Culmination

DONE!

Yes it's been a week and a half since I last wrote a blog. I've been busy!

Last week was my last week of my major professional experience. It flew by faster than any before it. I'm going to miss those little kids and I'd love to see how some of them turn out by year 6! I will send the class a postcard from Perth and hopefully keep in touch with Jenni and Tracy. They wrote me an unbelievable prac report and I leave there full of confidence that I've really found my career. I can't wait to get home and start looking for work and getting paid for it and feeling like a bonified teacher!

This past weekend Julia, Jared and I did our normal thing. Training, walking and just chatting and having a good time. Really trying to soak up Wollongong as much as we can because we know it's almost over! Since I sold my trainer last Thursday, I had to ride on the road on the weekend! :( Just not the same workout. I did have some fun though, riding up to a couple lookouts and seeing parts of the area I otherwise wouldn't have. On Monday we had to go into campus and drop off our reports and go to a wrap up meeting. Big ole waste of time.

Also last week I started reading a John Grisham book called The Appeal. I read a bunch during the week, 10 pages here, 10 there... But then on the weekend I read about 300 pages between Sunday evening and Monday morning to finish it off! I haven't read a novel like that in forever! It felt great to have read a book. I figured I want to read some more so Julia and I went to the mission and I got a couple more (A Tom Clancy and a robert Ludlum) and Jared gave me one as well. My goal is to read all three before I get home to Stittsville. Clancy is my biggest challenge at 1270 pages, then the Ludlum is about 500 and the Koontz is about 400. That oughta keep me busy while travelling! I look forward to relaxing on beaches with a good book... hahaha, what a friggin' nerd.

The three of us managed to sell our tickets to the grad ball. Quite frankly we don't like the people there so chances are we wouldn't have a great time anyhow. We spent $65 on each ticket back in like August or September and we sold 'em for 2 x $40 and 1 x $20. A big hit, yes, but at least we don't have to waste a night of our lives on that. The 3 of us are going up to Sydney today and are going to stay over at Michelle's place and just hang out and see the city again.

So we get back tomorrow evening (Thursday) and we spend Friday getting everything finally cleaned up and packed and we leave Saturday. Our flight isn't until 8:40PM but we wanna get the heck outta here without saying bye to these broads we live with so what we're going to do is take everything down to Jared's (whose place is on the way to the train anyhow) and leave it all there for the day and we're going to have a picnic out by the water during the day and then we'll take off on the train around late afternoon. Just a domestic flight so we only have to be there an hour early, but we seem to enjoy hanging around airports. I can't believe it's almost here! Here's to hoping everything goes smoothly with flights and campervans and car rentals and such. Let the party begin!!!

For the time that we're travelling, I will keep a pen and paper blog as I won't have a computer. I will send quick emails as often as possible to those who want to keep tabs on us and will try to put up photos (though unlikely) on facebook whenever possible.

The next six weeks will never be forgotten by either of us. I can't wait to create all these amazing memories with my tiny Tuna.

Gooooooodbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Wolllllongongggggggg!!!!!!

Quickie

Have to make this quick ;cause we're about to go out to Wooly's to pick up a few things.

SHEESH! won't be able to say that too many more times!

My prac report is written! It's like I'm done! 3 more days to go! WOOOO HOOOO!!!! Unbelievable! I've had a few good lessons this week as well. Today we made Fairy Bread! (Bread with butter and sprinkles, it's an actual thing over here). It was part of a maths lesson on halves and quarters. :) I've also started giving out money this week that they'll use on Friday to purchase some stuff at the Canadian gift shop before we fly home to Australia. I'm also going to have them make some masks as an art lesson and Jared and I will wear a couple of them to the masquerade ball!

OK that's it for now. imust go get this stuff done so I can nap before I skype Ray tonight at 11PM! EEK.

Love to you all!

PS - We'll be travelling in 10 days!!!! AWWWWWWWWESOME!!!! Probably the BIGGEST travelling adventure of our lives! We will return changed people, guaranteed.

KE does the Aquarium, with a Tuna for a tour guide!

Today our class went up to Sydney to go to the aquarium. What a day! We got on the bus just after 8AM and were off! It was a long ride up and I had to continually tell the kids to quit messing around, but can't really blame 'em. They were told to go pee before 'cause we weren't gonna stop! But we did stop once for one kid who ended up peeing behind a tree and then a girl (Miri) came to the back and squatted over an ice cream container. After those mild dramas we made it to Sydney, everyone got the chance to go pee and have a snack and then we headed in! OH! And we met the little Tunes just outside the place. :) She met my teachers and they were very nice to her. :) We walked around and I took extra care of Majed, joseph, Shantae and Jean. We saw TONS fo really cool fish (Sting Rays, sharks, Dugongs, turtles, crocodile etc etc).
After all that fun stuff we took the mini train all around Darling Harbour and then got let off near the park where we were going to have lunch and let the kids play until we caught the bus back. Well Jenni told us to go have lunch on our own and be back in like 30 minutes or so. That was cool by me! So we took off and went and bought a salad and then watched some really cool singing / music by a Bahrainian group, I think it was a promotion for a new airline. After that we headed back over to where the kids were, got all packed up and we started heading over towards where the bus was. We stopped and were just hanging out for a bit in a shady area near where we were to be picked up. There was a massive ferris wheel there and the guy let everyone on for free! How awesome is that!!! Reg $12 each! Cool! So even Tunes got on for free! Cool views on that thing. After our ride we boarded the bus and headed home. end of story.

It's Official

Dear Brian,
I refer to your application for employment as a teacher with the New South Wales Department of Education and Training, and subsequent interview on 17-09-2009.
I am pleased to advise that you have been recommended as suitable for employment as a teacher in NSW public schools and the processing of your application will proceed if all required supporting documentation has been received.
You are invited to apply for an interim casual teaching approval as soon as you have completed your final professional experience. Recall your application here to commence this process.
Make sure you read teach.START for up to date information about the graduate recruitment program.
We will forward your final approval as soon as we receive a final transcript from your university.
Regards,teach.NSW

How good does that feel?! Good enough to make this discomfort of being 2:33:20 into a 4 hour trainer ride disappear! At least momentarily.

It's odd that I get an internet connection down here so that's pretty cool too!

Today I'll finish off 4 hours on the bike (if the tire holds up) and a 30 min run right after and then chill out, get some prac stuff done and start some planning for the end of the year issues. :) Most important training session of the year baby!!!!!!!!! Watching 2004 Tour De France.

It's all sorta coming to an end! Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

A week of prac and Halloween

I had an awesome week of prac! This week my theme was the winter Olympics. We had an opening ceremony, lessons on hockey, bobsled, skiing/snowboarding, mascots, paralympics and medals. They all went pretty well (expectations can't be terribly high).

I also planned and implemented a week of reading groups and a few maths lessons. Did more teaching than my prac teachers! (Jenni and Tracey)

I also managed 7.5 hours of training (hopefully more this week). Did 1 hour of cycling on Monday and increased that by 15 minutes each morning til I was at 2 hours by Friday morning.

Yesterday was Halloween. There was a party at a "Canadian" house but I'm happy to say that Jared, Julia and I WEREN'T there. :) Not a fan of most of these Canadians that are here, they're friggin' weiners and it's scary that some of 'em are going to be teachers. Not people I want to socialize with. We had a great day though yesterday nonetheless.

I did 3 hours of cycling immediately followed by a 30 minute run. Ate and then Jared came over and we went out to the beach for 2:30 - 4. Crashed some MAJOR huge waves which was a blast then just chilled out on the beach tannin' up. Nice and relaxing! The awesome weather is finally back. After that we came home, met up with Tune and the three of us left here at about 5ish, walked down to Jared's to pick up a couple DVDs and then walked around North beach and the Harbour for a bit and then eventually up to a Pizza place called "Crust". They have UNBELIEVABLE pizzas. We each had a medium (kinda like a small back home). Mine had lamb, bocconcini cheese, veggies etc... awesome. We took them back down to South beach and ate 'em down there as it got dark. We finally got back home at about 8:15PM and just chilled out and watched a couple of SNL DVDs that Jerry picked up for $5 each at the Reject Shop. I started passing out at about 9:30 and was out by 10PM. Slept in til 5:30AM and looking forward to a similar day today! Except less outside stuff unfortunately, as I have a tono f planning to do for this week, otherwise I'll be killing myself every night after school. I'm going to go for a 2.5 horu run this morning and an hour on the bike, then maybe hit the beach til early/mid afternoon but then it's pure planning stuff for the rest of the day. This week's theme is famous Canadians. :) I think tomorrow I'll do a lesson on theinteractive whiteboard, introducing Ray and showing some videos of him.

OK, gotta get this party started! Summer is here! It's 6:30AM and SUUUUUUNNNNNNYYYYY!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Krazy Kinders in Kanada

That's a pretty neat title isn't it?

I had one HECK of a week of prac! It went by SO fast and I had a blast with the kids. Lots of planning and lots of work but I made it to the weekend and have a chance to catch my breath. I'm planning ahead big time for this upcoming week. Most of the planning I do is centred around my own themed unit. We're doing a unit on Canada. So basically, during these 5 weeks, we'll be learning all about Canada and doing a ton pof activities related to that topic (as well as a Sea Creature theme ran by my supervising teachers). Last week I did the intro where I gave them airplane tickets and we boarded our plane and flew to Canada (watched a couple of videos on Canada, and discussed the whole idea of our Canadian Travels.) Then I gave them a "My Canada Scrapbook" which we will fill up throughout the unit with activities they do. So far we've listed some animals and drawn our favourite, and wrote the title "Winnie the Pooh" and drew him. THIS WEEK IS GONNA BE AWESOME!!!!!!!!
My them for this week is the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. I've planned 7 lessons that we'll do throughout the week and it's going to be SO MUCH FUN!

Lesson 1:
intro, so them the website on the interactive whiteboard (awesome technology) and then have a mock opening ceremony where they will "march" back to class, each representing a country as if they were walking into the stadium! Hahahaha, that's gonna be AWESOME!

Lesson2:
entry in scrapbook "Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics", draw rings and design their own mascot. We will have looked at the mascots in the lesson 1, which is on the same day.

Lesson 3:
hockey! All about it, at the olympics, watch a couple short videos and then they can play it on the computer, found a free online game.

Lesson 4:
Paralympics. Explore the sports of the paralympics and discuss different types of disabilities etc.
Maybe go outside and have them blindfolded and leading each other.

Lesson 5: Bobsleigh. Watch a couple vids from cool runnings (funny), discuss and then have them line up as if they were in a bobsled and show a virtual ride video I found on youtube. should be funny.

