Registered and chilling...

Since I received a criticism after my last post for my literary skills, I hesitate to write this but will with this disclaimer: I do not claim to or ever will be a writer. I am posting on this blog for me, my family and friends who are hopefully tolerant of my writing skills (or lack there of). When I am tired and/or jetlagged, I do not make much sense-ever..

That said, we have officially been in Aussie Land for 5 days now. My body is starting to feel right again as it gets use to the "upside down" schedule the new land has us in. Last night I slept all night and woke up at 5:30 instead of 4:30. So slowly but surely..

Yesterday, we were invited to cycle with the local "Busso" triathletes at 5:30 AM. Of course we were up way before then and the sun arises here at 5:00 AM so we were bright-eyed and bushy tailed awake and riding by 6:00. We were lead along the bike course along with 9 other locals, who were friendly and nice as you can imagine..23 miles later we felt like rockstars with all the extra O2..The course is beautiful, along the beach and "forest" with wind at times..Apparently they have wind here too..not just in NM! We will be treated with some wind on race day it seems, if the weather gods have it right. That's OK-we can take it-bring it on!! The folks then invited us to coffee, where I was schooled in how to order a cup of coffee (a long black)..Our new found friends even invited us to come swim early today but alas we overslept!

I read a whole book yesterday, we rented a movie and generally just laid around after our early morning excursion..H cooked a fantastic "steak on the barbie" in our new home away from home. It was cold and started raining off and on yesterday  so was a good day just to rest.

Today, off we went to walk the 2.5 miles down the beach for our "organized swim". Well, things here at IMWA seem a little more relaxed. There were no Gator-Aid folks there to take your stuff so we just hopped on with an IM tour group and swam with them. The water is as clear as it gets. I was a little nervous when the first guy I saw get out said he was stung on the face by a jelly fish. There are NOT suppose to be jelly fish in this ocean! We managed to swim for about 25 min. No stings, the water temp is cool, but not cold. I felt FAST in the salt water....

After the swim, we ate lunch at "The Goose" Fantastic food, great view..Then off to the Expo. Seems they were not quite all together either as most of the booths were not even set up yet. Our biggest disappointment so far is the IMWA gear. Not only is the clothing pretty "cheap" looking, they have the iron-on kind of IMWA logos (you know the kind that washes off over time)-that is if you can actually see the logo beyond the "JAGGARD" label (clothing line I guess)..Bummer because we were planning to buy the store out on IMWA stuff but not that stuff at those prices ($150 for a cheap ass jersey). OK I can live with this issue. We will scout it out again on Sunday for finishers' stuff. Oh and apparently I am skinnier in Australia. When they weighed me today (they weigh all the athletes), I weighed 7 lbs lighter than in the US. Amazing!

The people here are so friendly and helpful-it is hard to describe. They laughed when we went and "got in line" for the registration a few minutes before it opened- we were FIRST! Only the crazy Americans, whose IM races sell out a year in advance were there to be FIRST! Quick check in..The only funny thing is I guess we did not put in our state on the application so the guy, never having heard of ABQ, put in the first state he could think of I guess...Alaska. So we are from Albuquerque, Alaska..Ha!! Also, we were given a "Safely Utility Knife" in our shwag bags. Really? I guess that is to cut down the competition? We will not make it past the first airline flight out of Perth but until then, at least I know I have a huge KNIFE if I need it!

Tomorrow, we will be in the "athlete parade" of nations. We will all be parading down mainstreet to the carbo loading dinner. How cool is that?

Chilling out the rest of today..Life is good in the Land of Oz..