Cairns footnote

My most devoted fan

Just after I entered the departure lounge in Cairns a four year old boy ran up to me with a huge smile and threw his arms around my leg and wouldn't let go. Somewhat taken aback I tried to shake myself free, at first thinking he had mistaken me for his dad. It's happened before - kids that high have trouble looking up. But then I realised who he was.

During the race he had wandered out onto the run course, and seemed to have an obvious interest in me. I stopped, bent over and had a little chat to him. "Your funny" he said. I immediately decided this wasn't the time and place for the apostrophe conversation (don't worry if you live in New Zealand and don't understand that).

He also wanted to know what I was doing. I tried to explain about the race, but he knew all that. He really wanted to know what was up with my hair. But I couldn't linger too long. We had both enjoyed the conversation.

It turns out anyway, that this was a Kiwi kid from Auckland and his dad was in the race, and had also been at Wanaka. He had seen me race before, and I was now one of his best friends.

I stand in awe.

Overnight fun

The day after I booked my overnight accommodation at an airport motel in Auckland I saw it featured in the paper because it was so dirty, and the service was so bad. What to do, as I had already paid for it?

I decided to risk it, and after a phone call to the motel to ask where my promised shuttle was they eventually arrived. I could see what issues were. I had dinner there as there was no where else to go, but stayed away from the chicken and the stews, hoping that fried fish might be better. I also had trouble believing I was in New Zealand, so may Paul Henry never go there.

Then just as I was dozing off for the night, the fire alarm went off. At first I thought it was a car alarm outside my window, so I rolled over and pulled my pillow over my head. Then came the knock on the doors down the passage, and soon we were all out in the 13 degree night while the fire service investigated. I'm not sure what the problem was but it seemed there was no fire, and we were soon back in our beds. Too soon though it was 5.30am and I was off to the airport. Only to wait, and wait, as the small planes were not leaving the airport in a hurry due to the fog.

Recovery

Once home I thought I would try and catch up on some work, but I could feel a small nap coming on. I slept until lunch, then slept all afternoon, and slept all night too. I may not be done yet either.

My legs were hurting in the night in a way that they haven't hurt before. At least the blisters seem to be settling down.

Another point of concern is my left knee. After Challenge Wanaka 2009 where I ran my (still) best ironman-distance marathon my knee started to hurt after the race and became quite puffy. It was fine before and during that race, and this was my most debilitating injury ever. I could hardly run for eight months, and I thought my career was over. Then suddenly it disappeared. Well after Cairns where I completed my slowest marathon ever, I felt the same pain and the same sort of swelling, although to a much lesser degree. Thankfully though it seems to be settling down.

My ankle seems good, so even though my decision to use my training shoes with inserts was a painful one, it had the desired effect.

I'm not in a hurry to get out and train again. I have three months to Beijing, and my base fitness seems OK. So I will wait a couple of weeks and then ease into my swimming and cycling. I'll be able to use an intensive approach over the last six weeks to get me into good shape, and I will leave most of my running until then. I have to try and peak for Beijing, and then again two and a half months later for the selection qualification races in Auckland in November. These are for the age group champs the following November in Auckland. The competition will be fierce.

Farewell Cairns, hello life

All too soon my time in Cairns has come to an end. It has been a fantastic trip. I am sitting by the pool at the motel on one of those pool chairs (there is no martini though) waiting for my airport shuttle.

The race was really good, but very hard. My feet are still sore from the blisters. I have never had them so bad during the race, nor have they troubled me so much afterwards. Apart from that I feel I have recovered well, although I do know that the post ironman-distance steamroller can pay a visit anytime after the race. It usually visits on day three and today is day three. I have my flight to deal with still, but so far so good. It is perhaps an adrenaline thing, and so I could be fine until I get home tomorrow and start to relax.

