Survived

The holiday beach trip is over and I survived. There were a few touch and go moments when the kids melted down but all in all it wasn’t too shabby.

Unlike the US where every point that had a cliff that stuck out over the ocean would have been developed, Australia has left the points around Mona Vale natural. In fact one cliff has a 3 tier dog park for dogs to run up and down in. Pretty cool for Clancey, whom we were dog sitting. Except he didn’t listen so well, so after the first day I refused to let him off leash.

Here are a few pics of what I saw everyday. It’s tough having to deal with this day in day out, but fortunately for you 17 readers (My how I’ve grown!) I was able to persevere and in fact, thrive.

The rising sun

From the bluffs

The only bad thing about Australia is the lack of an ozone layer. I’ve been using sun cream as they call it and still have gotten burnt two times already. The first time was just a strip down the center of my chest. That could have been operator error, I’ll have to ask my attorney. The second was on a cloudy day where I spent less then 75 minutes playing with the kids in the surf.

So if you are not reducing your carbon ozone eating footprint, you should figure out how to get smaller shoes. My arms would appreciate it.

Since I’m Swimming

Might as well go big or stay home. Yesterday we headed to the Sydney Olympic complex. It’s huge, everything is in one place, all the venues. Easy to get around and close to where I’m currently staying.

Inspired by the legends who swam there before me, and after playing with the kids for 90 minutes in the pool, I went for a bit of a workout.

It dawned on me during this workout. Not having kids, that you have to keep from drowning all the time and who insist on being throw over and over and over and over, is like cheating. It was all I could do to swim decently. My stroke was falling apart faster then a F1 race car that slammed into a concrete wall. My arms and chest felt like someone had pummeled me. Having kids is hard work, work that I should not under take I’ve decided. It’s only 9:30am and I’m already thinking it’s nap time because I’m still wiped out. My sister thinks we should take the kids to the park. Unbelievable.

Mom, Dad, I’m sorry for being a difficult kid. It never dawned on me then that pushing the boundaries was making life more difficult for you guys. My bad.

Enough of that, though. The Aquatics center is huge, awesome really I’m just at a loss of words as to how cool this place is. Kids area with multiple slides, buckets dropping water on the kids, multiple hot tubs. An 8 lane LCM (long course meter) warm up/down pool. A 10 lane 50 LCM competition pool. A diving well/water polo pool. A fitness center with treadmills.

So when words fail, let pics take over. Sydneyer’s I’m pretty jealous. This is the best done aquatic center I’ve ever been to in my life. As a former swim coach, I’ve been to a ton of aquatic centers over the years.

The Competition Pool

Warm Up / Down Pool

Kids area

Diving & Water Polo pool

Soma Triathlon

How did Accelerate 3 athletes do at the Soma Half Ironman?  Not too shabby at all I’d say.

2 athletes racing. The final score?

2 half IM PB’s with 2 run PB’s by huge margins.

Tim was 3rd in his Ag, 19th OV and made an ENORMOUS leap forward in his performance slashing 23 minutes off his Half IM PB.  Did I mention he capped it off with a new PB on the run.

Jeff was 151st OV, 2 min faster then he has ever covered the half distance.  He only ran 7 minutes faster then ever before, including a bathroom break.

Those guys rode each of the three laps on the bike faster then the lap before.  Proper pacing = proper racing. I wonder how many athletes did that on the bike then backed it up with PB type runs?  My guess is that these guys had very little company in this category.

Great job guys!