Lesson 6:
Speed skating, skiing, snowboarding.
Not completely finished yet, but they have a famous Aussie athlete who won gold in 2002 (total fluke but whatever) so I'll show that youtube video.

Lesson 7:
Discuss medals and placing and such. Crative arts activity where they design and create their own medal. gonna get some white ribbon and make a little cardboard medal that they can decorate. THEN I will have a mock podium set up and I'll have them stand on the number one spot, wear a laurel wreath and i'll take their photo. Medals will go on the "Canada wall" and photos will be developed and they can pasted them in their books on Monday. How funny will that be?!?!?!

Anyways, so that's my week of Canada stuff. On top of that I need to plan a series of lessons/activities with the letters CEO (I chose that group because "Hockey" Vancouver" "Olympics") and a group of words and such. SHOULD BE SOOOOOO MUCH FUUUUUUN!!! And maths is on Mass. I made a work sheet already for one station. They'll be estimating what's heavier by hefting. I'm using my IMC medal, canada pencil, canada patch, glue stick, calculator and stapeler. gotta do a few more of those for the week. I also got my hands on a copy of that popular Canadian book "The Hockey Sweater"... remember that one? Really old, the one about the kid who's a Canadiens fan but his jersey is all ratty so he gets a new one as a gift but it's a Leafs one... yadda yadda yadda... that should be good. haha

Week 4 we're going to the Sydney aquarium! Wednesday the 11th of November. That'll be a blast!

This weekend i did 3 hours of cycling Sat and Sun! Woo WOOOOOOO!!! The legs are WRECKED! But I feel goooooood!

All this planning is so that I'm not doing it every day after school. I want to get as much done and organized during the week so the weekdays I can get to bed early, and up early to train! This week and next are two important weeks for IM training. 6 weeks left!

Jubes is workin' her little bee-hind off of course. Napping as we speak before she goes in to work at the buffet.

Gotta go to Bunnings now to looks for some resources. :)

Shortest yet i bet

Yesterday was utter chaos! First day of prac. So much going on my head is still spinning this morning!

Today, day 2, I'm teaching 3 x 45 minute lessons. 2 of my Canada unit and one maths one. I spent the better part of 6 hours yesterday AFTER school preparing, as well as this morning (with some help from the Tuna).

We'll see how she goes!

A Mohawk, a Moustache and a lot 'o fun!

I have a feeling this one’s gonna be long, but it’s 6:30PM now and I start prac tomorrow morning.

As my taper week drew longer I started to get all the usual self-doubt and nervousness that goes along with tapering. Then I went to pick up our car on Saturday morning and the one they showed me had a brutally small trunk. 4 people and a bike are travelling to Canberra and you give me THIS?! It all worked out though, I just had to take off both wheels and the seat. I should mention that Friday evening the Mohawk was carved, and the following morning Jared carved himself one fine moustache, and the theme for the weekend was created, M&M. Anyways, we got to Canberra with no dramas this time! Straight up 3 hours with like 4 pee breaks and 1 stop for directions (but we WERE on the right track anyhow). We got into Canberra and went straight down to the race site so I could check in and get my bib number and cap (had to do that between 12 and 2). Then we went back to the hotel for just after noon but we couldn’t check in til after two so we went to the Australian War Memorial (museum). Real cool stuff actually, lots of real artifacts (no shit) and we saw some soldiers’ journals from I believe December 14th, 1914, during WWI. Crazy, not unlike grampa’s. After the museum we headed straight over the Australian Institute of Sport for a guided tour (by a paralympic swimmer) of the facilities. That was pretty awesome too to see where all these elite athletes train. Wouldn’t that be the life, genetics are a bitch. J So anyways, completely random but when the guy was asking where everyone was from a couple of other girls in our little group (like 15 of us total) were from Ottawa! Nuts, didn’t get their full story though. Oh well. After the museum we headed back and checked in, pounded some pasta and then went out for groceries, drove up to some lookout, that sucked ass, and they wanted to charge you for the good views. After that we drove the bike course real quick to give me an idea of what it was all about (2 x 40k loop, so we only had to drive 40k to know it). Got back to the hotel, ate a little more and watched some home alone 2 and retired for the evening. Out like a light around 9PM. Up to take a pee at 2:45AM and couldn’t get back to bed, crazy race thoughts going through my head. I laid there til 4AM when my alarm went off and got up to do all the normal race morning pizzazz. The morning was pretty uneventful and we got out only 5 minutes late! Well done Lee and Julia!! J

Got to race site at 7AM and got all my stuff into transition and set up. Went out for a quick ride on the bike, and a quick jaunt in the runners. All is good. Got the wetsuit on and headed down to the terribly cold water to figure out this poorly marked 2.2K course. Got a half decent idea of the route and figured I could follow some other people as well. I know some people switched to the duathlon (we had the option because of the water temperature being so cold) but our group wasn’t too too big, but hopefully I could find some mediocre swimmers to follow. J Well we got to goin’ and soon enough the fast guys were just GONE. I followed their splash and the yellow buoy way off in the distance as best I could for as long as possible. Finally I noticed a couple more guys around and we pretty much worked the rest of the course together (turns out there were 4 of us total, one just hung at the back the whole time). Out of the water in under 41 minutes! Wicked! This is s low budget race so they just have the dudes with stopwatches and look at your bib number, and he was sitting halfway up the shoot to transition. I was on my bike and on the road by 43:xx. AWESOME! My goal was 45 minutes to on bike time. The guy who was racked right beside me was in my group and we had a quick chat about cold water, numb feet and arm warmers, wished each other good luck and ran out of transition together to each start our 80K ride. Well he went off ahead and I just sorta kept him in my sight. Eventually I got into a rhythm, despite freezing cold muscles, and started picking up my speed and caught up to him and passed him, he said something to me (not sure what) but I just kept on goin’. After about another 5K on an uphill he went by again, but not with much conviction, so I knew I could keep him in my sights for a while and pace off him. Long story short we did this together for 80K of riding. Couldn’t have asked for a better situation, but I GUARANTEE you there was no drafting on either of our behalfs so don’t even go there! I heard his wife tell him he was 15th out of the swim, so I was 16th. Anyways, on the course there’s this sick downhill (a nice longy) where I hit 60K!/hr! And then you have to hit the breaks towards the bottom of it because you go kinda sharp right, cross a bridge and climb a Muskoka-esque hill. Not too bad, but gets ya outta the saddle for a few mins of grindin’. Got up that and there’s a few more rollers on the way out. The rest of the ride is just ROLLIN’ ROLLIN’ ROLLIN’. I definitely underestimated it, thought it was a lot flatter than that, but it was still achievable. It was a mixed bag of country road, city road, city highway and nice parkway, over brides, under bridges, shitty pavement that makes your whole core rattle and pavement as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Long story short (well it wasn’t really short by any means) we moved up to 7th and 8th overall!
It was great to see Tunes, Jerry and Bingy again! A nice little pick me up before 20k of running. The first few k were dedicated to getting into a rhythm and finding the running legs, or something that resemble them. My swimming/riding buddy went out pretty fast and I figured he was just a really good runner so I let him go and before I knew it he had about 200m on me. After a while though he wasn’t getting a bigger lead, we were pretty much just goin’ the same pace. Soon I was AROUND 4:30s and just got in a groove. Caught him after the first lap (10k) and we ran the second lap shoulder to should ALMOST in complete silence, Mark Allen and Dave Scott (sorry to say I was the Mark Allen of the early years). Incredible feeling to just run literally shoulder to shoulder the whole way (almost) for the second lap. We got passed by two people (I think, results aren’t up yet) on the run, but then there was NOONE for a long time after us, and we just pushed each other. I think we just paced each other and kept each other honest the whole way. I felt terrible a couple times and just keeping him on my right shoulder kept me goin’. At 15k I was almost ready to let him go, but just shut my brain up and kept goin’ with him for as long as possible. On a short in and out I saw a guy who was about 350m behind us (that was around 17k). We continued on and at about the 18k mark I just said “I can’t hang with you man, I gotta let ya go”. Bad idea? Maybe in retrospect, but I was feeling kinda terrible and couldn’t hold his pace, and didn’t wanna blow up and lost to him AND have the guy catch me from behind in the last couple k. I let him get away and slowed down a wee bit and just kept checking behind for the next guy. My buddy went out about 30m ahead but again, at 19k I felt good for a second so just “hammered” and slowly reeled him back. As we approached the finishing shoot he had about 10m on me, turned right into the chute and looked back at me sprinting at him and he sprinted down the chute and beat me by about a second! Unbelievable experience to have swam, biked and literally ran the race with him. Again, it was great to see the three amigos at the finish! They were proud of me! Hahaha.... had some water and banana and orange and watermelon. I was 3rd in the 20-29AG! Dunno how many were even in my group, could’ve been 3, but the winner of the race was 20-29 so there were some fasties in my group for sure. It was pretty neat to get a trophy!
After a few minutes I grabbed my stuff from transition, we packed up the car, I changed real quick and then we were on the road, homebound.

I must say the entire weekend was just awesome. Great friends and my best friend in the whole world were there to support me and just have a good time. Can’t thank Jared, Lee and Tunes enough for their support this weekend. Have to thank Michelle Majovsky who always supports me too in these sort of things and have to admit that i thought of her a couple of times out on the run when it was tough, didn’t wanna disappoint her! Thought of mom and dad a lot too, who are probably my biggest supporters apart from of Julia. Definitely gotta give a big shout out to Marco also who was the inspiration for both the Mohawk as well as the overall mental attitude for the weekend. The man sets the bar pretty damn high and I look forward to getting my ass smashed all over Muskoka and Peterborough next year!

3 Days to go

Til race day! They're gonna check the water temp tomorrow and make a final decision about the swim. If it's ~15C the swim will probably proceed, but if they feel it poses a serious health risk to participants then they'll change it to a duathlon and replace my swim with a 5k run before the bike. I'd prefer to swim I think. I wanna race a tri. This morning I went down to that pool at the harbour that you can see when you see the famous Wollongong photo and swam, it ocean water, salty and chilly, but i was wearing my wtsuit so it wasn't half bad. We'll see what they do, either way I can't wait to let 'er rip!

Tomorrow morning I have my last test in this program. Last day at uni. wow. Then we leave Saturday morning and we'll be back and I'll be in prac before I know it! Then 5 short weeks and I'll be a teacher! I'm excited for prac but realize it'll be a lot of work. I really wanna try some different things with the kids and come up with some good ideas.

