Nine more sleeps

There are nine days to go until I move to Melbourne and I have to admit I am a little scared. 

I am scared, not just because of the prospect of snakes and spiders, but because it is all a little unknown.  Sure, I have spent the better part of six weeks in Melbourne in the past three years so I know it pretty well, but this whole new city / new country / new life thing is bigger than Ben Hur!

I am also very excited. It is like a permanent working holiday, so I am going to treat it as such for the first few months in a bid to avert any homesickness.  In case of homesickness, I’ll just find some pineapple lumps and read the list below:

What I hate about Auckland

• Traffic
• Auckland drivers.  What a bunch of deekheads!
• Distance from Aussie.  Four hours on a plane to get to Sydney or Melbourne? Pah!
• Weather (particularly the sheer amount of rain).  
• The humidity.  Weeks and weeks and weeks of 100% humidity is not fun.
• Pathetic public transport.  Seriously, it's a joke.
• Price of airfares - it's cheaper to leave NZ than to go to the south island.  That's crap.
• The upcoming rugby world cup.  Get me outta here!
• No tri club within cooee of where i live.  I don't want to have to travel 30km to train with others.
• Not feeling like home (home is where the heart is, and mine’s in Aussie)
• You cannot go anywhere you want to without a car, or without catching at least two buses, or a bus and a train, or walking for hours on end.
• The millions of two dollar shops.  Do we really need more mass produced crap?  NO!
• Lack of scrapbook shops (like three for the whole city and none near me)
• Most of my friends have left and now live in Aussie
• Cost of living – we are absolutely “done” over the price of public transport. 
• All the nice staff are gone from my gym
• Feeling unsafe at night walking down the main street.  
• Insular Peninsula feeling – can’t walk down the street without seeing at least one person I know
• Everyone knows everyone else.  Ugh.  See above.
• I have lived here my entire life and I need a change!
• Not fitting into clothes in the mainstream shops, seriously people, learn that not everyone is a size 6 and make and stock more clothes in size 12 and up!
• There are MANY people I will not miss.

Got my tattoo touched up tonight, and number two is booked for next Tuesday.  I'd tell you what it is but only my triathlon event support crew manager and tattoo artist Nigel know, so you'll just have to wait and see!

10 sleeps to go

I have ten sleeps to go until I leave for Melbourne.  At this point in time I am feeling pretty relaxed - being the organisational whizz that I am, my project plan is sitting at 91% complete and I have just seven key things to do. My car is sold, my TV vanishes on Saturday, my bed hasn't sold yet...but everything else pretty much has.  Cool.

I'm still trying to decide if I should take my bike on the plane, or send it with the rest of my stuff.  The main advantages of sending it with the rest of my stuff is that I don't have to lug it around Melbourne the night I arrive, I get an extra 15kg of baggage weight (it would be part of my 30kg allowance on the plane otherwise), and I don't have to worry about the security of my bike at my temporary accommodation.

The cons of not taking it on the plane are almost non-existent, particularly when one considers that my bike shoes, helmet and lock cable are all packed in a big box with my yoga mat, sombrero and camping gear!  Okay, so I won't be able to ride it for a couple of weeks - but it's winter, I'll be in a somewhat strange city, and I have to get it to Fitzroy to get it put back together anyway.

So, looks like the bike will be going with the rest of my stuff.  More room for clothes!  Pity my Samsonite suitcase is on the small side (that was purposely done, back when I was planning on taking my bike on the plane with me), but I'll make stuff fit in it and if it doesn't fit, it can go in a box in the hold of the plane too.

One of the first things I will do on my first morning in Melbourne is head to Virgin Active and join.  I have had the last couple of weeks off training and I'm over it!  I need to get back into it, as the 2010/2011 tri season is only six months away.  They have a PT there who is a multiple Ironman, and to do Ironman NZ 2012 properly, I need someone with a clue to train me.  Not that I am clueless, but who better to train you than a triathlete, who has a clue about Ironman?

I also can't wait to join my new tri club.  Actually living in the area will be helpful, so one of my next priorities is real estate.  I need to find a house with at least two bedrooms, close to everything I need, in the suburb I want, that will take a cat (yes, Miss Sydney is coming with me) and a triathlete, ha ha.

Fingers crossed.

Melbourne - pronto!

Good news – I am still moving to Melbourne and now I have a job to go to!  I will be working for a fashion clothing company, as their sole IT person.  I get to do BA work, project work and IT support, so this role is awesome.  I am so pleased to have a job to go to in Melbourne; it is a huge weight off my shoulders!

Now for the fun news?  I leave in just under three weeks.  Hooray, but GULP!  I had eight weeks to prepare, pack and move; now it is three.  It is okay though, and entirely do-able, as I am super organised and have a project plan.  I am confident I can pull this off in the revised timeframe available.

What is awesome is that now I get to join Virgin Active.  I checked it out when I was over last year and totally fell in love with the place.  I cannot wait to get in there and start training after work.  I will be staying in the city for the first three or four weeks, so it will be very handy as it is only three blocks from my accommodation.  I do not think I can get up early enough to go before work, so after work will be fine.  They have yoga, Pilates, technogym equipment, kettle bells, spin classes, indoor heated pool, sleep pods, internet, etc…bliss!

