The Triathlon

Sunday 30 October 2011
Penrith Regatta Centre - Tri Shave Womens Triathlon Festival

My check in opened at 7:50, so we were on the road down to Penrith by around 7:20 am. I was pretty nervous because I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect. And because I had no idea if I would be able to do this.

on the pontoon, waiting to start

They were great at the check in, explained everything that in the kit to me, like where to put the bike sticker, which leg to put the timing chip on, how to attach the bib & which way it was to go in different legs, where to put my bike, and other stuff like that.

The kit included a swim cap, we were colour coded into ages groups inside our event. So I was in the try-a-tri event, in the pink cap age group.

I've marked me with an arrow

Starting leg was the 150m swim. We had to leave from the pontoon & wade over to line up between the blue boat & shore. Water temperature in the lake was 21.5 deg C.

The swim leg was the one I was most worried about - the bike track at the regatta centre is easy & I knew I could walk in the run leg if necessary. But the swim leg had to be swum! But I knew I'd swum the distance at the pool, so I thought I'd be okay. And once I was actually in the water & swimming, it was okay.

Leaving the lake at the end of swimming
My eldest daughter (The Imp) is cheering me on

A woman I'd met at at geocaching event the week before was also at the triathlon & she gave me some advice about getting out of the lake - don't try to stand up until your fingers are firmly on the mat on the ramp. If you stand earlier, you are over weed, it's slippery & harder to get out! Very good advice.

After leaving the lake we had to run to the transition area to get our bikes. I don't have any pictures of the cycling leg, apparently I went past faster than expected and there was no time to get a shot. I was on a borrowed bike for the day, on a beautiful fast lightweight bike fitted with slick racing tyres.

first half of the running leg

My transitions were a bit slow, that's something I'll have to improve at next time I do a tri. My first one was especially slow, getting my shoes on. It didn't help that it started raining when we were swimming & my towel was getting wet.

But once I was out, the cycling leg was great. As I said earlier, the track at the regatta centre is an easy course. It's basically flat, with only one small hill, arond the lake. Once I got used to my borrowed bike, I picked up speed & passed a few people.

second half of the run

My event only had to do one lap of the track, that's 5 km, before heading back to transition & on to the running.

The running leg was one lap out & back at the northern edge of the lake, in front of the grandstand.

I'd thought I might be feeling tired by the time I got to the running stage, but I guess adreneline had kicked in because I felt great on the run. And I ran the entire 1.5 km.

Almost finished

After we'd ran out & back, the running run curved back almost towards the transition area, then looped around to go up a small incline to the finishing line. A slightly nasty touch to have to run up a slope at the very end :-).

Crossing the finish line

My times:
swim - 150 m - 5:38 minutes
cycle - 5 km - 18:29 minutes (I think the cycle time includes both transititon times)
run - 1.5 km - 8:57 minutes
Total time - 33:05 minutes.

How did I feel after doing it? Very proud of myself for being able to do it. And stronger & faster than I thought I'd be.

Will I do it again? You bet! It was a great morning & I felt fantastic being out there doing it. Everyone was friendly, and encouraging of each other, it was a really great atmosphere out there.

And maybe at this event next year, I'll have my Imp girl to keep me company, because she now seems keen to do it herself.

It's today

I'll be leaving for it soon.

Birdcages - Forgotten Songs

I was walking through Angel Place in the Sydney CBD on Tuesday & realised I could hear bird noises. Lots of bird noises. So I looked around & saw that there were all of these bird cages hanging above the alley, strung between the buildings. The bird calls were from loudspeakers on the sides of the buildings.

I only had my phone on me and the battery was dying, so I could only get this one poor quality photo. But if you look at this blog post, there are some really good pictures of the alley. And some more on flickr here and here .

It apparently was a temporary art installation to end January 2010, but was brought back this year as a permanent installation (more details on this site). The paving mentioned in the linked article was being laid the day I was there, with the names of the birds which once would have lived in the area. An unexpectedly beautiful spot.

I was actually in the alley because there's a geocache there, but couldn't look for it due to the work being done on the paving. Second time I haven't been able to find that one.

A baby shower idea

I've been away for a bit, school holidays & all that. Still haven't unpacked everything, just emptied all of the dirty clothes into the laundry. Don't want to face google reader, it says I have 1000+ feeds waiting for me!

Got back in good time to go to a baby shower on Sunday for a friend who is currently 33 weeks pregnant.

One of the 'games' we played at the shower was really cool, so I thought I'd share the idea.

A pile of singlets was passed around, in a few colours & sizes, together with a bag of permanent markers. We each chose a singlet and got instructed to draw something on the singlet for the baby and sign our names.

We all got to bemoan our lack of artistic ability, had some fun & the mum-to-be got a unique set of singlets for the baby.

I drew a lion on my singlet. I had no idea what to do, but I dropped down the floor with a piece of paper & a pen intending to start sketching, just to see if I could think of something. And the floor rug had all of these cute cartoony style animals on it, including this really cute lion. So I copied it. From memory there was also a plane, a boat, a tropical beach scene, an 'I heart U' and a Jackson Pollack inspired design.