Our vacation in Australia has been wonderful so far. It is hard to believe that we are leaving in 3 short days!
After my race in WA, Michael and I did go sheep shearing. That was a amazing experience! Even thoguh I grew up on a farm, my family never had working dogs or sheep. Being a dog lover, I was especially fascinated with the kelpy and the boarder collie. (A Kelpy is a dog cross of a dingo and a boarder collie.) The boarder collie would go round the sheep up and then the kelpy would jump on top of the sheep and wrangle them into the corral!! And when I say jump on top of the sheep, I mean jump on the sheep backs!! It was totally cool. I even got a chance to hold a sheep by its arms and wrangle it myself!
After sheep shearing, we went to the margaret river for wine shopping as well as going to the chocolate factories and cheese factories. We don’t know when we will ever be back to Australia, (especially WA), so we are treating this trip as a once in a lifetime experience!
It was hard leaving our “home” at the Abby. We had been there for about 2 weeks and the staff had been really great to us. Leaving Bussleton was hard too because the entire town had adopted us as their own. We…

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Our day started yesterday at 3:30am. We awoke to freezing cold temperatures, thunder, lightning and rain. This was not my idea of a fun! I hate riding when I am cold and wet….and I especially hate swimming when the waves in the ocean are swallowing me up! But I took it all in stride. I ate my Ironamn breakfast of rice and peanut butter scoops and started preparing all of my stuff for the day.
Michael and I got to the race venue at 4:45am (6am start), only to find out (to my relief), that the race had been postponed for 30 minutes. They wanted to make sure that the lightning had stopped before people started getting in the water….GOOD THING!!
Ironman Australia’s start was like no other start I had ever been to. We listened to the Australian anthem and there was some sort of plane show that was really cool before the cannon shot off.
Before the start, I place myself with Angela Miln. She has been the race series half-ironman winner this past season in Australia. She is an incredible athlete and a really nice girl. We really seemed to bond over the past few days when we were doing press conference stuff and different appearance stuff. I knew that she was the one to beat and that she would be incredibly tough on race day.
After the cannon went off, I tried…

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Yesterday we woke up at a normal time (8am). In the past week, our bodies have been waking at 5am without any problem. I decided to take the day off with Michael and explore some of the region. Our original goal was to go to the Sheep Sheering down south and to see a famous lighthouse. The lighthouse was ok, but I wouldn’t do it again. But the sheep sheering was a definate plus! They have sheep shearing shows at 11am everyday. Plus they have a store with real ugg boots. I really wanted to check this out. I was totally unaware that the Ugg boots that i bought in America are made in China. I thought that they were at least made in Australia. I was totally bummed when I found this out. Unfortunately, we got to the sheep a bit late. We originally thought that the show was a all day show, not exclusivley at 11. The good news was that we got to feed the sheep on our own and we got to check out the goods made with Merino wool (including the original ugg boots). Feeding the sheep was definatley my highlight!! They were so cute and they ran so fast when we shook the pale of feed! They were practically climbing the fence to get to the feed! After feeding the sheep, we decided that we definatley wanted to come back for the show. I…

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This morning I woke up at the early hour of 5am. I really wanted to do the early morning swim workout with the senior swim team (kids ages 13-18). We had met the coach 2 days prior and he said that it would be ok if we joined in. I warned him that I wasn’t quite as quick as his kids, but he seemed not to care. In fact, he was more than welcoming and he assured me that I would have a spot to swim.
This morning I was tired, grumpy, and nervous. Swimming is always tough for me. I am not as confident with it as biking or running and I hate getting in people’s way and I don’t like to be a burden. But the swim coach and his group of kids were really wonderful. He put me in a lane with another Ironman competetor (Imka, from germany?)and another gal from his swim group, Missy. After the warm up, Michael, the swim coach, asked us how we would feel about doing 30x 100 on 1:40 and 1:30. The 1:40′s seemed perfect to me and I would just have to hustle on the 1:30′s. Missy, on the other hand, was doing 1:15′s and 1:20′s. I was just trying to not get in her way!! Imka and I did our thing. It turns out that we were very compatible and it was nice to have someone as slow…

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Today I decided that I wanted to run part of the run course. The run course is FLAT and hopefully FAST!!! This race is truly one of the most beautiful venues. The run is right next to the ocean and the the views are spectactular!!
The excitement of racing comes and goes for me. Today, I wasn’t that excited to race. My run was short of fun or easy. Mentally it was tough and my legs still seem tired and heavy. I still feel like I am having a hard time of coming around with the jet-lag. The good news, however, is that my breathing has been extremly easy. The air quakity here is perfect for me and I don’t seem to have any allergies…Thank goodness!!
After the run, I took a walk on the jetty to check out the swim. I really enjoy taking a nice walk after a difficult run. It makes my legs feel a bit better and It helps me forget about how hard my run seemed.
After my run, Michael and I hopped on our bikes for a short spin. The winds were howeling today! I have heard about the different sort of conditions that I might expect…. and now I know people weren’t exagerating about the wind. Thankfully, I brought a deep dish and a disc just in case of terrible wind!
Tomorrow is a hard day on the bike.…

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I am so sorry that I haven’t been able to write the past few days. We have been going to internet cafes to log on and it has been difficult to find the time.
Our travel from Denver was thankfully uneventful and easy. We were bumped up to economy plus at the last minute from LA to Sydney and it was really AWESOME! I have never flown anything but economy before and this was a pleasant change.
I was so exctied when we arrived in Sydney (we had a 5 hour layover before continuing on to Perth). The weather was warm and it was a welcome change as the weather in Colorado was starting to get cold. We hung out with our Aussie friends, Bev and Geoff for a while before continuing on our trip to Bussleton. The only bad part upon arriving to Sydney was that we found out that our bikes didn’t make it….the joys of travel! We were assured, however from United, that they would make it to Busselton by Sunday (not likely).
Thanks to my friend Rob, we flew Business class to Perth (Now, that was AWESOME!!!!) The good part about Buisiness class is the food and the bad part about buisness class is the food!! Oh my gosh, I couldn’t help myself…Quantas gave us full candy bars!!!! And they gave us a whole cheese and cracker tray!! I couldn’t believe it. Usually,…

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