It's done people - I've entered the race

ITU Triathlon World Cup 2011 and Age Group Race


Sunday, 20 November 2011 7:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. (New Zealand Time)

Auckland

Queens Wharf, Auckland CBD

Auckland

New Zealand


Your registration is complete.

Thank you for your entry to the 2011 ITU Triathlon World Cup Age Group Race in Auckland!

We will keep you updated with all developments and activties around the event and look forward to welcoming you to the start line on 20 November.


Thanks again

The team at TRI Auckland

Race Report - Rarotonga International Triathlon

Rarotonga International Triathlon 7th May 2011

1.5km swim / 41km bike / 10km run

I took a small group of 10 people with me for this year’s event with 7 competing and it was a wonderful group of awesome people – we were all at various levels of ability but everyone had the same goal – to finish and we all achieved this goal.

the group, 7 competitors and 3 supporters

What an amazing event in a spectacular destination – Rarotonga, set in the idyllic South Pacific, an island set inside a tropical reef abound with sea life.

Boiler swim (boiler in the distance)

This event was a festival of events over the week starting on the Thursday evening with The Boiler Swim, an 800m swim out through a reef passage and around the “old boiler” of a steam ship wreck and back to the beach.

The swim started about 5.30pm out the front of Trader Jacks Bar and Restaurant so there was quite a big crowd in attendance and I’m sure half of them were wondering what the hell was going on when we all turned up to swim from the beach right in front of the bar.

I had an awesome swim finishing in 7th place overall, 5th male out of a field of over 60 and I won a prize (a very nice tee shirt and a bottle of wine) – my time was 12min 03sec

Boiler swim race start

After the race it was back to the Edgewater Resort (where we all stayed and where most of the events were held) for a pre-race Pasta Party – a fun event of carb loading and a couple of beers, pretty relaxed I can assure you!!

Friday was a rest day but we all went out to Muri beach to have a swim on the swim course – it was quite windy but so nice to swim in the lagoon “sans” wetsuit as the water was so warm. Not much happened for the rest of the day.

Saturday dawned and wouldn’t you know it – wind!!! BUT this was to be a good thing. Most of the locals were hoping for hot conditions as this is what favours them as this is how they train – we even got a really good rain shower during the ride.

We had a ride organised for us to get us and the bikes to the race start about 10km away so we arrived at the venue early which was nice, we all just got ourselves organised in transition. I don’t train with food so I didn’t want to try this in a race scenario BUT I did load up on liquids. They were expecting it to get hot but thankfully, it didn’t.


an hour and a half to race start

Once my transition was all sorted it was off to get numbered and start to get my head in the right space. This was to be my first ever Olympic distance event and I had never even run a 10k before so I was a little nervous going in. I had a very realistic expectation of what I wanted to achieve – my first goal was that I wanted to finish, I knew that I could swim 1500m and ride 41km and I had run 5k events so even if I walked, I wanted to finish and my second goal was to finish in under 3 hours.

I had worked out in my head that the swim would take me half an hour, the bike should take me an hour and a half and the run should take me about an hour – I’ll put my results with splits at the end of this report.

Everyone headed out for a warm up swim but this was more about seeing how much current was flowing through the lagoon – the event was timed to go at full tide to reduce the drag BUT they didn’t count on the wind. There was a very strong current but it was the same for everyone and I knew how comfortable and confident I am in the ocean so I didn’t let it concern me at all. I was thinking that this would sort out the pool swimmers as I had a chuckle to myself.

pre race start

Race briefing over and after a short prayer (they are very religious in the Cook Islands) we were off. I stuck close to the locals on the right side of the course on leg one as I thought they would be the ones that knew the conditions – this proved to be a mistake on the first leg, they were thinking that the current would help “push” them but it was the opposite and the first leg of 590m was just a hard out slog into waves and wind and the frontrunners all came together around the first buoy. The second leg was going with the current so it was all good to stretch out and get a good gain and managed to pass a few people and around the third buoy I was in the lead group. The final leg was the longest at 690m and it was just like a drag strip with everyone going for it. I exited the water in 7th place so was very happy with that.

pre race prayer

Time check: 1500m in 26.08 in tough conditions, 7th place after the swim











T1 was a blur – running up from the beach there was so many people forming a chute all the way to transition. It was awesome to hear everyone screaming and saying “well done, going great” – got into transition and it was so nice not to have to take off a wetsuit. Super quick T1, on with the helmet and shoes and away.

fast transition T1

and off on the bike course

The bike section was a full loop of the island (31km) and a small loop of the airport and main town (10km) – the first 15-20km of the bike was going along great, right up until the point that one of my hands slipped off my tri bars and my seat “twisted” so I needed to stop and fix it. Quite a few people passed me while I was doing this but shit happens right?