What did I learn? I feel that I am getting my swim and bike times to something more respectable, and I now expect to go close to 6 hours in future bike legs, provided I can do the training. I need to do this without trashing myself though, so I can set myself up for that all elusive sub-12 hour time. I'm still 90 minutes away, which sounds a lot, and it is, but then I have come more than three hours in 12 years, and I still feel I have yet to put things together in an ironman-distance race like I can do in the shorter distances.

Will I come back? Yes to Cairns and yes to the race. But perhaps not next year. Entries open next week and I am not ready to make that decision. I don't want to fall into the "survivor" trap here as well. I am already under that spell with Challenge Wanaka, and my investment in Ironman New Zealand is too big just to throw away. So that is two races I am more or less committed to doing every year, especially Wanaka. And I don't want to add Cairns to that list, so if I miss next year I am out of the survivor's club. Besides there are many more Challenge family races I want to experience.

I would also like to come back to Cairns for a holiday, and that could be after the race one year. There is a lot to do here, and another trip to the reef is a must. With the direct flight from Auckland, and some pretty good special prices at certain times, it isn't a bad option for a holiday. Or it could be combined with a visit to the Gold and Sunshine coasts.

I'm looking forward to going home and getting back into the swing of every day life again for a little while. This will probably be my last blog posting till I head for Tokyo and Beijing in September. I am excited about that, but I need to settle down into a routine of work and training between now and then. I have a new lease of life on my work at moment after going through a dull patch for the last while. the new web technologies that are emerging are really exciting for me, and there is so much I want to do with them. Watch this space (or rather the one just around the corner).

Great Barrier Reef scuba dive

Yesterday I fulfilled a life-long dream. Not the kind of dream that is a goal, ambition or objective. But more one of those more dream-like ideas you might have had under the tag of "that would be really nice to do one day". This was one of those things that I never pursued, right up until a few days before when I suddenly realised I had the time, means and occasion to make it happen, and so I did. I went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

I had booked an extra day in Cairns with the idea that I might do something. And every other shop in Cairns seems to act as a tourist agent, so there are brochures everywhere. I had the idea that I might take the historic train ride out to Kuranda, and return via the skyrail through the rainforest. This is a popular tourist attraction in Cairns, and it seemed to fit well with an ironman-distance event. In other words it was not too strenuous. However the lure of a dive could not be avoided. And when I mentioned this to Jono who is a certified diver he said he would come along too. He is off for a three day diving trip today, but another chance was always going to interest him.

So we signed up for "The Reef Experience" and at about 7.30am they picked us up from our respective accommodation, and we boarded the boat down in the marina. There would have been about 60 people on board plus a crew of about ten. It was nearly a two hour trip out to our first destination. So once underway some activities began. After a paying the bills we were provided with breakfast, and then given a safety briefing. This was followed by snorkeling instruction, a marine biology explanation, and for those who were going to scuba dive, a further instruction briefing. The marine biology session was very interesting, but overwhelmingly sad as well. The evidence of reef destruction due to rising sea temperatures, as well as imbalances caused by over-fishing, particularly of sharks was very sad to see. Even the poor little "Nemos" had been hunted by collectors and their numbers had dwindled substantially.

Once we arrived at the reef we were given our dive times. I had half an hour to spare so took the opportunity to do some snorkeling. This was good as I was able to find my bearings in the water and get accustomed to the environment before having to don the full scuba kit. I swam right in amongst a large shoal of surgeon fish. It was amazing, I couldn't quite touch them as they kept their distance, but it was an awesome sight. When my turn came I was in a group of three with an instructor. One of the group was a young girl and she was quite afraid, and this delayed our initial descent to about one metre where we had to all do a couple of safety drills. We had been briefed on them beforehand, and had all practiced the basic hand signals. However soon we got underway and went down as far as far as six metres and were under for about 20 minutes. I battled quite a bit with the pressures on my ears, but once I got the equalisation sorted I started to enjoy myself.

