Does this make my tannenbaum look big?

It's twenty minutes to nine.

Sunday morning has arrived.

Race day.

Three days earlier, the weekends weather forecast was severe to the point that it was announced there would be no swim. Gatorade race 2 was to be a duathlon. In my 5 seasons of multisport I have completed probably 5 or 6 duathlons, I have only ever signed up for one. I am not a fan*.
Fast forward and I'm standing on the beach, the expected rains and storms have not been seen and the race has been restored to its full triathlon format. As I survey the water I'm undecided if I'm happy that the swim was returned. To quote George Costanza - "the sea was angry that day...
Today I'm giving the elite group an 25 minute head-start before attacking that swell and shortly after the horn blows I'm in the churning waters fighting for position and a clean breath of air as I try to sight the buoys over the crest of each wave. It is hard going, fortunately, I'm wearing a dress.

Race 2 of the series has always been the "Christmas" race as it is the last event for the year and an opportunity to get into the holiday spirit. For the past 2 years I have jumped on board this train and raced with increasing themed decoration on my kit. It's a bit of fun and it's not hard to join in and add some colour to the race. (it also doesn't hurt that a Garmin GPS watch has been up for grabs!) The first time I added some tinsel to my bike and wore jingle bells on a race belt for the event. This was too subtle as I was not nominated for the award. Last year I stepped up my game and, along with the tinsel and jingle bells I had a green and red coloured mo-hawk and a Santa's Elf had affixed to my helmet. This gained me a spot on the Christmas Spirit podium, but the result was equal second. Today I had tinseled my bike, Santa's hat became and "aero" extension of my helmet, the bells replaced with an MP3 player and portable speaker, mohawk again coloured but the secret weapon in the arsenal was the Santa's outfit i was wearing under the wetsuit. Two years ago, a guy had claimed the prize by wearing a full Santa suit, not one to follow convention I went for something a little different.

Exiting the water and running up the concrete ramp off the beach I heard the cry "Show us the dress!"

Arms quickly out of the sleeves still on the move, I pull the wetsuit off my shoulders and down to my waist to reveal the bodice of my Mrs Clause dress.

Transition 1 is a little slow as I dedicate a little time into getting the race belt mounted MP3 player to kick into action - no luck, so I leave transition with my speaker stubbornly silent

Now, people spend many hundreds of dollars on specially shaped aero race helmets, their tear drop shape delivering an advantage in the battle against the wind resistance. I spent $2 on a felt Santa  hat, shaped it with some card, stuffed it with soft toy filling and used fishing line the 'sew' it to the back of my regular helmet. From experience I can now say, with confidence, they were right.
The strong winds that made the swim difficult were now catching my hat and a few times I had to fight harder to keep the bike running straight. Whether it was the extra drag created by the dress (pardon the pun), or the 3+ hour windtrainer session from yesterday, I found I wasn't passing nearly as many bikes as normal.

Two laps complete, bike racked. A much faster transition and the opportunity to investigate the technical glitch from T1 without needing to stop meant I was finally able to complete the get the Christmas music playing. I left T2 running well, tassels flying and "we wish you a Merry Christmas" pumping out in my wake. I like to look for the silver lining in things and today I found this; on the occasion of having a slower than normal cycle leg there is greater opportunity to chase down and pass people on the run. I am quite used to blasting through the bike, only to watch a good majority of my category pass me in the closing stage. Today the roles were reversed to a certain degree as I noted I was running down and overtaking more competitors than usual, and I was doing so with a fur lined felt dress. That was just a bit fun!

The entire race was punctuated with shouts of support, "Go Santa", thumbs ups, and the occasional surprised exclamation as people realised they had been "passed by Santa". At one point on the bike I heard the one of the official's motorbikes rolling up from behind. I had been trying to overtake a couple of bikes but backed off so as not to block the race referee. As he got up level to me I noticed he was speaking to me, crap, did I just score my first ever penalty for not completing the pass in time!?
Nope, just having a quick chat and wishing me a good race.