Bring it on!

chillaxin in vegas

I had a nice chilled day today, including a haircut by a student hairdresser and the trip back to Auckland on the bus was not bad.  I had the same bus driver from the Taupo-Auckland trip back in March and he was just as late today as he was then.  I missed my connecting bus and had to stand around for half an hour in the cold, which did not exactly thrill me.  Meh.

I have had a toothache since Thursday night and it has been steadily getting worse.  I have been taking painkillers for a couple of days but it is still there.  Extreme meh.   I haven’t been able to eat much all weekend and I haven’t slept properly in five days so I am exhausted. 

Gotta go, falling asleep writing this and I need to take the sleep when it comes.  

the day after the marathon - shaun of the dead zombie style

Walking around town today, you could tell the marathoners at fifty paces.  Not just from their finisher’s shirts, but also from the “Shaun of the Dead” zombie shuffle.  Ha ha, my calves are not thrilled with me today, but they are nothing compared with what some of those poor people are experiencing. 

I am supposed to be taking it easy today but the lure of geothermal activity proved too much.  After a nice time at the finisher’s breakfast today meeting marathoners (including the woman who was I think the oldest female competitor, and had just done her 15^th Rotorua Marathon), smacking my kneecap on the table leg, and then collecting a coffee from the Fat Dog Café, I headed for Kuirau Park.  It was cool, but I wanted more. 

I had some lunch, and then headed for Whakarewarewa, thinking I would see geysers close up as I had the last time I was there in about 1995.  Sadly, the answer was no, but I only found that out on arrival.  Some years ago, they split the park in two and the geysers are now at Te Puia, which costs a small fortune to enter.  

However, I had a nice time at Whakarewarewa learning about the history of the village and its residents and ancestors.  I took some great photos, including some of the Prince of Wales and Pohutu geysers, albeit from a distance, the Korotiotio Pool and the bubbling mud around the back of the village. 

I am a bit sad that I did not get to see those geysers from closer range, but if I go back to Rotorua next May to do the Marathon I will definitely go to Te Puia.  We did manage to have an earthquake, which was cool, and I did see the final of the Amazing Race, which was great. 

Tomorrow evening it is back to Auckland.  Boo, hiss – I like being on holiday and generally hate going back to reality but this time it is okay.  I miss my bed, the pillows here are wafer thin and it was a cold night without my mink blanket and Siamese hot water bottle. Tonight will apparently be colder still.  Brrr!

Off to bed, it’s freezing and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.

sounds like a country song

I did it!  I finished my first 10km.  My time was nowhere near glorious however, as after running the first 2km my Tibialis Anterior packed up and refused to cooperate.  I ended up walking the next 3km at a snails pace of about 4kph before I could stretch it out, and then walked the last 5km at a 6.5kph pace.  Damn.  I should have stuck to my plan of walking the first 1km to warm up, but silly old me wanted to run and I should have listened to myself. 

I lost my head in the moment.  I decided to follow the lemmings in front of me (Stuart and Belinda are not lemmings by the way, and they were beside me over the start line, not in front), being those who ran from the sound of the cannon.  Double damn.  Epic race plan fail.  Rule number one – follow your race plan!

Once my tib packed up, I walked the remaining 3km of the first lap with a 74-year-old woman named Neera, who entered that morning – she got out of bed, got dressed, rocked up to the event centre, registered and walked it.  Awesome work Neera!  After we parted ways at the 5km mark, I was on my own.  Seriously – most of the 10km’ers had finished at that point and I hardly saw another soul.  I stopped at the 7km mark and made a marshall take my photo (LOL) before continuing.  Yes, I carried my camera, it was a fun run after all and I got to see parts of the lake shore that I would not have otherwise. 

The Green Apple PowerBar Gel I had at 4km kicked in at 7.5km and my torso felt like it was about three paces behind my legs for the last 2.5km, especially when the rain started to hammer down at 8km.  I had some jet planes in my race belt in case of emergency and promised myself one for every km after the 5km mark.  I did not remember them until the 8km mark when the rain started to drown me but was glad to find them.  The jet planes distracted me long enough to get through each 500m section from then on, while in some serious pain.  Stupid Tibialis, I really didn’t need you to play up today! 

Nonetheless, I finished in a respectable 1:54:29.  Moreover, I finished before the marathon winner and podium finishers came back so I did not feel too bad, and there were people in the 10km who finished after me.  For me, an event is never about winning.  As a FAST triathlete, (that is Fat and Slow Triathlete to you!), I am happy just to finish something.  Of course, my speed averages out at something like 5.25kph but that is still faster than the average bear when walking.  Average walking speed is 4kph, so my speed was good.

Happily, my personalised video is not too bad, even if I do look like a hot pink Michelin woman.  I think I might buy it and stick it on my iPod so that every time I feel like slacking off, I can be instantly reminded of what a FAST triathlete I am. 

After the event, I headed into the event centre for a banana, cup of soup, a cup of tea (best cuppa tea in the world that was, or so I reckon), a massage, my special needs bag contents (chocolate milk, another banana, a bottle of Gatorade and another chocolate milk) and a warm jacket.  Later on, I headed back to the hotel and then to the Polynesian Spa for a soak in seven different hot pools. BLISS!  The sad part though was dropping my beloved Dolce sunglasses on the concrete floor and breaking them beyond repair.  Very sad.

Anyway, I’m pretty tired and need a lie down so I’ll write more tomorrow.

Ciao.