It's Thursday evening now. Gonna do a little more studying this evening and start preparing for tomorrow and the weekend! Wooooo hooooooooooo!!!!!!

Holla... I'm a schola!

haha. But seriously, I'm getting really good marks this term! So far a 68%, 72% x 2, 74%, 84% x 2 and 85%! Not too shabby eh? I'll say. One more test on Friday and then 5 week prac starting next week! Wow. It's come and gone! Where'd it go? It's crazy, last term is just starting to sink in!

I race this weekend! I'm pretty excited about it as I feel as though I'm really fit and can race fast, so lets keep our fingers crossed!!!!

Also, great email from Aunti Terri out in Perth, sounds like they're gonna take great care of us when we're there! The excitement is starting to build BIG time for this adventure of a lifetime! Christmas on a beach?! Oh ya baby! We'll be somewhere southern Queensland/northern New South Wales by then.

So that's it for today I guess. Onward and upward!

A week's worth

Really? Since Monday. Thanks for the reminder mom!

This week has just been really busy I guess.

Me:
I'm tapering for Canberra, a 2 week taper this week at 12 hours, next week 8 hours plus the race. Bad news was it's looking like it will PROABLY be a duathlon as the water temp is still too cold to go ahead with swims. Kinda crappy, but I still look forward to racing fast on the bike and run.

I've been rockin' through these assignments. Handed in HSIE on Wednesday. Finished PDHPE yesterday (due Monday), Art is more than half due (due Tuesday) Learners with special needs has beens tarted (due Wed) and then I'll study for the test next Friday in Quality Teaching. I'm also still working on ideas for this "Canada" unit for prac. So that's pretty much what I've been doing. Lots of school stuff. Weather this whole week has been crappy-ish. Decent in the morning, but chilly, then clouds over in the afternoon and rains/t-storms over night. People are saying this is the coldest it's been here in forever. Greeeeeeeat.

I'm listening to the sens game right now at the computer lab at school, between lecture and tutorial.

Julia is working her little tail off. Yesterday she started at 6AM and finished after 2PM, over 8 hours on feet at a "go-go-go" pace. She was hamemred by the time she got home, and had a fly in her eye. I made her lunch and she slowly came around, but went to bed uber early.

Last night I watched a show about the gang wars in Melbourne. The real story behind the "Underbelly" tv series.

Not really much more to say. It's just a countdown every day. Every day is a day closer to prac, a day to close to my race, a day closer to being done, a day closer to Ironman and a day clsoer to our travels.

OH! I did get an email from Auntie Terri. Wow, I have a feeling we're going to be SPOILED rotten! She's going to pick us up from the airport, and then has a place booked in or near Busselton. We'll have to buy them a gift or take them out to dinner to thank them!

The Ironman World Championship in Kona is this weekend. 2 days away! I'm excited to follow it. The men's race will be INSANE! So many top guys, past champions and really fast young guys. It'll be really cool. I can't wait to get there one day.

That's it really. What else is there to say? We do groceries most days, walk around and make jokes.

My quality teaching lecturer is a friggin' joke. Absolutely terrible and can't believe she's banking the paycheque she is for the "quality" she puts out.

Another Entry, Another Title

I wonder what will come of all these blog entries. I mean, will we actually read them all, or will it all just end up in a heap somewhere, never to be looked at again? Interesting. Regardless, I've enjoyed writing them to date, it's definitely been one constant all year long!

Today it's crap out, weather wise. Rainy all day. I did a wicked hour and a half on the trainer this morning. REAL hard. 20 minute warm-up, then an hour at ~38km/h! Overall average was 36.3km/hr! Woot woot! The power is there. The taper is on folks!

Jubee worked today. 5 horus @ ~$44/hr! Gotta love public holidays here! she's napping now and then the three musketeers are going to go for a walk. ONE MORE TIIIIIIME!

I got some homework done today. For PDHPE class we have to write up a unit plan. I'm doing one on nutrition! Gonna be for year 5. So far my activities include a crossword (which I made) a nutrition based scategories game (which I made) an advertisement for a healthy food item that they choose, where they have to convince us to buy it, some internet games that I found, a cooking lesson (still in the works) and a diet journal (5 day, that we will analyse).

TODAY I OFFICIALLY REGISTERED FOR IRONMAN WESTERN AUSTRALIA!

It's on! 9 weeks to go. I have my week by week training schedule up on the wall. 9 weeks! I can't wait!

Had a good/quick skype with mom and dad this morning also! Saw Lucas too which is always great! Can't wait to get home and see Sierra!

We have enough airmiles to fly to Vancouver return in low or high season for one of us. 1700 more and we can both go in low season. :) We'll get there in a year or so! We were also thinking Newfoundland though. not sure yet. :) I know I know, we need to get home and start paying off debt, don't worry, the priorities are in check.

Ok that's it.

Oh yeah, maybe skype Ray tonight.

October-bike-fest!

Holy, it's Ocotober 3rd! I can't believe it's already October! I mean I can, but it's just all flying by! I'm sure I'll have written that 100 times before we leave, but seriously, this year is like a blurr!

I got some real good school work done yesteutay (no training) and today had an amazing workout. Yesterday, Jared and I joined Lee on her way up to Sydney to drop her mom off at the airport. I had Lee stop off at a store in Taren's Point to pick up some bodyglide, as they don't really stock it in many places.

Today I had one of those workouts that I'm sure I'll look back on when I'm really hurtin' in a couple of weeks, or more importantly in December. It was 3.5 hours on the trainer, then a 50 minute run. I had a bunch of movies prepped on youtube (cuz I don't get internet in the basement) and some other podcasts downloaded to listen to. Long story short, after an hour it was all out the window and all I had for 2.5 horus was my Ipod! That was a mental grind. But I got through it and ended up with 121km on the bike, then immediately went out for my 50 minute run. Light rain, nice and cool, perfect for running. I felt awesome. For having done that much cycling, I felt fantastic! I couldn't believe it. Makes me real excited for Canberra.

Then, Jared and I went to the Library (returned 5 DVDs, took out 5 more (3 on soccer, one on Perth and one on 9/11) and to Wooly's and the Reject Shop.

now I'm just eatin', gonna do some homework for a bit then Jared's coming back over and we're going to watch that 9/11 movie. Should be coooool!

ok. That's it. I'm starin' at a big ole bowl of pasta with cotto and pepper. DELIGHTFUL!

It's not about the Bike

That's the title of a Lance Armstrong book. talking about hi fight with cancer, putting things in perspective. Meaning that cycling isn't the be all and end all of life. I just had the biggest bike volume month ever. Last year was my biggest ever, at just under 29 hours, this month I did 37.5 hours. That includes a 5 day stretch that we were in Gold Coast and I COULDN'T bike. 37.5 hours and almost 1300km in September, plus all my running and swimming. 37.5 hours in the dungeon, just me, my thoughts, some youtube videos, some good tunes and a few podcasts of interviews with ironman athletes. A 3:00 ride, a 3:15 ride and a 4:00 ride were amongst those, all with at least a mile of running afterwards, just to see how the legs will feel. I find for triathlon, the more I bike, the better I run in the race. Basically, if my legs are less tired after cycling I can run better. Makes sense no? Since mid May I've put in a total of 126.5 hours of cycling, 4038km. ALL on the trainer. Not a single km of that was on the road. WOW! I WILL do some riding on the road before my race, just to get the feel of the bike a bit better. I do ride a mountain bike to and from school at least once a day, that's about 5k per day every day of just commuting, but I don't count that as training. So at least I have that feel for the road still. I rode the bike a bit outside today and it felt awesome, but I DO want to get in a ride or two of at least an hour or two to really tune into how I will feel in the race. I have so many memories of training on the bike. My bedroom in Stittsville, basement in Stittsville, pretty sure even the family room in Stittsville once or twice, the workout room at Daly, Living room in Huntsville, Shillolos' basement in Katrine, now here. Incredible! I love it! I just can't believe all these adventures I've been on over the past three years with this training. So many memories of running, cycling and swimming in different places, not to mention the races and adventures. I've ran all over Ottawa and area, Huntsville, Katrine, Penticton, Peterborough, Florida, Bali, Sydney to Wollongong, Blue Mountains, Gold Coast, Canberra etc etc... I've ran on countless treadmills. Each experience means something different. I have memories from Stittsville treadmill, YMCA treadmill, UO Sports Complex treadmills, Shillolos' treadmill, Deerhurst treadmill, UOW treadmill... frig, I'm like a Gerbil!

I'm babbling now, and it's not even relevant to this Aussie adventure... I just enjoy reflecting on this stuff that has consumed my life over the past 3.5 years, because looking at where I've been and what I've accomplished helps with dreaming about where I might go from here. Speaking of which, I MAY skype with Ray tomorrow or Friday, we'll see though. :)

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting Jared at 6:50AM at the lights at Bourke and Flinders. We'll ride over to the gym together and he'll hit weights while I swim for an hour, in my wetsuit! My brand new wetsuit that I WON almost exactly a year ago! It'll be good to practice swimming in the wetsuit, as I will be racing in it in a couple of weeks!

Tomorrow is October. HOLY CRAP! A little over 7 weeks and I'll be a bonifide teacher!

Today, in brief

Wake up 4:30AM

Workout started at 7AM. 2.5 hours on the bike, watched Tour De France video that I got at the Wollongong Library. Immediately after that I ran for an hour, 13.44km, or 4:27/km, solid.

Chilled out, did a bunch of homework.

Walked over to Leisure Coast Fruit Market, along the cycleway out to Fairy Meadow, then cut up to Flinders.

Lots of kiwis! 21 for $4. About 12 pears, 12 apples, 3 red peppers, 5 oranges, some bananas and some zuchinni... $18 for all of that (including the kiwis!)

Now we're watching a story about ancient Egypt.

Tomorrow AM swim and afternoon bike, and plenty of homework.

Tired.

More flights being booked. Now is Syd - Perth at end of November.

Peace.

A highly ABNORMAL past 24 hours

Well, the last post was meant to kind of describe a SOMEWHAT average day in the life of Tunes and I here. For me, these PAST 24 hours have been WHACK!!!

********* CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING MAY BE DISTURBING FOR SOME

So yesterday the wind was still SUPER intense and I didn't want to fight that wind for 1:45 of running, that would just be frustrating. So I decided to go to the gym and get in whatever I could on the treadmill. Jared would meet me there and we would eat lunch together after our workouts. So I got there a little before him because my workout was going to be longer than his. I got there and got running and felt ok, but had to pee. Got off after 30 minutes and went to the toilet, to see what I could "get out". :) Back on the treadmill for 10 minutes, then had to pee. Back on for another 10 minutes and had to pee AGAIN! FRIG MAN! So I'm at 50 minutes. Back on and got in 25 minutes! Had to pee. BACK ON! And finished off the last 30 minutes. The last 8 minutes were hell on earth, my guts were all messed, but I got through it. NAILS! We ate lunch and I came home. The evening was pretty chill, I planned the next ten weeks of training leading up to Ironman Western Australia! I also called my prac teacher and scheduled a meeting for today with her and the other teacher I'll be working with. That was great, she seems super nice!
Anyways, that 1:45 on the treadmill really took it out of me and I was pounding water to stay hydrated and speed recovery. The evening was typical, Jared came over and we watched some TV and stuff and he was gone by 8:30PM. I got ready for bed and slowly shut it down. I was going to go meet Julia at work to walk her home at 9:30 but she got off early, and was walking in the door as I was getting ready to walk out! I made her an egg cake and got myself ready for bed and got stuff ready for today. I was in bed and passed out in no time.

THIS IS WHERE IT GETS DISTURBING, THIS IS THE POINT OF NO RETURN FOLKS!

Remember how I drank a lot of water? I knew that would mean I would be getting up many times during the night to go pee. Well I did once, but then woke up in the morning at the sound of my alarm. huh... I got up and thought to myself that I didn't really get up in the night to go pee much and I didn't have to then either! Weird. Well maybe I'll go anyways, 'cause I'm sure I can get some out... WHAT THE?! I PISSED THE BED! Hahaha. WEIRD! Seriously. Weird because I had a dream that I was peeing at a rest stop on a car trip and had to change my clothes there. AS IF I DID THAT! And not just a dribble... drenchage! GROSS! Am I 4? haha. Young at heart, young at bladder. Oh well, piss happens I guess.

So I planned on swimming today. It's chilly today, on account of all this wind, which is still pretty fierce. I got ready and got to the pool where I met Jared. He was going to hit chest while I swam for an hour and then we would meet up out front in the eating area and knock back breakfast. As I checked in and got my token for the pool, the girl was like "are you serious?" I was like "ya, why?" she says "the water is like 21 degrees! and so windy!!!". Meh, I'm Canadian, I can handle it. NO I CAN'T!!! I jumped in, it was cold but not TERRIBLE! Breathing was a little tougher but i got through the hour with relative ease. I was a bit slower today, but that's ok. It's Monday and I had a big weekend of training. I got out and it was COLD! I dried off ASAP and changed into my warm clothes, but couldn't shake these shakes! I was shaking, I was freezing. Jared told me my face looked purple. YEESH. Shaking, shaking, shaking. I couldn't focus either and felt light headed. I hadn't eaten anything in the morning but I never do before training. I tried to eat my breaky but felt terrible. I went into the change room and jumped in the shower, got it hot as heck, but goosebumps remained. I was in there for 10 minutes and don't think it did much. I got out and figured I just had to keep moving, keep the heart pumpin'! That was a terrible half hour. As we biked home I slowly came around and by the time I got home I was ok. That was an hour ago, I'm still wearing my toque. WEIRD! Hypothermia in Australia! haha

OK, that's it. Hopefully the next 24 horus are more normal. I gotta rock 2 hours on the bike (we'll see) and meet my prac teachers in a couple hours.

I'm also going to get going (continue) on some assignments that are due in the next couple of weeks. Off classes this week, but it's a great chance to get a head start on this crap. :-)

PS - Don't tell anyone I peed my pants!

The last 24 hours, a day in the life

Figured it would be good to run through a "typical" day of my life here in Wollongong. It won't be so typical, as I wasn't at school and there was little to no academia at all to be honest, but everything else was pretty normal, well, for the most part.

Yesterday, got up at 4:30 AM, as per usual. Had my coffee and oatmeal, as per usual. Jubee boobee got up at 5AM, as per usual (lately), and had her coffee and oats/banana/cinnamon. she got ready for work and I got ready for my workout. She left to get to work for around 7AM. I was on the bike at 7:30AM. I stayed there until 11:30AM. YES! 4 hours on the trainer! KILL ME! It almost did. Well to be honest, I was thinking and that 4 hours DEFINITELY seemed a lot easier than what I remember about doing it last year. Last year, in Huntsville I rocked a 4 hour ride on the trainer. I got 120km JUST BARELY. I remember dying so bad towards the end and barely being able to hold on, going slower than 30km/hr. Yesterday I averaged 34km/h overall and hit 136km! SOLID! AND last year I had my computer, TV, movies, music on the stereo, was on the ground floor and had plenty of sunlight. Yesterday, I was in the dungeon, had my computer which DOESN'T get internet, no movies, listened to podcasts of triathletes and some music on the ipod and stared at myself in a mirror, surrounded by brick walls in the dungeon basement! That's a workout for the mind just as much as the body! AND THEN! Right when I finished I jumped off and within 45 seconds was running, full-out in my bike shorts and no shirt around the neighbourhood for a quick transition run. Overall it felt great. I got back, showered up and made myself a meal and Jubers walked in from work. DAMN THAT WORKOUT WAS LONG! We both at and then decided we would take naps. She came upstairs to shower up and take a nap, I decided to pass out on the couch watching some AFL finals. Then, for some reason I turned to SBS One and this show was on about a painter. Sam Dillemans, it was called "The Madness in the Detail". I was HOOKED! He's Belgian and was speaking like German or Dutch or whatever they might speak, had hints of french in it, not quite sure, but there were subtitles. Well I didn't sleep. I watched that and then came up to the computer and started searching for stuff about him. I wanted to get a copy of the show to watch it again, it was THAT good. Weird, I know. So Tunes got a good nap in, me not so much. Oh, I also had homemade popcorm yesterday while watching TV, two things that DEFINITELY are not "typical", haha. So then Jubes got up around 4 and started doin' her thing again, gettin' ready for round two, night shift at the buffet. She left around 5:05 and I chilled out for a bit, then Jared came over. I ate my dinner and we went for a walk from about 6 - 7PM. Down to the harbour and it started raining, but luckily only for a short while and nothing too intense, so we got our hour walk in. We have some great convos on those walks of ours. Training, politics, war, school, television, sports, etc etc. After our walk we each ate a little more and watched some random videos on youtube. Girls fighting and public farting, real mature stuff. :)

He went home around 8 ish and I came upstairs and pretty much passed out right away. Jubes came home after work and the wind was INCREDIBLE! (Still is) She got ready pretty much straight away and got in bed. I was awake at 4:26AM. Uh oh, my internal clock officially knows!!
The ususal, coffee and oats, Jubes up at 5 and the same. We skyped with Nanny at her 90th birthday party! That was great to see her! She looks awesome and seems like she was having a blast! of course she asked if I remember jumping from the stairs into her arms when I was little, I think she asks that everytime I see her now. :) I'll have to spend more time with her when we get back. She's gone to work now, pretty similar work day to yesterday for her, but she ends earlier. I'm supposed to run 1:45 today, but that wind is murder. I decided to go into school with Jared and hit the treadmill, haven't ran on a treadmill in ages, should be fun! Today I'm also going to call my prac teacher on her cell phone and set up a time to meet this week. I'm getting excited to get to meet her and the kids and get planning!

Ray and I should have a skype date set for Thurs/Fri.

Not a very "typical" day I guess, moreso for Tunes than I.

(Jesus, these winds are incredible!!!)

All over

My mind...

Last night Jared called and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I was in for sure, never pass up an opportunity for a walk around town. So he swung by as per normal but didn't come in, just waited for me at the door. I knew something was up right away 'cause he's normally all upbeat and comes in and chats everyone up. So I just got ready to head out. He handed me a piece of paper. It was his mark from a presentation (he got 6/15). It sucked, but he didn't fail by much and there was another component to the assignment that was out of 35 and I'm sure that helped him out huge. I had a feeling that wasn't really what was bothering him. I mean failing sucks, but it was different sorta vibe for sure. So we headed out for a walk and I asked him what was up and he pretty much broke down and told me that his dog died the night before. Terrible feeling. He had that dog for 13 years. I can understand because I know how close I am with Lucas and I would be devastated if he died and was gone while I was here and I didn't get to see him one last time. He was pretty upset and understandably so. I tried my best to comfort him but I mean what do you say really? Anyways we walked around for a bit talking about it all and then parted ways. I hope he's feeling better today, 'cause he's the one that makes the rest of us happy most of the time with his joking nature and just always upbeat energy about him.

Today I trained. WOW, who's surprised?! I did an hour/hour brick. One hour on the trainer out in the back and then an hour run around the usual spots. That run. UNBELIEVABLE! I'm going to have to take a camera with me one of these times and just randomly take pics as I run. I can't describe it. I run down to the start of our path at South beach and you kinda run up it from Corimal til you hit the top and can see the ocean. From there you go left and North along it. This morning was just one of those mornings. I got goosebumps. Thinking about it gives me goosebumps! It was a PERFECT morning. The sun was up and was shining off the water, which was calm, and the sky was just a perfect crystal clear blue. It gives me energy. I love it. I love it I love it I LOVE IT! I wish I could bottle it up and bring it home with me. I found a nice new little deviation that kinda brings me onto a road for a short part (Magpie driven deviation, though the magpie is gone from that part, but I'm still liking this for now) before connecting back to the path along Squires Way.

Made some changes to my bike today, just little tweaks here and there.

Jubers is at work, buffet hell on earth. She's a little workhorse that one! I love her to death for it!

I'm gonna start planning and organizing for my last 5 assignments that are in a couple of weeks.

I'm excited to race. I cut my hair down today also. I'll let it grow out until the day before we leave for Canberra ( 3 weeks-ish) then I'll cut a mohawk in it! :) That oughta be fun, haha.

So that's it for today I guess. Take home messages are: I hope Jared is feeling better today after talking to his parents last night. This place is un-fricken-believable. School is nearing the end! Training is spot on and I'm feelin' fast maaaaaan! Tunes is the best. Period. Full-stop.

Did you pass a windy?