We then had lunch on board before heading to another reef, slightly closer to Cairns, called Breaking Patches. At this point I had the opportunity for another introductory dive but without the initial drills. There were fewer who were interested, most of the younger girls on board having found the first dive quite an ordeal. And of course the snorkeling is not to be sneered at either as the reef is very shallow in parts. Jono had gone off on a certified dive in the morning, but his buddy from that session wasn't feeling up for a second dive, so he had to go with an instructor. As it turned out he ended up with me, and the same instructor I had been with that morning. The instructor organised a bigger tank for me so we could have a longer session. It did not start well when he deflated my buoyancy jacket and I plunged two metres without time to equalise. I panicked a little as my ears were in agony. I went up a bit and sorted the pressures out. What followed was truly amazing. We stayed mostly between four and 5 metres but that is how deep the area and we had more than 35 minutes on the bottom. I saw many amazing creatures, but seeing a little "nemo" excited me a lot. All too soon it was over too.

That was the end of my activities for the day. By then I was cold and tired and spent the time relaxing on the top deck, and enjoying the sun and the sea on the ride home.

Here are some of the photos taken by the on-board camera man.

My favorite shot

Jono and I with the evidence

Challenge Cairns race report

The day dawned as expected. But long before it did I was up getting ready for the start. After the bus ride out there, I had to load my bike, pump my tires and hand in my special needs bag, before changing to wetsuit and handing the swim/gear bag which is what you get back when you finish. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it always takes a while.

Then onto the beach to watch the pro's start. A ten minute gap meant a quick loosen up in the water and a goggle check (not the same as a google check, but just as enlightening). And then we were off. I self-seeded well, held my line through the 'washing-machine' and quickly settled into a rhythm. With no pretensions of a fast time, I really just took it easy, flopping about in the water, and looking for some good legs to draft off. This was a two lap course into the marina, out up the boat ramp, back down the beach and into the water. I went through in about 37 minutes, which surprised me, but I supposed when you add a wetsuit to sea water you get a lot of buoyancy and for a leg-dragger like me, that can only be good.

I was just into the second lap when the half-distance competitors started. They were soon all over me. Ironman-distance athletes are generally laid back, considerate, and respectful, and this shows in the mess of a swim start. In the shorter distances you find a higher proportion of aggressive types. I was whacked from side to side and twice had my goggles kicked from my face. Luckily I wasn't hurt, and in fact it was a good thing as it cleared the fog even if I did get stinging eyes from the salt.

I exited the swim in around 1:15, and stood for a while under the showers on the ramp - most people just ran through. I made a man-to-man joke to the dude sharing the same water stream as me. He gave a weak grin in reply. Then I remembered my hair.

Transition went very smoothly - it usually does for me when its a hot weather one. Once out on the bike I forgot my promise to take my time. Most of the course is hot mix. This is a term I learnt in New Zealand, and I discovered the Aussies don't use it either. I suppose because it is not a novelty in New Zealand and when you find a stretch of road with hot mix you think "wow, isn't that cool". For the uninitiated, hot mix is a normal tar road. In New Zealand they use a very course volcanic or gravel chip, and skimp on the tar which makes for a sealed surface but nothing you would call smooth. The difference to a cyclist is about 3km per hour, not to mention a whole lot of comfort. I use the mis-named "open tubulars". They are not tubulars at all, but clinchers made with tubular materials. They have a lower rolling resistance than any other type of tyre, although you can only really notice it on super smooth roads. The upshot was that I was having a great time at getting the roll on at around 37kph thanks to a waft of a breeze behind me. I kept trying to tell myself to slow down, but was just having too much fun.

Despite my good speed I tried not to get "half-lapped" by big Macca. My target then, was to get to the 93k mark before he got to 153km (with this 10 minute start). At 92km he came past, with two guys in tow. It was a sight to behold. He was rock steady on his bike, his legs working like pistons. The two fellas behind, in comparison were "riding". Their bikes were rocking, their cadence and spinning uneven. Macca is a true champion. It's not often you have a current world champion right there a couple of metres from you in the same race. It's only happened to me twice this year.