We also had a really good shower of rain – it cooled me down nicely but made for tricky riding conditions.

The rest of the bike was good but the last 5km I started getting a really sore lower back, I had to sit up plenty of times to stretch – the roads were very, very rough so that’s what I’m putting it down to but it could have been the fact that I had to pull my bike to bits and put back together so it may not have been set up correctly.

All in all, I was very happy with my bike.

Time check: 41km in 1.28.19, 38th place in the bike.

T2 was also pretty much a blur – I left the bike shoes clipped in so as soon as I racked my bike it was off with the helmet, on with my visor and running shoes and away – brilliant transition.

T2 - off on to the run course

The run was always going to be my “issue” but I just took it easy and felt pretty comfortable for the first 5km, in fact, one of our supporters did my km splits for the first 5km and I was running 5 minute k’s for the first 5km – stoked!!! BUT I really struggled for the last 5km – I just had a few words with myself and said, “one foot in front of the other, simple stuff, you can do this” – they had the kilometres painted on the road and I’m pleased to say that I only walked through the aid stations to take on water and electrolytes and a big wet sponge – they were great. When I got to the 8km mark I knew I could do this so I gritted my teeth and kept plodding along. I checked my watch and thought that I’d go close to my goal of around 3 hours so I just kept going and tried to lift the pace BUT I had nothing left in the tank so I just said to myself, just keep going at the pace you are now and we’ll see what the result is.

about 4km to go

I turned off the main road and into the driveway to the park where the finish line was about 500m away and was met but my screaming wife saying “GO, GO, GO – you’re under 3 hours – you can do this” so I gave it one last kick and I could see the finish chute and better yet, I could see the clock above the finish line so I pumped the arms one last time and crossed the line – Rarotonga International Triathlon 2011 – DONE !

Time check: 10km in 1.05.08, 36th place in the run.

Oh yeah - how good is that feeling!!

Official results:

Steve Marshall – 2.59.35
32nd overall out of over 100 competitors
10th in my age group out of 15 ( 40-49years – incidentally, 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th and 11th place overall were all in this age group )
1500m Swim split – 26.08
41km Bike split – 1.28.19
10km Run split – 1.05.08
92 individual competitors (43 female and 49 male )
20 teams

Last comment:
What an amazing place for a race, it was a very well run event and we had plenty of down time to enjoy the hospitality that this South Pacific Island had to offer – we’ll be back next year for sure!!

**BHAG**

Big Hairy Audacious Goal – is a term that we have used in business and in our personal lives and I am about to reveal one of these to you now.

I am in training and have been for a few months and the other day I booked tickets to Auckland for a "qualification" race in November. I’ve told a couple of people in confidence but I am now putting it out there so to speak.

My goal for 2011 is to qualify for the 2012 World Age Group Sprint Triathlon Championships - this is what I’m training for.

I have it written on my wall in my garage where my weights are, I have it written on my Road ID. I have a race in a few weeks in Rarotonga and this is an Olympic distance triathlon race and it will also be the longest race that I have done. I really have no idea how long this will take me but I’m thinking around the 3 hour to 3.15 mark – I’ll keep you posted.

It’s been so frustrating in the last few months with not being able to surf as the ocean has been out of bounds due to raw sewage and they think that it could be like this for a number of months. I have a trip planned to Australia in June so will take my board on that one and get some “ocean time” in between “meeting time”

Earthquake update: the CBD is stuffed, they have just earmarked another 96 buildings to demolish, the roads around our suburb are still buggered, so much so that we’ve bought a 4WD vehicle – great for inner city driving.

I was sent this list the other day and I thought it was so funny, so what better thing to do than share this with the group.

It’s called – You know you’re from Christchurch when?


• Geonet / Christchurch QuakeMap is your homepage

• The rest of the country offers you a place to stay

• “Munted” and “buggered” are official technical terms

• You go 'pfffff' when Wellington has a 4.5 earthquake that's 40km deep

• You see a nice park in another city and think it would make a good evacuation point

• You sleep in one suburb, shower in another and collect water from yet another

• When you drive on the right side of the road and no one thinks it's wrong

• You are happy two Policemen came for a visit

• When your bike becomes your best friend

• You think it's fine for a soldier to be stationed at the end of your street

• You see armoured vehicles driving down the road

• It’s normal to greet people with “do you need a shower?”