Haha. Seriously. It's windy here. It's a "Red Dust Storm". FRIG. When we woke up this morning there was like an orange haze outside. crazy. I thought it was just fog with the sunrise, but turns out it was this red dust. Man-o-man did it make a mess! (as I write this, Jubes just passed a windy for real, jeez) So not thinking (the idiot I am) I biked to school to do my morning swim. We it's an outdoor pool, so clearly it was shut-down. DAMNIT! So I dropped off a textbook to a prof and came home. I was wearing a white hat. It was filthy by the time I got back home, and my skin was speckled with dust/dirt. Windy windy windy, all day. And it's gettin' in the house too. We can feel it as we breathe even. Intense. Jubes and I still went a paid rent and got groceries. Then at home I called Air New Zealand to rebook our return flights home, as we have to change the dates (we were told this when we originally booked last December). so I called Air New Zealand and after about 30 minutes, I got nowhere. The lady on the other end said she has to talk to some people at their office in LA or something. Frig, what a pain in the ass that was. Also, we were told it would be free but there may be a small airline fee when changing. Well A - there IS an airline fee, not sure exactly what yet, and B - there will be extra fees because they originally book your flight for beginning of November, but we have to rebook for December/January which is high season. Some people have said they had to pay an additional $138 Canadian. Whateva. We'll see what happens. I'm gonna fight and bitch as much as I can.

My HSIE thinking book is done. I hand that in tonight and then have a class Friday morning and then a week break. Well, a week break but I'll be doing other assignments that are due in the next few weeks. And i have to get in contact with my prac teacher and start planning for that. So really no "break", just a break from going to campus.

We're both really excited about our travels in December and January. It's something we know we'll never forget and something we've been looking forward to all year! Right now we're just doing a ton of research on how to make it as cheap as possible for travel and accomodations. We want to see and do a bunch of stuff, for free or cheap. :)I look forward to seeing the beauty of the east coast, beaches, the reef, rainforests etc etc etc. I look forward to seeing New Zealand, going sky diving. :) I look forward to meeting family and racing IMWA! There I said it. I REALLY am looking forward to racing. I haven't raced a triathlon in over a year! BOO. All these hours I've been putting in, down in the dungeon on my bike on the trainer. Hours and hours of sitting there, watching youtube videos (preloaded because I don't get internet down there) and just imagining myself racing. Frig. I'm dying to race. After that I have to sell my bike and whatever else I have with me there that's race specific (pump, bike computer, spare tubes etc etc) as a package deal. Also, in November I need to sell my bike trainer. I only paid $250 for it and it retails for $400, so maybe I can even get $300 for it! After I race, I look forward to just being.... calm, relaxed. I haven't felt relaxed for years. School and work and training and everything I take on, I haven't actually RELAXED and fully just soaked it all up in a long time. This whole year has been amazing, but I've been SO busy with stuff, it's like being at home, only not. I can't wait to sit on a beach, enjoy the view and just let my mind chill out. I had a glimpse of that at Byron Bay a couple weeks ago. I can't wait to run (randomly, no schedule) in all sorts of cooooool places. I can't wait to spend 5 weeks with my lil Tunes. Just her and me, me and her.

I look forward to getting home too!

See ya in a year!

WOW! I was doing the dishes a few minutes ago and was (again) thinking of returning home. Picturing what it'll be like at the airport, to see everyone. It'll be nice. I can't wait to see Sierra.
I want a hug that only mom can give me. I was thinking of when we left, those moments in the airport. I think I tried NOT to think of how long it was going to be. It's been a while! A WHOLE YEAR! It's gone by fast, but certain things make it seem long. I miss my family. I miss home. Don't get me wrong. I know I'll be at home in mid January, aft a week or two and be missing this place so much! I went for a run this morning at 7:20AM and almost melted.

It's gettin' HAWT! I did have an amazing run this morning. One of those runs where everything just felt ON. You know? I ran 15.7k in 1:10 and loved every minute of it. I had those early moments where it felt kinda tough, then it all came together for about 45 minutes it was effortless, and I could push harder and harder and it was just gooood. The first 35 minutes I ran it on 4:38/km, then the second half was 4:22/km. I feel great right now! These next two weeks are crucial for my racing. I gotta do some big volume and then I can taper for a couple weeks, race Canberra, come home and maintain for 7 weeks then kill Ironman! It feels good. It all feels so gooooood!

Also, we have to rebook our return flights. This is soemthing they told us when we originally booked. Because they can't book further ahead than a certain time, everyone's tickets were booked for a november 1st return. So we have to rebook for January. Apparently it's $138CAD each. Poopshoot. We were told it was free, apparently there are some weiner charges though.

I just gotta finish up this assignment that I have due tomorrow evening then class on Friday morning then I have a week off! Then 2 weeks of classes, 5 week prac and then with a little paperwork, I'm a teacher! BOO YA!

Ray mentioned chatting on skype. I don't hold my breath anymore. haha.

I'd like to give a real special shout out to Tunes. She working her little BEE-HIND off right now and making us lots of cheddar to be able to travel later in December. :)
I gotta go train!

100

This is my hundredth blog entry! Wow... we've been here a while. We've been reflecting a lot lately on this year. How fast it's gone. What we've enjoyed the most. What more we have to do and see. What we look forward to the msot whne we go home. How much we miss our families. How lucky we've been to live in this paradise. How lucky we are to have the families we do that have helped make this whole experience possible. I've been thinking a lot about how this experience, and all the experiences from this year has changed me. 100 blog entries is a lot of reflection, and it'll be cool to go back and read through all this mumbo jumbo I've typed out over the past year... and then next couple of months to come! I'll have to keep a pen and paper journal when we're travelling in December, as I won't have a comp at my disposal! Pen and paper! Immagine that!

Last entry I made was on Thursday, I just nailed my DET interview and was pretty ecstatic. Now I'm back oto reality, HSIE book due on Wednesday. It's a TON of work. And what's taking the most time is all this creative bullcrap we have to put into it. The academic content accounts for about 20% of the time allotment. It's brutal. Oh well, just one more thing to get through. Then I have a week off, then two weeks of lectures, then 5 weeks of prac and DONE. WOOOO! crazy

This week I also did two swim workouts, Wednesday and Friday. I'm gettin' better and better. Friday I did 1600m in 29:15, which is about 1:50/100m. If I can hold that over IM distance (3.8k) then I will take 8 minutes off last year's time! I THINK I will be able to. I still have plenty of time to train for it, and I'm always fast in a wetsuit, drafting off someone else in the water. Today I'm going to jump n the wetsuit down at the ocean and swim in that cool pool you see when you google Wollongong. It's in the famous wollongong photo of the harbour area. :)
Yesterday I had an epic brick workout. OK OK OK. I'm racing in 4 weeks. :) Canberra, 2.2k - 80k - 20k. It was cheap entry and two others are coming with to split costs, so not too expensive. Anyways, yesterday I bike for two hours on the trainer (72.5k)! at 36.25km/hr which is awesome pace, then rocked 15k run in 1:06 (or about 4:26/km), first ten k on about a 4:24/km pace, then slowed a bit. Really excited for this race! My goal is about 40 minutes in the water, 2:10 or faster on the bike and 1:30 on the run, plus transitions. Total goal is under 4:30.
I can't wait! I feel fit and want to test myself so bad!

Today is the Sydney marathon and a bunch of the girls are running various races in it. A few are running the 4k, some the 9k and one is running the half marathon. I'm excited for Michelle Majovsky who's running the half marathon. She's a great girl and has been getting into running more and more this year, taking on the 14k of city2surf and now this! She blames me.

Jubee boobee and I are starting to plan our end of year travels. We're thinking of getting a Jucy van, as it's transpo AND accomodations and we could buy groceries and keep them with us and we wouldn't have to worry about carrying our stuff everywhere. It ain't cheap, but when you consider that hostels are AT MINIMUM $30 - $35 per night each, it ain't half bad.

PS - I LOVED that video John sent of Lucas and Sierra! It was absolutely adorable! Made our week. :)

Sydney Adventure, with a purpose

Today I got up at my usual 4:30AM, though had a different focus for today. Today I was heading up to Sydney for my DET interview. I hopped an early train and got into Sydney just after 9AM. I went down to the harbour and circular quay and checked out the expo, pathetic. Really small, nothing really. Oh well. I banked on this taking about an hour of my time, but it was more like 3 minutes, so I had some time to kill. I biked around a bit but I was wearing dress clothes and it was stinky hot already so I didn’t wanna get too sweaty. I chilled out across from the opera house and had an apple and pear and just enjoyed it, smack dab between Sydney harbour bridge and the opera house, unbelievable. I gotta soak it all in! After that I bike up to a shop I had emailed and picked up some superfeet, hopefully these fix my ITB issue. After that i made my way up to Hyde Park, not far from where I needed to go, also not far from the train station. It’s a beautiful little park in the middle of downtown. I hung out there and ate another apple, another pear and some roo mince. MM MM.

I knew I was super early but I went up anyways (about an hour early) and checked in, as this is part of the procedure. The guy told me to chill out and come back at 11:30, for my 11:51AM interview. Cool, so I went back down and walked around a tad more and came back. There were 5 of us there for the 11:51Am round. The others were all girls, from a variety of Universities. I finally got to where I needed to be and met the two folks who were interviewing me. They first look over your prac reports, and your supporting documents and then you get called in and they start questioning you. I was nervous, but once I got into it I was good to go, calm as a cucumber. I started getting emotional, right off the bat, dunno why, kept it in check, but could feel it. They’re asking me where I see myself going with my teaching career and why I want to teach, and it’s a very personal thing I guess, I have big dreams and it’s hard to share them with people who may reject you, and who are there to criticize you, in a sense. Anyways, that went awesome and then all the questions I answered they were VERY pleased with, to say the least. All in all, I killed it! KILLLLLLLLED IT! I’m so happy wit how it went, and kind of relieved that it’s all over. I’m excited to get on with the rest of this thing, see it through and get goin’!

I’m on the way home now, I’m writing this on my laptop that I brought with me... the backpack was a little heavy you can imagine.

Gotta get home, see Tunes, train and work on some homework. Tomorrow morning is another swim workout with Jerry! I’m pumped for it! 1600M TT... Yesterday I did 1500M in 27:50, pretty good for me! Tomorrow I hope to get that 1600M in ~29:30. I’m going to keep building that up every workout til I hit 2.2k, and hopefully get that in under 40 minutes.
I’m curious when Mom and Dad are getting home. I thought it was around now, but I haven’t heard from them at all.

Big Day

BACK on the train to Sydney today! This ride is getting monotonous. Today I have to go up as I have an interview with the DET (department of education and training) of NSW. Should be ok. They ask me a bunch of questions (why do you want to teach? How will you cater for learners with different abilities? How would you go about planning a unit of work etc etc). I'm not terrible nervous, but a little bit... gotta be right?

