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!