Happy. Healthy. Heathen.

Another delightful day in Paradise.

Most important order of business, I suppose:  I have my bike and helmet inspected, and stickered up to show that.  I’ve had my wetsuit dipped for Didymo.  Tomorrow is the official check-in day and Carbo dinner – and, no, I won’t be loading up on carbs 2 days before the race.  Not even the night before…you DON’T want my carb lecture here, so I’ll save that for another time.

Today was Expo day:

After looking at every tire, nutrition aid, running shoe, multi-tool, wetsuit, trisuit, swimsuit, tshirt, flipflops, sunscreen, vitamin, keychain, training video, and bike jersey, WITHOUT BUYING ANYTHING, I headed into town for a bit.  First a quick look at the lake…big mistake:

It may not show up on the picture well, but those are whitecaps, tossing about all those buoys.  If the lake looks like this on race morning, I’ma freak my freak.  Do we need to revisit the Half-Iron experience?

I have stopped every day in a different coffee shop in the town of Taupo and had a cappucino.  They’ve all been delicious, and sitting outside watching the other competitors roll by is my favorite part of the day.

At the end of the day, we had a little 5k fun run, mostly locals, and the kids had a 1k run as well, so I got that little jog in to stay loose and relaxed.

After both the Splash and Dash on Monday, and today’s Fun Run, this was the free food offering – not exactly typical athlete food, but maybe they do things differently here in the Southern Hemisphere:

Finally, I have to share a picture here of Magellan (too many Magpies are named Maggie, and besides, he’s a boy).  Magellan wakes me gently every morning with a beautiful repetoire of bird songs and whistles, and he’s a right as rain.  We have developed a deep relationship – I speak to him at sunrise and thank him for his melodies…I will never forget what he sounds like.

I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday night.  This week has both flown and crawled.  Thank you to everyone for your supportive comments – they just mean the world to me.  I’ve done enough of these races to know that when you are struggling, you cast about for anything you have heard that will help you go just one more kilometer.  Every one of your positive words do that for me, and I am so grateful for them.

Thanks for reading.

I have been remiss in not mentioning in all my blogging that my Flat Friends have made the trip with me.  They have spent a lot of time hanging from my window curtain in the room, but they got out today for a little bike ride:

Then it was back into town and back into the lake (for those wondering, I stuff the wetsuit into a backpack, along with the swim cap and goggles).  Today’s swim was much much MUCH better; I swam about half the distance.  There are 24 buoys and I turned around at 6.

I have to admit that I am an emotional athlete; I can get caught up in the joy or despair of the moment.  My coaches have always tried to get me to overcome that.  It can work in your favor when times are good – your pace quickens, you perform better when the crowd is with you, but it can destroy you when it goes badly.  In the excitement of the competitors, always on race day, my adrenaline surges, my heart rate speeds, my breathing increases – not so good if you are about to embark on a 2 hour swim.  I have worked so hard on focusing, removing the distractions, listening to the bubbles (swimmers know what I mean), and today I did that beautifully.  Which was easy, since there were about 10 of us in the lake at the time.  When there are 1200, not so easy.

I have met some positively lovely people since I’ve been here.  I’ve already mentioned Didymo Dave, Jim and Susie from Auckland.  I’ve also met up with Liz and Allie from Canterbury, England (insert obligatory small-world comment here – that’s where daughter Glenda’s boyfriend Sam lives), and Leo from Hawaii, and Bill and Ginger from San Diego.  Everyone seems, like me, to be having the time of their lives.  Today when I was fretting over the swim, Liz and Allie invited me for coffee and a scone (a scone!!  During training!!).  I am sorry that I declined in my edginess to get in the lake.  If I find them tomorrow, I’ll invite them for a beer!

So, this picture of my foot may not seem amazing…until you realize that I’m taking it underwater!  I’m in water up to my chest, I bent over and put my fancy waterproof camera into the water and snapped this picture.  You can’t imagine what it is like to swim in this!  I told my daughter Glenda today on Skype that it is like swimming in an aquarium.  I haven’t seen many fish (Taupo is the trout capital or something) but we stay relatively near the shore.  We pass one of those floating golf greens, where the tee is on the shore, and I can’t help but chuckle when I see all those golf balls on the bottom – some of them WAAAY away from the green (shankapotomus, I guess).

Then I wandered through town again, because I just can’t get enough of seeing everyone having coffee on the sidewalks, and seeing the other triathletes biking, walking, running through town.  I don’t have an explanation for this picture:

After my jaunt through town, I stopped at the info booth to buy a ticket to the Women’s Breakfast on Friday (can’t wait for that), and didn’t mean to stage this shot, didn’t even see it til I came back out:

Finally I headed home to my shower, my green salad, my glass of New Zealand red, and the comforts of my little home.  I’m about 3k from town, and every day on the way home I see two things:

So, in summary, I’m having the time of my life.  I’m still both wildly excited and wildly apprehensive about Saturday.  Tomorrow the Expo begins — FAO Schwartz for triathletes.  I plan on spending most of the day looking at all the toys.  Bike Tires!  Running Shoes!  Wetsuits!  Heart Rate Monitors!  Riding Jerseys!  Red Blinky Lights for the Bike!  Gu Gels in Every Flavor!