It was hot out there. I don't know what the road temperatures were. The forecast was for 27 degrees, but at 2pm it would have been a lot hotter out on the road. At each aid station I poured a bottle of water over me, and added two fresh ones for my bike to repeat every 10 minutes. I stuck the electrolyte bottle in my jersey. I'm used to racing with only one bottle, but I learned from Challenge Wanaka in 2008 how crucial it is to use water to keep cool on the bike when the temperatures soar like that. I must get a set of 'arm coolers'. These are white mesh sleeves, just like arm warmers but you use them to keep the sun off and retain water. It seems that water on the arms and head are the two places where cooling has the greatest effect. I say seems, I have seen no research for arms, but it feels very effective. There isn't much you can do about the head with an aero helmet on.

The bike continued to go well, and I got the heavy disc though the 10km hilly section four times without much worry. A good decision I thought. At 160km I decided to push for a bike PB. My big mistake of the day. At 170km I had a bit of meltdown. I usually like to say the wheels fell off, but every time I do that I get emails asking if I got hurt. I hung in there to the finish but was in for another nasty little shock. My speedo hit 180km and I was still 3 or 4km out from transition. Yes, the bike course was long. I think I took nine or ten minutes to do those last few clicks, even though they were flat, such was my exhaustion. Were it not for the longer course, I would have claimed a PB on the bike. Not bad since my last ride was on 9th of May, and I missed most of the two weeks before that as well.

When I reached transition I was so emotionally and mentally fatigued that I had no way of assessing my physical state. Luckily by now T2 is very routine for me. I always find it easier than T1, especially on a warm dry day. So I did what I had to do on auto-pilot, but I did sit there for a while longer.

Out on to the run. The first bit through Yorkeys Knob village and along the beach was pleasant. But then we hit the 12km pull along the main roads though the sugar cane into Cairns. The cane grows huge here - I have never seen it so big. And with it on either side of the road, there was almost no wind, and so we baked in the hot sun. I ran most of the first 10km, but after that I started to walk. Usually in that state I run or walk about 50% of the time changing every 200m or so. But yesterday I was walking for several kilometres at a time. To prevent a recurrence of my ankle injury I decided to race in my training shoes along with highly customised orthotic inserts. They are different for each foot, such as my deformities are, and what they do is force my foot into a more normalised action, thereby reducing the stress caused by the collapse of my ankles on landing. This comes as a cost however, as the orthotics "push back" on the soles of my feet. And these are feet that have had water on them for 8 hours, as my shoes tended to stay wet on the bike.

Time was no longer important to me other than the sooner I finished, the sooner I could stop. I was dehydrated and hungry. They served watermelon on the course, and I think I ate too much, but it was so refreshing, and I was so sick of sports drink. Once we hit Cairns we had three and a half laps along the esplanade, some of it with athletes going both ways. This included a little trip out along the pier, and back. It meant running back to the finish at Fogarty Park three times before you got to go down the red carpet the fourth time.

Finally however, after my slowest marathon ever (approaching seven hours) I finished in 14:50-something. As soon as I could I was into the chicken soup. It tasted good. Jim came home shortly after, followed by Jono. Victoria was there to give me my medal. A new race on foreign shores can be a lot less personal than what I am used to. And while I don't know Vic that well she is one of my favorite people. I was so pleased.

The course was a fantastic one. It was a stroke of genius to do three and a half laps of the Cairns Esplanade, and the road closure for the bike course meant for a really great race overall. The course can comfortably handle a full field of around 1500, provided they manage the other events occurring on the day. A few minor things took the gloss off a pretty good day all around. Mainly the longer bike course which really was not necessary as they could have done the southern turn around anywhere they wanted to. Apart from that the guy managing the special needs bags packed up and went hope early, or so I was told. I never got my bag, which in the circumstances was not a big problem. The massage closed at 10.30pm so the poor guys who needed it the most did not get one, and the online athlete tracker also shut up shop early meaning those following from distant shores where left to believe their athletes had failed to finish. Worse than have no tracking system at all. I suspect there were too few volunteers who were then overloaded with very long tiring days. This is not to say it wasn't a well organised race. It was.

