fund. It's in a high interest account and I've been aiming to have a minimum of $25000 but ideally $30000 for this trip. I'm quite excited to have made the $2000 mark as I normally spend money in this fund on other stuff before it reaches $1000. However I'm far too excited when this is still in the much distant future as you can see!

Therefore I'm thinking of making this into two trips. The first one brought forward to mid 2012 and the next but biggie in 2015 and am doing research.

I'm aiming to have total of $10000 minimum by late June 2012. Am now thinking of firstly heading over East to kick the trip off with the Gold Coast half marathon which is always first Sunday in July, then heading up to Airlie Beach for two nights to see relatives in their new home there and do a days kayaking, then down to Sydney for a night, then off to LA where I'd like to bus it up to San Francisco, then do a round trip one week tour covering Vegas, some of the amazing Canyons, hiking and much else. Then want to curtail it over to Hawaii, (somewhere I've always wanted to go). I'd love to do a 2 week tour covering at least 4 of the islands but would need to work out further details. Of course kayaking, swimming, cycling, hiking (and relaxing) would be on the wish list in Hawaii, (and seeing some the the amazing attractions there).
Next I'd head to NZ, catch up with family and want to give the ski slopes a quick whirl again for at least a couple of days. There is lots more I want to do but think that's about how far I can stretch my money and time!

Maybe the 2015 round the world trip I'd have more time to get to more of America and Canada and some European countries. If I knuckle down for a trip in 18 months time I reckon that's doable and not to far away!

Am about to head to work staff party tonight! Have a good one all! :-)

Pip :-)