My interview is at 11:51 (I'll be there for 11:30AM. I'm catching the 7:03AM train from here and get into Sydney at 8:30AM. Gonna go pick up some superfeet insoles for the shoes. I think I'mhaving these leg issues because I HAVEN'T had superfeet since about May, when this first started happening. Between those and stretching it like a mofo, I think I'll be aight.

ALSO! The Sydney marathon is this weekend. I'm not racing but the expo is on so I'm gonna just go check that out today too! That's down at Sydney harbour. Maybe I should check THAT out before buying them at the store that I know carries them.. hmmm.... expos are normally more expensive though, we'll see.

So I guess that's then. I'll do that stuff and head home right after my interview is done around 12:30.

Gold Coast Round 2

Wednesday

I had a presentation this morning, one that I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. It was our interactive tutorial on ADHD. That went pretty well I think and the brochure that I made was wicked good so that should be a great mark. I then rode as fast as possible to the train station to catch the 11:41AM train to the airport with Tunes She met me there, and was kind enough to bring all my stuff with her! That must’ve been one hell of a journey. We got here with little to no dramas, except Tunesy had an earache during the descent into Coolongatta and for a while afterwards. We met up with Alex, grabbed some groceries, had some roo burgers (obviously not Jubes) and went to bed.

Thursday

I got up early today and got a good run in, 17k. Ran from our place down past Surfers all the way to Southport, where all the tri stuff was happening... and back. Then we got cleaned up and Tunes and I headed down to the expo for a while. We met up with Alex and headed over to the team lunch. It was $20 a ticket, but a buffet and a chance to see Simon Whitfield. WHOA! Highlight of the trip! Not only did we SEE him, I met him, got a photo, he signed my IMC visor and he got pics taken with his medals! How amazing is that?! So after that we headed BACK to the expo for a bit, walked with Team Canada in the Parade of Nations, watched the opening ceremonies, and then caught a bus home. We went to bed straight away.

Friday

This morning I ran down to Thrifty and picked up the car that I had reserved. We planned to go up to Mount Tamborine, in the Hinterland. We went to the skywalk and walked around this beautiful rain forest on suspended bridges, really gorgeous nature and scenery. Then we headed back and found another cool trail that had a beautiful waterfall and some lizards along the way! After that we drove around for a bit, watched some people PREPARE to hang glide, but winds prevented them from going for a while and we BOTH grew impatient and left. There were still nice views up there though. J We drove into Nerang and found a grocery store to grab a few things while we had the car. I dropped Tunes off at the hotel and took the car back to Thrifty. We just chilled for the rest of the night, had some more roo burgers and hit the hay.

Saturday

Early rise! Volunteer day. We got up at like 3AM, as we had to be there at 5:30AM and we wanted to take care of all morning business before heading down. So we got there right around 5:30 and were assigned our jobs. We ended up marshalling pedestrian crossing on the course. SOME PEOPLE CAN BE DICKS! So we had to watch for athletes and let people go when it was clear. It was a HOT day and we were stupid heads because we didn’t have sunscreen. Needless to say we got BURNT! We were let off at 11:30 and went and grabbed more food and water from the volunteer tent. We ate for a bit and then headed over to the grandstand area at the finish to watch some age groupers finish off their races. It wasn’t busy so we got a real good spot right by the finish line. The elite men’s race was at 3:15PM, but we knew that we would have to save that awesome spot in the grandstands if we wanted to see the action up close and personal. Yes, we stayed there for 3 hours, baking in the sun. J Tunes went and got us food and I saved the spot, then I went to go pee and grab some more food from the volunteer tent (took advantage of that for sure!) As I was coming out of the tent Alex spotted me and we walked back to where Julia was together. So the three of us were just there chilling.. waiting. Apparently we were in the VIP section of the grandstands and they weren’t letting many people in. I was terrified that after all this waiting they’d boot us out, but they didn’t. We were in the PERFECT spot for all the action. We could see the swim from looking over the back of the grandstands, a little covered by trees, but not terrible. THEN, the transition zone is JUST on the other side of the finishing chute, so we were in PERFECT viewing area for that also. AND! The bike course was 8 x 5k, each time biking through the transition zone! WICKED! So every ~7 mins they came flying through in front of us, what action! Then on the run it was 4 x 2.5k! Again, running through transition! We saw ALLLL the action! Simon placed 8th, not terrible. Alistair Brownlee from GBR outran Javier Gomez from ESP for the win. Brownlee raced in 5 races this year and won ‘em all, unbelievable, and he’s 21! THIS WAS THE LONGEST DAY IN HISTORY! We were outside from before sunrise til after sunset! We didn’t get home til about 7:30 and went to bed almost straight away.

Sunday

We got up with the intention of going back for round 2 of volunteering but then bailed on the idea and decided just to go down and support Alex and take photos of him. That was a blast. I had his fancy camera and chased him around for an hour and fifteen mins and Julia chased ME around taking photos of him... and other stuff. J He did pretty decent! After his race, we chilled for a bit, bought our second ticket for the dinner that night ($30!) as we got one free. We got home and chilled out for a while, then I headed down and picked up our rental car for Monday. Around 5PM we left for the dinner. The food was a bit of a disappointment for $30, just a burger a mini meat pie and some other weird thing. So we chilled out for a bit and in the middle of this MASSIVE tent area we were in, there was a market going on. AMAZING to see, people from all sorts of countries all over the world, trading their team gear with each other. A funny sight to see a Mexican in a Canada vest with a New Zealand visor on. This went on most of the night. We watched some of the awards ceremony then went outside for some fresh air and a pee break. We were just chilling out there when Sister Madonna Budder came by to take a leak. This woman is incredible. 79 years old and still dong Ironmans! I met her at IMC last year and just grabbed a quick photo with her. After she was done peeing, Alex approached her and we chatted for a while. I had goosebumps, this woman is a legend! I’ve seen her all over most telecasts of Ironman races. She was saying that her goal is to race Kona this year and then IMC and Kona next year to open up the 80-84 age group at those races. How cool is that? After talking to her, Alex bailed and went back to the hotel. Tunes and I stayed for a bit longer, good thing as they started allowing seconds (and thirds for meJ ) of food. We watched some more awards, they did the draw for the bike (I didn’t win) and we headed home.

Monday

Another jam packed day! We were up at 3:30 AM as I told Alex I’d get him (and his big bike box) to the airport for 5AM as he had a 6:10AM flight to Sydney. So we dropped him off and then just kept heading South to Byron Bay. What a beautiful little town. It’s known as a hippy, laid back kinda town. We pulled up at the beach and Tuens dozed off again. I went for a run along the beach, 15 mins or so. Awesome way to start my day with a run at 6AM as the sun is coming up at the Easterly most point in Australia. After that we went for a walk, up to the “official” most easterly point, then to the lighthouse for some photos. Just GORGEOUS! We realize we have to appreciate what we’ve got. I appreciate home more now, also Daly and Huntsville. So much we’ve experienced in the past couple of years. We headed a little further south to Lennox Heads, saw some more amazing views and walked around (me barefoot) the town and saw some stuff. We THEN headed back up to Byron Bay and walked around the town for a while, looking AT the shops (not really in) and then had a coffee/mocha at “Twisted Sista”. After that we had another hour and a bit to kill before heading to the airport, so we took another walk along the beach, soaking it all up. Wow. We certainly appreciate this, but it’s incredible, we’re in paradise. So we got here at 4:40PM and I dropped off the car, sat down with 4 hours to kill and decided to write this up. J We’ve still got some mad travel ahead of us on this journey. Probably not home til after midnight, maybe after 1AM. WOO HOO!

The bikes are Gong!

Not a quote from me, Angelo said that. We have a bike thievery epidemic in Wollongong. In the course of a week about 6 went missing that we know of. The Erin's, who live two doors down both had there's stolen last weekend, as did the Norwegians (3) next door. Then a couple nights ago, Jared's was stole also. Mine stays inside thankfully, but jeez.

OK. Here's the run down of this past week. It's gonna be short form and action packed, be ready for it.

- Homework is insanity, literally every spare moment I have is spent working on something, but I'm getting through it. Last week I had a presentation on the Tuesday in Maths. Made an AMAZING resource for teaching in the number strand to stage 1, teacher LOVED IT. Also, handed in a report ont he Friday for an a presentation we did the previous Friday. Yesterday was spent hammering out an assignment due in creative arts on Tuesday. Today I'm working almost exclusively on ADHD interactive tutorial that I have Wednesday, but also have to write 2500 rationale for that maths thing we did last week. I'm lovin' it though! For the most part anyways.

- My training is outa this world. I'm getting in lots of it, lots of quality stuff. Hours upon hours on the trainer in the basement. Gotta get fit gotta get fit! Gettin' back in the pool this week for some swimmin'.

- Gold Coast in a few days! Yipppppeeeeeeee! ITU world championships! Jubers and I are volunteering and my buddy Alex is racing in the Age Group race! We're gonna rent a car and see some other places nearby also. Should be a nice little break! I AM bringing homework though.
:( I have no choice.

- Last night Angelo came over (he's a Canadian that started in our program here in July) and played the guitar and was singing, he's pretty darn good!

- Jared and I went down to meet Julia after work. We normally try to play some little trick on her, normally hide and jump out, but she always catches us. It was a full moon last night and we came up with the perfect plan. Jared would hide out across the street, behind this brick fence thing, and I would go meet Jubes as normal to walk her home. Then as we near where Jared is I would turn and point out the full moon, then mention it's not the only full moon out tonight! Jared would jump up and execute a perfect mooning. It went almost to plan and she got a good kick out of it! hahaha, these are the times we'll remember.

- So today I'm gonna jump on the bike for 3 hours! and then head over to Derek's to meet up with him and Clint and get some more stuff done for this ADHD thing...

September?

Where'd August go? Shoot. Tunes' marathon seems like yesterday, but it was almost 2 months ago! FRIG MAN! Time is flying by TOOOOOO fast! I was told it would go fast, but sheesh. 2/3 DONE, OVER, 67%... I can't believe it. Where'd the time go? I can't believe the experiences I've had, I must admit. It's amazing to sit and actually think of some of the cool stuff we've been able to do and see this year. From Bali, to Port Mac, Canberra, Gold Coast, Blue Mountains, to our own backyard in Wollongong. This place is incredible. I'm trying as much as I can to appreciate it, and take every opportunity to get down to the water, because I know it'll be over in no time.