1 hour 18 and change was a bit slower than the first race of the series, however, given the conditions and the wardrobe choice, I reckon that was a pretty good result.

After the race and during the presentations the "Christmas Spirit" entrants were asked to come to the stage. There were two of us who came forward and I must admit, she looked better in the Santa dress yet she conceded defeat before coming on stage. After 3 years of trying but seeing others claim the Garmin prize, this time it was mine! And as they awarded me the winner's Christmas cake in place of a watch I thought, at least it was a fun day.




















*Though I'm not a fan of duathlons, I must admit, that time one and only time I signed up for and raced one I waked away with a $200 Polar heart rate monitor watch so I guess I shouldn't complain...

Journey's end

Seems I've been here before...

If memory serves, my first post to this blog was at a similar time. I have spent spent time today ignoring my immediate company and instead focused that period of attention to the screen on my phone. Today was "Busso" and my link to friends testing their skills, determination and force of will was contained within a 4.3" illuminated panel. About this time last year I was looking seriously at making this my first Ironman race. By all accounts, it was a great race in an awesome location with fantastic support from the local community, add to this, it would be my last opportunity to complete an IM before my 40th birthday - it seemed perfect!

Perfect until we realised that the scheduled race week would actually coincide with another important event. When the dates were confirmed, my plans took a back seat in favour a more important achievement, The Boy's primary school graduation. You see, this is a special occasion because The Boy has Autism and he is graduating from a main stream school and with the class group he started with.

As I watch the split times clock up on my phone of those I am following on the other side of the nation I know they are achieving a goal that was set some time ago. I am also watching a 12 year old boy talking to "Doc Brown" about his Deloriun (time machine) in detail at the Police family Christmas function and I know the milestones he has ticked off over time, though they are not readily viewed via an app. Countless hours of early intervention, socializing skills, occupational therapy, speech therapy have lead to this point. Throughout, he has been a trooper and worked tirelessly to exceed all expectations.

My big race is fast approaching and it is now that I, and those on the same path are beginning to ramp up our training levels. On my training calendar my weekend was to a 130km ride in the hills yesterday, and a 16km Sunday run. My social calender for this same pair of days included 2 Christmas family days, plus a bit of seasonal shopping. Having yet perfected the ability to be in 2 places at the same time, some compromises were required. The long ride through the picturesque hills of the Dandenongs became a  3.5 hour high gear / low cadence grind on the wind trainer (beginning at ridiculous o'clock in order to be off the bike and into family time on time). Sunday arrived and it was time to run, I guess I was still tired from the previous day as, for the first couple of km I was just struggling to get me breath. Pushing through this the next 4km were different, now I was pretty confident I was going to just throw up. There were thoughts at this point that, since I still fairly close to home I might just call it a day and turn for home. It didn't make sense to keep running away from home when it was obvious that today was not my day. Fortunately, there were also thoughts of those who would have been just climbing out of the water in Bussleton, a similar distance behind them and yet a long road ahead. Drawing inspiration from them, and The Boy at home I pressed on an eventually ran into some form and finally, began to run comfortably. It just took a while to get there, sometimes the good things just require a little extra perseverance.

By now, Ironman WA is in the books for another year, from what I hear, it was a very tough day for all of the competitors on the course. Those who wanted to claim their finisher's towel and medal were made to earn it.Congratulations to all who took on the challenge and pushed through to reach that finish line when things got difficult. And to The Boy who is also reaching his own finish line (sorry mate, now medal though), you all inspire the rest of us with your achievements!


Appendix
Today (Monday) was "Awards Day" at school and The Boy was presented with the ICT Award (computers and stuff) for the year, and was also a member of the Rounders team that won the Grand Final of the inter-school competition. Turns out, he did get his medal after all

The Boy is presented with the ICT Award for 2012