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.
No comments:
Post a Comment