I think it will be key to get more locals into the race. This will mobilise the community to get behind the event. Certainly the crowds at the finish were much smaller than say ironman-distance races I have done in Taupo and Wanaka, despite there being a much larger population of residents and visitors. Smaller towns tend to get behind the races more, I think.

Mr Pink didn't cause nearly as much of a stir in Cairns than he does in New Zealand. Most people didn't bat an eyelid. It's hard taking your brand offshore!

Bring it on...

It's dark, I have pink hair, and I'm on bus in the tropics. Apparently, we are off to see a race or something.

I slept reasonably well thanks to modern chemistry. Was awake from about 3am, so eventually got up and had the traditional strong coffee, peach slices and scrambled egg. On top of last night's steak and ciders, I reckon I'm good to go. Carbohydrate, you ask? No, carbs are for weenies, or when you race for just a few hours.

Doing a race for the first time is harder. But in ironman-distance racing you learn to deal with whatever is thrown at you as best as you possibly can.

This bus ride is too short. But I have Vivaldi for company. It must be summer.

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Race preparation

The start and transition are 20km away from the finish in Cairns, and where most of the athletes are staying. This presents some logistical problems, but it seems it is the only reasonable solution for the race. It will be interesting to see if they stick with the format for next year. This is the inaugural running of the event.

So yesterday I rented a car and went out for a practice swim at the Yorkeys Knob start area and transition. Swimming practices have to be managed to keep the "marine life" at bay, so there are only a couple of times in the buildup week it is safe to be out there. Full wetsuits are allowed, or rather encouraged despite the warmer conditions, as a safety measure against stingers and box jelly fish. It's OK, they say, there hasn't been a fatality in the area for many years.

The idyllic swim area

The start beach

Zip me up darling

The swim exit. We do 2 laps so swim and run this bit twice

Then later in the day, with Syko in tow, I drove out to Port Douglas to check out the cycle route. It's a kind of a one and a half lap course, mostly pancake flat on a good surface, except for a nasty little windy climb in the middle, which we go over twice in each direction. I was undecided whether to use the disc wheel or not, and I had brought a back up. But from the comfort of my motel room, I thought "how bad can it be" and set the bike up with the disc. I know I will pay for it on the nasty little climb, but then there is the sweeping downhill on the other side and the very long flats where it should hum along nicely.

Syko taking in the view on the bike course

View from the highest point

Riding past these beaches will be tough!

Port Douglas is a lovely little village, and we turn there twice, riding down either side of the main street, which has been closed for the race. There should be a big crowd there.

The bike turn around at Port Douglas

The view on the run as we head towards the lap finish in Cairns

Tomorrow morning I will have a 1km amble down to the bus stop, and then the bus ride out to Yorkeys Knob, where I will prepare my bike, then don my wet suit and head for glory, in my own small way. The weather forecast is 27 degrees max, 18 min, which seems to be the same every day.

So here I sit, the evening before the race feeling reasonably good, as pre-race evenings go, and without expectation about anything approaching a PB. Challenge have a policy to do their best to bring everyone home. You have to beat the traditional swim and bike cut-offs primarily for safety. But they have a total limit of 17:30 for the race, and I hope I don't have to use it all. The last 24km are laps along the Esplanade and a big crowd is expected. Mr Pink will be making his aussie debut, and it remains to be seen how the cobbers will deal with it.

Aussie, touristy and outbackish Cairns

I am not sure why I was a little surprised to find Cairns as a peculiar mix of aussie outback and tourist holiday mecca. I suppose I had no expectations so anything was a surprise. It is very tropical, with great big mango trees in the CBD. They are currently in full flower and full of enormous fruit bats which you can see in the middle of the day.