• A bucket of sh*t is no longer that old car you drive

• Instead of rushing to the clothes line to get clothes in when it rains, you put dirty washing on the line in the hope that it will rain enough to clean them

• Going to Wellington to escape earthquakes makes sense

• Your doctor recommends having a few stiff drinks before bed to help you sleep

• You have tied the pantry, liquor cabinet and all the cupboard doors closed and it's not to keep kids out

• You prefer to sit under the table instead of at it

• You think electronics that have "shock proof" should say to which earthquake magnitude

• You know and actually understand the terms and conditions of your House and Contents insurance policies

• You can see irony in claims about houses made of “permanent materials”

• Your en-suite has a vege garden, dog kennel and grass

• Your teenagers are only too happy to sleep in the same room as their parents

• You stop using the term “built like a brick sh*t house”

• Dressing up to "head into town" means putting on a hi-viz vest, hard hat and boots

• Discussing toilet habits with total strangers is an everyday norm

• Wee boys don't get excited when they see (another) digger or a dozer - but all the adults in the street cheer wildly

• You know what that extra gear lever on your 4X4 is for

• Metservice includes a graph for dust

• You have dust mask tan lines

• You can use the term "liquefaction" in everyday casual conversation, even your 3-year old can

• When a massive group of students appears in your street, you feel overwhelmed with gratitude instead calling the Police. What’s more, the students leave the street in better condition than when they arrived

• The answer to where anything is ... it’s on the floor

• You smile at strangers and greet people like you’re one big family

ABC's of Travel/Surf Guy

A welcome relief from the earthquake posts - here's a light hearted look at me.

Enjoy

A. Age: 44, will be 45 in July but have had heaps of comments since I have lost a bit of weight that I look like I’m early 30’s (which I like!!)


B. Bed size: Super King – love it but I don’t seem to get much between my wife and the dogs, I get only a small section.

C. Chore you dislike: dusting, hate it, always have, always will

D. Dogs: Papillion’s – we have 2, Oscar (black and white) and Rusty (red and white) – they rule our roost

E. Essential start to your day: sugar free V (don’t do hot drinks)

F. Favourite colour: yellow, my car, tee shirts, road ID – if only I could get a yellow bike I’d be set!!

G. Gold or silver: White gold.

H. Height: 6 foot

I. Instruments you play(ed): never have – you might say that I’m “musically challenged”

J. Job title: Company Director – we own a travel agency

K. Kids: never will, not interested, don’t like them

L. Live: Christchurch, New Zealand

M. Mom’s name: Geraldine

N. Nicknames: don’t have one but in the 80’s when you could only put a 3 letter name on space invaders when you got the high score – I’d put “Bob”

O. Overnight hospital stays: Yes. Last one was last year, knee surgery

P. Pet peeves: People who are late (I’m never late) and people who moan about stuff – either shut the f&*%k up or change it – easy?

Q. Quote from a movie: “Goose, it’s time to buzz the tower” – Top Gun

R. Righty or lefty: Righty

S. Siblings: I have a brother 2 years younger than me and a sister 2 years younger than him – sister has 2 kids.

T. Time you wake up: 6.00am weekends as well (we have small puppies) – I am a morning person

U. Underwear: McPherson Men briefs (Elle McPherson)

V. Vegetables you don’t like: sprouts and broccoli

W. What makes you run late: nothing, I always leave plenty of “wiggle” room.

X. X-rays you’ve had: both knees, ankle, back, shoulder, hands, wrists and hip – yeah, pretty much all of me – I had a head on smash on a motorbike (with a car) when I was 18

Y. Yummy food you make: I cook a mean BBQ

Z. Zoo animal favourites: love the tigers

Update

Hi all,

Time for a short update – what a couple of weeks huh?

My leg is covered in bruises from the accident I had last week – (see previous post about the shit-head that drove into me and knocked me off my bike) but getting better by the day.

Pleased to report that Sonia and I are fine (or as fine as we can be given the recent events) but as you can imagine, we are both incredibly tired, stressed and a bit frustrated with the position we are in. I guess these feelings are all natural in these times we are now living.

We have power and running water BUT the city are still advising us to boil all water so as you can imagine, we are all having a great time. The biggest issue for us right now is sewerage – it’s all busted and not working. Now I don’t mind camping one bit but 2 weeks of crapping in the back yard in a hole dug in the back garden is getting pretty old!!

We do have a porta-loo at the end of our street but it seems so far away??

We went to a meeting by city officials yesterday – the mayor, representatives of the fire service, police, health service, social services and a few others were all in attendance to give our local area an update on what we can expect in our immediate future in our local area. About 500 people turned up to the local park to hear what was said and to be honest, not a lot of new info was passed on to us. The main thing we took out of this meeting was that the waste wasn’t likely to be fixed very soon – in fact, they think they are talking somewhere in the vicinity of 6 months.