I had an AMAZING workout today. I really wanted to push myself. I planned to do 60k on the bike, immediately followed by a 10k run, kinda like an Olympic distance, but an extra 20k on the bike. I KILLED IT. The bike ride I did on the trainer (which is tougher than outdoors, but at least I don't have to deal like traffic, like in a race) in 1:36, then 41:30 for 10k run all over town and down at the water! WOOOO! It felt AWESOME. Great to feel that stomach/cardio stress without actual leg/foot pain injury type feeling in pushing that hard. I trie to tell myself it was a race, but I dunno, I don't hurt right now!!!

Anyways, back to school work.

KINDERGARTENS AT GWYNNEVILLE! found out yesterday! :) AWESOME! Close and a great school apparently. YIPPPPERS!

OK, that is all.

Gotta keep these short for a while. But all is well, I'm kickin' ass and takin' names all over the place... as is Tunes. :) My wee suga mama.

PPS - I got her free Mug in the mail today "Mighty Tiny Tuna" from Continental soup... haha, mine hasn't come. :(

Quick game of catch up

A whole WEEK!

Wow. These weeks DO fly by. Man. It's been two weeks already since our epic 100k adventure. 2 WEEKS! frig man these days are just zooooomin' by.

This past week was incredibly busy though.

Had a major assignment due in Maths, that took a while to finish. Worth 50% of my final mark so I wanted o do well. For the record, every assignment is worth 50%, and we have two per class, and I have 6 classes. Last Friday I also had a presentation. I was dressed like the queen of England. Pictures will be available shortly. Since then I've been working on an interactive tutorial to be run NEXT Wednesday (9th), a Maths presentation, a creative arts project and the written component of that quality teaching thing.

I've also had some great training this week! 13 hours on the trainer! and some running as well. I was back in the pool today as my shoulder is feeling better now. Yesterday I had a sweet workout, 3 hours on the trainer followed by a FAST 5.5k run immediately after. I wasn't intending on running until about 5 minutes from finishing the bike.

Friday night we went to a graffiti party. Basically, you wear a white t-shirt and people write whatever they want on it. Yes I drank. Yes I was drunk. It was fun, no regrets. :)

Today I bought a new computer! The one I'm on now is moments from death so it was a great time to pick it up. I got a good deal on a floor model computer. Julia is responsible for setting it all up though as I don't have time and she wants to do it! :)

Today (Sunday) is Ironman Canada. One of the most incredible experiences of my life. I'm going to follow it online for as much as I can tonight and tomorrow morning. WHILE DOING HOMEWORK. IT JUST DON'T STOP!

Back to it!

Communcation. It's Essential.

Duh.

So my school work has been a little stagnant. Dont get me wrong, I'm still uber pumped about it all and loving it, but not loving group work. I have amazing ideas and these weiners I have to work with want to take a different, easier route. Whatever. They've both made me questions myself. So with maths I emailed (communication) the tutorial leader lady and asked her what she thought of my idea, AND SHE LOVED IT! Bonus marks.

Then with my other one, the Quality Teaching one, I wanted to integrate impossible2possible into it, to show how it adds quality to the learning experiences of the kids. Well apparently that was far too hard for Ben to comprehend how it would materialize and work, so we've gone with something pretty lame and safe. People need to think outside the box a little, put a little more thought into shit. I can't get through to these knobs. So I emailed THAT tutorial leader as well and asked about my idea. Really laid it out there, a nice long email. Not necessary, but I just want to know if MY mind, that my idea has merit, and could/would/WILL work.

THEN, I've been readig a lot about ADD lately. Not only that but I'm in deep conversation with both the prof and my tutorial leader for Learners with Special Needs. Both are also super impressed with the initiative I've been taking and the interest I've been showing. BONUS! I'll be asking for a letter of reference at the end of the term for sure, from both of them. :)

OK. Time to turn my brain off for the evening.

LOVE!

Brian

Stroke of Genius!

I'm pretty excited about a number of assignments this term and feel as though I'm gettin' great ideas and can really get some good marks out of 'em!

1) Maths - Patterns and Algebra - 4 lessons -Grade 6
I came up with the idea of using music. Beats and percussion are all about rhythm (patterns) and it would be a great way to teach the concept of patterns. Using different pieces of percussion to make patterns and such. GENIUS! Teachers are all about these tactile learning resources so that should be awesome. Due Thursday, lots of work to do yet.

2) Quality Teaching - Lesson plans - Utilize NSW Quality Teaching Model and Queensland New Basics Model - We have to make three typical lessons and then redo them using concepts from these models.
I came up with the idea of making 3 simple lesson plans around a theme of the environment. So a Literacy lesson, an HSIE and a science or maths lesson around it too. THEN I will use www.impossible2possible.com and implement using this website (Ray) as ateaching resource. I believe it's an amazing tool that teachers can use to provide a more genuine/exciting learning experience for their students.

3) Learners with Special Needs - Interactive Tutorial on (for me) ADHD
Learning tons about this and thus myself. Getting great resources and info and am in discussion with both my professor and tutorial leader about it. Not to mention the fact that they both love the idea that I'm putting so much effort in and am this interested/engaged in it. Kissing ass is essential, as a reference letter from a Special Needs teacher / prof apparently is huge back home when applying.

School is Cool!

Swimming is also awesome right now! If swim most of the final 10 days in August I will eclipse ALL of last years swimming... IN JUST ONE MONTH! Sad how much swimming I did last year, but awesome how much I'm doing now! Getting faster too! Super pumped!

BAD NEWS ALERT:

My comp is on the way out. He's dyin' a slow death. I've been trying to get Kenny to help me out and he has, but he seems to think there's not a lot he can do. I think he's trying to get in contact with ACER to see if there's anything they can do but I think my warranty is conveniently cooked. I'm backing everything up and keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts a little longer, but who knows. Not sure what I'll do when it officially dies. We'll see what happens. ESTI!

Chin-Up! Homework time!

Always looking ahead...

I took Monday off training, almost went insane. I just feel dirty when I don't get a good workout in. Yesterday I went on the trainer for an hour. Easier than normal, but no wussy workout by any means. Got the blood flowin' in the legs again and got a good sweat on. Today I was at the pool in the morning for a swim. I was concerned about my hand 'cause it's kinda gross. It doesn't hurt perse, but it's like a dime shaped flap of skin over the wound (which is healing nicely) which "flaps down" so every time my hand goes in the water it flaps back kinda thing. Thought that would be a major pain so I put a bandaid on it and some duct tape around my hand. Didn't really work that well, tried something else with what they had at the pool and that didn't work either. Oh well, time to harden the F up and go at it. It felt weird/stingy for a few laps but I just said screw it and kept rockin', eventually it was fine. I managed to get in 2500M in the 62 minutes of swimming. Jubers and I are already thinking of another little thing. SHHH don't tell anyone. These little adventures are a heck of a lot cheaper than race entries and they're also cooler! We were thinking of doing a similar trek, but south up this time AND we'd be splitting everything 50/50. Again, I'll hafta look into the route a little more and see for sure, but looking at maps, it's mostly through little towns along the way down and we can do mostly paths and sidewalks. I'll definitely look into the route more, but just a consideration. :) Oh... we were thinking something like 120 or so KM, taking 5k intervals each back and forth. :) JUST THOUGHTS PEOPLE, JUST THOUGHTS. It's my impulsive behaviour... ADD. :) It's a true fact, I learnt that in school.

ALSO looking forward. And I know ya'll will over-react like crazy, so just chilllllll out, because if we were REALLY considering it for like soon I probably wouldn't put it down here for fear of backlash. :) BUT... There was a job fair at school today for Education students. There were many booths about teaching in the UK. How cool would that be? NO, not anytime soon, as we miss everyone so much and realize that we need to come home and work to pay off debts and such, but maybe in a year or two, and only for a year. They kept telling me that as a male in primary I'd walk into a job no problem. Also, for casual teaching, they GUARANTEE 4 days per week of pay, so even if you don't work the 4 days, like if they don't find you places to go work, they still pay you! That's pretty decent job security. AND I was thinking that it would be the ideal way to see Europe, as to travel there is otherwise ridiculously expensive. So I know this whole thing started in a very similar fashion, but fret not, this one is not in the so immediate future. BUT IT'S STILL A CONSIDERATION! I still don't know what my path is, but someone who was educated in Australia and spent a year teaching in the UK can gain some serious experiences that can benefit long term. And it's not all about me! I know. Jubes of course though is right on with the idea. THE DISTANT NOT ANYTIME SOON IDEA.

Looking ahead to tomorrow. I have 3 separate group meetings to attend. Two for two different assignments in Maths (one with Ali, a white half leb / muslim, interesting character) and (one with Clint, from Thunder Bay), and one for a presentation in Quality Teaching (with Ben from North Bay) Tomorrow I will also swim in the early morning. I tell ya, it's an amazing feeling. Every time I breathe I get a beautiful view of Mt. Keira and the sun is still rising. Shit. I'm gonna come home to running in suburbia and swimming in indoor pools. :(

PS - People think I'm insane. It's fantastic. I want more.

One foot in front of the other...

My mantra from yesterday, but it's the sort of thought process that can be applied to many things. One step in front of the other. Yesterday I knew that every step I took was a step closer to home, whether walking, wodging, jogging or running, it was all forward progress. Life is all about forward progress. Chronologically we have no choice, do we? We're gonna get old, everyone's got a time limit and we're making forward progress towards it. One foot in front of the other means forward progress in continually challenging myself academically, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Learn something new, you're better for it and you've made forward progress. Sometimes it doesn't always seem like forward progress, a la Canberra and Gold Coast, but I looked at those as learning experiences, and I was better for it. So I guess when things seem overwhelming in anything in life, you just gotta focus on getting yourself to that next telephone pole and not concern yourself with running 100k.

Operation Opera House to My House

I normally write race reports as a means of looking back the following year when i go to tackle the same race, so as to avoid the same mistakes or to remember what went well, and lets be honest, I just like being able to look back and remember the special ones. I can rest assure that I’ll never be running from Sydney’s Opera House to Wollongong again, so this one is purely to remember some of the details and great memories of stuff along the way.

I can’t remember where the idea came from, or why it came, but for a while I was considering this run. I just thought it would be cool to be able to do it. So I started looking around and seeing if it was feasible, posting on an Aussie running forum. Well it turns out that a group of guys did this back in 2003 (I think 5 or 6 started, some bailed some bailed in Otford and a couple went the distance.) In any event, there was a website set up for it with directions, so I grabbed those and looked at ‘em online and started to think maybe it WAS a possibility. So I told Julia, she’s not surprised with this sort of crap from me anymore. Then I started to think of it in terms of planning to actually do it. Then I just sort of accepted the fact that I was doing it and started to get excited.