As always, and most humbly, thanks for reading.

Day two here in Taupo – and what a great day it has been!

I started the day a bit behind the power curve – didn’t sleep well and had freaky dreams when I finally did fall asleep.  Everyone with whom I spoke today said I’m right on course…

After having my coffee and a few yoga poses in my little room, skyping with home a minute, and tidying up my 25 square meters, I headed out on the bike.  I’m about 3k from town (which I only know because the brochure said so – my bike computer is spazzing), so I rode in on a screaming downhill (guess what that means) and immediately went to see the lake/swim start staging area.  It was while I was there gazing at ALL THOSE BUOYS, I met Jim and Susie…from Auckland.  Renee, we are going to call our mountian Mt. Kismet from now on – LOVED THAT.  Susie celebrated her 50th birthday 6 years ago by participating in this very Ironman, and at 61, Jim is attempting it for the first time.  They were delightful and so helpful with hints about the course and transitions.

After our brief visit, I headed out and rode one lap of the run course.  Seems manageable – some gentle rollers with a couple of long pulls; 42k is simply a long damn way to run.

The race area is just gorgeous – this town has a huge triathlon group because it’s so conducive to that event.

And not to be left out, if ever my girl Dora comes back here with me, here’s something for her to do while I race:

So today’s group event was a Splash and Dash:  a 1k swim followed by a 5k run just for fun.  Before getting in the water, however, everyone had to have their wetsuits sanitized by, remember the word?  Didymo.  Here is a picture of the very enthusiastic wetsuit-dipper:

My experience on the Splash and Dash was helpful – started out WAY too fast on the swim and effed up my breathing pattern and had to breast stroke slowly to recover, but then got back on track and had a delightful little run.  Always learning.  Tomorrow’s event is officially a 7am swim of the entire distance (3.8k), but a group of us are doing it a little later in the morning with a USAT coach who will kayak along and give us guidance.  I’m all about the free advice.

This lake is the most remarkable body of water I have ever been in.  I will take my waterproof camera in tomorrow and hope to be able to show you what I see:  it is a clear as a mountain stream – I can see the bottom as clearly as if I were in an aquarium – so unexpected but what an experience.

I am loving my little cabin of my own.  I have always relished personal space, and this is certainly no exception.  There is a little television set in the room; I turned it on, then off, the first day and haven’t had it back on.  I don’t have my cell on, so the laptop is my nod to communicating with the world.  I’m reading my usual 4 books on my Kindle, and I had my 6 ounces of red wine tonight with my green salad.  I guess the Unibomber could write the same blog…I love all my family and friends, but I know how to do solitude.

A little freaked out about messing up the swim, but will be right back in the lake tomorrow working that out.  5 days and counting.  I am soooo lucky to get to do this.

Thanks for reading.

Sorry for the brief hiatus — travelling across the globe can do that to you.

I have made it to the country in which my race is being held (still have about a 3-hour drive and a couple of adventures before I finally get to the site).  The trip over was fabulous – got up front on the leg from LA for the win.  I spent a long 9 hours in the Sydney terminal before boarding the flight into Wellington where Sam and Laura were waiting – just so happy to see their sweet faces!

I haven’t blogged since I travelled back east to attend my mother-in-law’s funeral in South Carolina.  Jesse and Glenda both spoke and did a lovely job memorializing her.

The two kids and I got on a plane the very next day, flew to Atlanta, then within about 2 hours boarded planes to Paris, Colorado, and Los Angeles.  I trained another day in the warm California sun before getting on yet another plane, this one headed Down Under.

My bike and bag w/gear arrived safely in Sydney where I cruised the airport like a homeless person/grocery cart combo til I could check them on the flight to New Zealand.

Sam had texted me before leaving the states asking for the usual I-can’t-get-this-here-would-you-bring-me-some _______, so I got the requested items:  graham crackers, Nilla wafers, marshmallows, black beans – I got them all through New Zealand’s hyperactive biosecurity panel except the black beans.

No training today, but Sam and Laura and I will ride tomorrow, then we’re headed to Mangaweka where they were raft guides all summer and kayak a day or two.  I check into my rustic cabin on the lake on Sunday, and begin the countdown to Saturday.  Jesse will begin his long journey over next Monday.

Thank you for all your kind comments – Dora, Renee, Susan, Lisa – your words mean so much more than you can know.  I will have them memorized and at the ready when I’m in the water, on the bike, and on the run.

I’m enjoying myself in spite of the stress, and really and truly can’t wait for the race to get here.  I’ll have to check out the internet situation at Taupo to know how that’s going to look, but I’ll do the best I can with the blog.

Thanks for reading!