The esplanade along the waterfront is an amazing place. The Aussies have such a can do, must do attitude. They make things happen. For example, the major highway north to Port Douglas (big enough to be two lanes in each direction for part of the way) is actually closed for the race. And this attitude is refelected in the waterfront area. There are beach volley ball courts, exercise stations, plenty of well equipped barbeque areas, an amazing huge beach front pool, and an intoxicating array of pubs, restuarants and hotels. It seems in New Zealand whenever we try and spend any money to do anything, the socialist chorus winds up... I love New Zealand but it seems so socialist and PC that getting things done is much harder. I think then everyone suffers. But that is a different story.

Here are some shots of the swimming pool near the pier. A fabulous place for bird watching.

A fantastic utility for all ages

It's a big area too

I've no idea how this shot got into my camera

The blogger returns, Challenge Cairns

Well if Voetstoets is seeing a new entry, it must mean I am on another journey. It's been more than six months, and there is a missing post detailing my summer of (racing) love. More than 30 races under the belt in a heady mix of sprinting and endurance events. IMNZ in Taupo saw a PB of 13:30, a week later I qualified for the age-group champs in Beijing, and I brought home a clutch of cycling and running medals from the track in the Masters Games.

But back to the present, this time I'm off to Challenge Cairns, an inaugural race in the wonderful Challenge series.

My preparation for the race has been a bit of a disaster. You have to enter for these races very early as they often fill up, sometimes within a day of entries opening. And then to get good prices on air tickets again you must book a long time in advance. This opens the door for things to go wrong in training. After my amazing summer I was bound to hit a wall somewhere. Work pressures and a bad cold prevented me from doing any training at all in weeks 4, 3 and 2. I came right by the last week, but by then it was too late. This week I've had three 20 minute sessions in each sport to loosen up. Added to that I have run less than 6km in over two months, trying to rehabilitate an ankle that had been hassling me all summer too. But, I believe I have the legs anyway!

My flight over from Palmerston North via Auckland went without hitch. Pippi, my trusted P3 has a nice new bag. It still takes a while to pack her up because its a soft case and lots of padding is required, but it is still much quicker and easier than the old bubble wrap method I used to use.

I watched 'The Social Network' on the flight over. I thought it was a fantastic story. I missed it earlier because a friend of a friend had said it was a boring movie. But I sat mesmerised all the way through. I felt every emotion of Mark Zuckerberg, and while I thought he sometimes acted like a pratt, I could identify with his every move. I guess I had tried to do the kinds of things he did. In case you had not noticed, not quite as successfully. I live in hope.

Flying in over the reef was spectacular. All things being equal I will be able to spend a day out there on Tuesday. There is quite a lot to see and do here in Cairns, but I am here to race and that has priority.

My first priority was to settle into my room, get some food and drink and sort my internet. I have a nice room not too far from the city centre and race headquarters. It was difficult to find a quiet spot. Cairns has big wide roads everywhere so of course there are a lot of cars all over the place. The biggest problem has been sorting a decent internet connection. The motel advertised itself with wireless internet. Apart from being unreasonably expensive, there is zero signal in my room, and elsewhere in the motel it is poor at best. So I tried to find a local SIM card instead. I found four tattoo shops before I found one selling SIM cards. But that was because I was looking for a mobile phone shop. They don't seem to have them here. You buy your phones, SIMs and plans from many corner shops. It was a fantastic deal with almost unlimited data and $300 of calling and texting worldwide for just $30. What's up with the pricing in New Zealand? The only catch is that the data flow shuts down in late afternoon and does not become usable till about 11pm. So I try and do what I need to do outside of those times. I get reasonablly good mobile broadband speeds in the morning. I noticed the same thing in London too. It doesn't seem to be related to signal strength. But you can't get any sensible statement on it from the mobile providers.

So, I'm settled and connected. It will be an interesting fantastic week.