Hands up anyone who has camped for 6 months?? NOT ME
I shouldn’t complain too much as we still have our house and our puppies are fine (our street is buggered though) but I do feel incredibly stressed and I “pity the fool” (see I can still use a funny reference to the A Team) that rubs me the wrong way because they might just end up wearing all the bent up stress and rage that I feel is currently just simmering under my rather cool exterior. Since the earthquake (22FEB), we have had heaps of decent aftershocks so there are plenty of people just wandering around with a kind of blank look on their faces, everyone looks stressed and tired – here’s a statistic for you, between the Tuesday (day of the quake) and the Friday, 38,000 people flew out of Christchurch. Up until yesterday, they predict that this figure is now close to 60,000 people have left town – CRAZY HUH!!!!

I am trying to stay as strong as I can but this is proving to be quite a challenge – I have responsibilities and these are to my wife and puppies and our house, we also have a business that employs 5 people so I am also responsible for these people and their families – this is tough as there are so many businesses that have ceased to be in Christchurch and there are so many that face a very uncertain future. People will hold onto their cash and this may have a huge impact on our business but we are back up and trading, we are busy which is good and as the city or the CBD is effectively closed for the foreseeable future, we may be ok – time will tell so wish us luck.

Shit

Fuck - as if we don't have enough shit going on - this morning I was hit by a car on the way to work - I was on my mountain bike as the roads are so congested with all the damage from the earthquake.

I am fine, just a little banged up, grazed knee etc - could have been a lot worse.

I'm just very, very frustrated right now!!!!!

All I want is a surf and/or swim.

Earthquake update from Christchurch

Hi guys,

First, thank you to Sis and Jill for your thoughts after you heard about the earthquakes here last Tuesday.

This might be a long one as I have a few photos but I'll start with the story.

Our day normally begins with me dropping the wife (Sonia) off to her to place of work and then on to my workplace, this whole journey takes us about 45 minutes but after the quake the journey in reverse took 4 and a 1/2 hours.

I was sitting at my desk in the office when the quake struck and the office moved about 5 feet back and forth and shook for just over 30 seconds. The official measure was 6.3 - BUT - this one was centred within 10 km from the city centre and only 5 km deep. As of right now, the death toll is 146.

Our back room at work

Back to the office, things were falling off the shelves, brochure shelf units fell over, some light fittings fell from the ceiling and as soon as it stopped shaking,

I made sure that the staff got out and away from the building.carpark before we wen't back in to secure a few things, lock the safe and get the hell out.
There were some pretty good aftershocks as we were all standing in the


I sent the staff home to be with their families and said I'd be in touch (this was Tuesday) and headed to pick up Sonia. She works on the 5th floor of a building and I was very concerned for her safety and all I wanted to do is get to her. I did after a couple of hours as traffic was crazy with everyone getting out of the city. I found her and we just stood there and hugged - it was very emotional.

We then headed home to see what sort of state our house was in and we could not get within 3 blocks of the house. Some roads were impassable and our street was under water.

Just around the corner from us

We had to roll up our pants and wade in. The water was halfway up our driveway and had not reached the house which we were very happy about. We got inside and we had crap everywhere. Stuff had fallen over, all our draws werer open, we have cracks in some of the tiles in the entrance hallway and our puppies were very happy to see us.





This is our street looking right from our driveway

That night I got out in the street and managed to clear the drain and shovelled a heap of the silt away - enough to clear most of the water at the end of the street. All that seemed to follow for the next few days was digging and moving the massive amount of silt from the liqufication that had occured - just crazy scenes!!

We were without water, power, sewage or cell coverage for days, got water on Friday and we got the power back yesterday - still no sewage as yet.

Looking left from our driveway

This is the entrance to our street

This is lookingup our driveway, you can see the water line 

Our digging work

A spring appeared in the middle of our street

Sonia pointing to our street lake

our sleeping arrangments in the longe - close access to the table

So much more to say so will add more later - a very close friend is staying with us for a while as her house is totally wrecked and unliveable. We spent 2 hours this morning getting everything out of the house for her and it is probably due to be demolished in the next few days - so sad. Here is a couple of pictures of the cracks in her house.

Her garage seperating from the neighbours wall

 

her wall - the whole house moved

you can see where the deck and wall has seperated from the house

So sad for her but pleased that we can provide a roof over her head. She is a very special person that would do (and does) anything for anyone, we are just lucky that we can help her out and she will be welcome to stay with us for as long as she needs. This is her second home but it may take a while for the puppies to adjust as they seem to think that this is their house !!!