Yesterday morning I got up at 2:15AM to start gettin’ myself ready for the day. Had a feed and treated the morning like any other race morning. Julia and i met Jerry down at the train station for 4:15 and the three of us were on our way up to Sydney. Thankfully it was a new train because toilet facilities were used 3-4 times. We got to Sydney just before 6 and hopped another train to get down to Circular Quay. Once there we each had one more bathroom break and then headed over to the opera house. Something was going on as there were tons of these weird cars pulling in and people dressed in banana suits and all sorts of stuff. Anyways, we got a quick photo taken by a lady who was down there and then we were off. Shit, I gotta run for a while!

See, at Canberra I had hoped to get a half marathon PB of under 1:27, preferably 1:25, training leading up to it dictated I could. Something happened to my quad (I think caused by ITband tightness) and I had to run walk the last 17k of 21! Then at Gold Coast, I had hoped to PB and qualify for Boston, again, training dictated I could. On the Thursday before the race I went out for a quick tempo run and a couple K in, boom, same thing. Tried to run again on Sat, no go. I was cheerleader on the day for Julia’s first marathon! That was fun too, but my past two races were somewhat failures. Anyways, about 2k into this BOOM. YOU’RE F*%&ING KIDDING! Why am I fine in training and then it happens when it’s important?! So I’m uberly depressed and just about convinced that this is gonna be over even before it starts. I’m quickly reduced to a walk and just try to stretch it out. Julia and Jared are there for emotional support telling me to just take my time and that we literally have all day. So I run/jog/walk for a while. What seemed like a damn long while. We got ‘lost’ first around Eve street, right after the airport and ended up with a minor detour, not a big deal, what’s an extra half kilometre? We slowly made our way down to the ocean at the end of Bestic, not sure what that coast area is called, but it was really nice! Kinda like ours in Wollongong, but takes you all the way to the Captain Cook bridge and into Miranda. Along this section (I think because it’s flat and predictable) my leg started to feel good. We stopped for a quick bite to eat here and I put my SKINS shorts back on and started walking ahead a bit and told them they could catch up, as the route was pretty straightforward. I started to jog, it felt ok, I started to run a bit harder and it felt good. Jared caught up and said Julia was right behind so I started to push it and see just how good I was feeling, I got up to around 4:00/km! Hahaha, ok easy. Before we knew it we were at the Captain Cook Bridge and stopped for a quick photo op. Across into I THINK Miranda and through some more residential until we hit the park at Gray’s Point. Not much exciting here other than finding the cover for a XXX DVD on the sidewalk... we saved it to use as a belated b-day card for Michelle..hahaha. So we get to the end of Forest street and are faced with a path that ended up being these massive rocks to get down to the next area, which ain’t easy to navigate with bikes! We got a little confused, I asked a guy at a traffic light for directions and then we FINALLY made it to Gray’s Point and the first part of our trek through HELL. The Royal National park is beautiful, second oldest National Park in the world to Yellowstone in the US. COOOOOL. We got to Audley with no problems and then started to head down into the park towards Lady Carrington. This is about 40ish k now. Sir Bertram Drive is highway-esque with not a lot of shoulder (ok, NO shoulder) and with a runner and a couple of people on K-Mart mountain bikes, not too easy to navigate with traffic. We were on and off the road for a while, as we had to squeeze off onto the shoulder when a car would come and this meant stopping. We finally made our way to Lady Carrington, a nice flattish path that was closed to cars. WOOO HOOOO! Time to cruise for about 10k. 250M onto the path I tripped over a big rocked and cut up my hand pretty good, super. After a first aid treatment I just started to run as much as I could. I knew the turn-off to the Walumarra Track (which I was supposed to take but the bikes couldn’t so we needed an alternate route) was at 51.5k so I just looked forward to that so I could tell the troops we were over half-way. We finally made it there and then to the end of Lady Carrington where we stopped for a bit before tackling more of this damn highway type road. Here I started to feel light headed, and just awful. I called Lee to give her an update but almost passed out. I got worried about not finishing and was convinced I might not, but Jared told me to just keep truckin’, and besides, we’re in the middle of the park with no car so we gotta go at least another 15k til we’re out! I sat down and get some food and Gatorade in me and started to come around. We started out slow and just made our way down the road... or up as it was mostly uphill all the way. This took forever because we kept having to get off the road. Julia was a bit terrified of the traffic whizzing by and I felt bad that I put in her that situation. We got a few yells and head shaking along the way, but whatever, we were making it out. Finally we were at Otford lookout, 65km and an amazing view! Took a couple photos, a quick break, put the garmin back on and started out again. 35k to go and that amazing coastal highway to look forward to. One more terrifying road to come DOWN this time, but then we had sidewalk the rest of the way. That highway was unbelievable. Right out over the edge of the mountain with amazing views all around. It was starting to become night-time now and I knew I had to get as far as possible before it got dark, so we would at least be somewhere familiar (Thirroul). We just kept truckin’ along, looking forward to the 82k mark at Thirroul, where we’d take out last food break and then head home our familiar cycleway path. From here it was all gravy, other than a drunk couple yelling at us as we came by. From Fairy Meadow I thought it would be about 30 minutes to home as I had been averaging 7:30/km, but I just got this rush of adrenaline, and ran hard the whole way. At the finish were Erin and Erin, Michelle, Kym and BINGY, Michelle and Aaron Majovsky and Katrina! They had made a finish line tape out of streamers for us and were cheering us in, that was great! I sat on the curb a while and then came in and tried to eat this amazing meal that Lee spent all day making but my stomach was a mess. I started gettin’ the sweats at the dinner table and had to go lie down with an ice pack on my head. I slowly came around but couldn’t stomach the food, so it was breakfast. DELICIOUS.

So that’s it! 100k run on the resume! It won’t be my longest, I assure you that, but I think next time I’ll do an organized race so I don’t have to worry about all that BS we had to deal with in the park with traffic and such.

I’ll hafta get Jared and Julia to give me more details about the finer points of the day, as I’m sure I missed a ton.

I can’t thank those two enough for all the support along the way, and for Julia to put up with this shit. It’ll be one more adventure that the three of us will certainly remember about our time in Australia! Huge thanks to Lee for putting those updates up on facebook, mostly for my mom who was back home worried to shit about here little boy. J AND for the amazing meal she had ready for us when we got home. Thanks to everyone at the finish line who was there at 8:15 when we finally got home, sorry I was almost 4 hours late!

Huge thanks to Michelle Majovsky who took the train out to Bulli to meet me for my last 15 or so Kilometres, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t there on time to meet you, I feel terrible but I’m glad you still got the run in!

Thanks to anyone who fed the ego over the past few weeks and put the extra pressure on me to finish.

No title

Don't want to invest the time or mental fortitude in thinking for a creative title for this blog entry, both are too precious at the moment.

Random updates and thoughts:

- School is going well, really busy, but I'm totally on top of things, just barely being able to balance everything, but at least I don't feel as though I SHOULD be or COULD be doing more.

- I'm gaining more and more of a passion for wanting to do something like Ray or Paul, THAT'S the way to inspire kids, not rhough random run of the mill classroom stuff.

- My swimming is going AWESOME! I swam 4 times this week! About 4:10 total! And today I did the same workout on Monday, though it took me 3 minutes less time to complete! That's progress right? Maybe after this Sunday I won't be able to do much BUT swim... might as well keep a godo thing goin'. I'm startin' to feel real confident about Ironman this year, should be fast!

- My run this weekend. It's growing. I'm not sure what from, but people are talking about it. Kinda weird, kinda neat. People I dont' know are asking Jared about it, and more people want to somehow be a part of it. Michelle Mjovsky and Katrina are going to meet me in Bulli and run the last 14 - 15k with me, and Derek will meet us somewhere along the way as well. We'll hafta see about logistics. Then last night we were over at the Erins' place for Michelle (Ellis') birthday dinner and they were saying they're gonna get like a finish line tape thing and call the local media and all this jazz. Not sure if I want that kind of attention. I do think it's kinda neat that people are interested in and think it's nuts, THAT'S the reaction I'm looking for :) but I don't need any attention on that scale. I really hope there's not much there at the "finish line" as I probably won't be in a terribly social kinda mood. :) Anyways, I'm REALLY excited about all of this! Can't wait to get out there and test myself, haven't had an opportunity in a while to really see what I'm made of. Almost one year since Ironman Canada. I'm also going to see if I can get Lee to post some updates of my progress as I truck along. Maybe get Julia to call or text her and she can post on facebook every 10k or so. We'll see.

OK, back to school work!

LOVE!

Engaged

How often are we TRULY 100% ENGAGED in what we're doing?
The goal of the teacher is to get their students ENGAGED in the lesson and in their learning.
Having ADD makes it difficult for me to focus, unless I'm 100% ENGAGED in what I'm doing.
I see Julia and I getting ENGAGED sometime in the future. :)
I think I'm only 100% ENGAGED in what I'm doing when I'm training, running more specifically, swimming too I guess, hard not to be.
In order to get kids ENGAGED in your lesson, you need to provide opportunities for them to take control of their learning, EGAGING them with actual people, places and issues.

Frig I'm loving this stuff. I've found my THING, 100%, and it feels great. I think being a teacher will be the perfect marriage between the reality of paying bills and being responsible to myself, my family and society, and allow me to work towards achieving some of my bigger picture dreams of large scale positive change and impact. I want to inspire kids, but I also want to inspire other teachers, parents, carers, like Ray Zahab and Paul Staso have inspired me. Kids really are the future, DUH. The kids that are growing up now are going to face MAJOR issues when they reach the age where they are the ones in control of this world. I think HSIE will be a favourite of mine. It's Human Society and it's Environment. Politics, war, poverty, cultures, geography, history, THE ENVIRONMENT and so forth.

On a side note, we're full-on into planning for "Operation Opera House to My House". Official date is Sunday, August 16th. Now I'm planning the packing list. Nutrition, some extra clothing, first aid, maps, that sorta stuff. I've googled some trails that I'll be on through the park, JUST BEAUTIFUL! I can't wait for this epic adventure!

Check this out: http://www.trailflix.com.au/tfx_new/trails.php?id=ladycarr

Yaaaaaaa!

I'm REALLY into school right now. It feels good. I figure as long as I don't have a job, I'm putting 100% of myself into school. Working does take away from it, no matter what, but I realize I'm going to have to find something, it's just nice right now to be attending 100% of lectures and doing MOST of the readings, up to date with assignments, have a multi-email convo going with my prof for Learners with Special Needs, etc etc etc.

Jubes is cooking with Curry, I can smell it.