Taylor Swift Nailed It

A lot of people have been asking how Ironman training is going.  I'm in week 10 of 21 and it is progressing well overall.  The weather is starting to improve as Spring rolls in and I am just starting to think ahead to the actual race on Dec 4 as I can now envision warmth and sunshine again! (Plus, airfare, car, and hotel are all now booked!)

I think my general feelings while training, especially during those long bike rides, can best be captured by the lyrics of TayTay's song, "22:" 

"We're happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time. It's miserable and magical, yeah yeah..."  

Yup, she nailed it. That's exactly how I feel!  The only part she really left out is starving.  I am starving. All. The. Time.  Luckily, I am married to someone familiar with all of this, so he's not entirely surprised when we're chatting over dinner and I say things like, "Hey babe, did you know that at the KFC on North Road you can get 24 chicken nuggets for only $10?" Or when I text him a photo from the freezer section at the grocery store with the words, "OMG, did you know they made these?!"  The latest freezer section photo was of honeycomb and chocolate ice cream sandwiches. (Yes, they were as amazing as they sound and I am going to get more as soon as Isla wakes up from her nap!)

The swimming and the running is very enjoyable to me, actually, and neither really ever lasts that long (all put in perspective of training for a 140 mile race, I guess).  There have been quite a few swims with cold pouring rain on my back and several uncomfortable runs, but what challenges me most is the biking as I'm continually reminded: (1) Everyone else seems to be faster than me out on Beach Road where I train (Seriously, I refer to my Sunday rides as the "Sunday Morning Humble" as I get passed ferociously by far superior cyclists and massive pelotons) and (2) Melbourne Bayside may be the windiest place on earth! It is somewhat frequent that the weather changes quickly and the wind is actually going against you in both directions - I'm not even exaggerating!  I was talking to a local bike shop owner about this phenomenon last week and he told me there was this one time, 5 years ago, that the weather changed and the wind was WITH him in both directions and it was such an amazing day he'll never forget.  Ha!  I guess I haven't lived here long enough to capture one of these rare days!   I will do a 45 mile ride this week and need to work up to the longest ride at 100 miles, which is currently slated for my birthday.  I certainly won't be feeling 22 like my girl, Taylor, but I may act like it afterward with some celebratory eating and drinking!  All joking aside, I'm pretty stoked about doing this again at all and to get to do it in a place like Western Australia is still mind blowing (and slightly terrifying) to me.  As soon as my training ends, Nate's will begin and we'll switch roles for 5 months while he feels miserable and magical at the same time!  

Isla has certainly been learning about working out a lot from this experience.  She knows "the wheels on the bus" song well and applies it to my bike when I ride, yelling that the wheels go "round and round."  She also shocked me as we were getting off a plane a couple weeks ago (went to the Great Barrier Reef which was incredible, but more on that later) as she ran all the way up the jet bridge into the terminal and then immediately stopped for some exuberant stretching which lasted quite a while. I can only hope she is mostly learning these elements of a healthy lifestyle and not so much about downing an entire box of chocolate chip cookies in 5 minutes. The below photo is a pretty regular occurrence at our house. I'm on the bike trainer and Isla has decided to do a few push ups in between dancing behind me. 

On an only slightly related note, while my biking may not be the fastest, apparently our driving is too fast - both Nate and I learned the hard way that there are speed and light cameras everywhere as the tickets with hefty fines started appearing in the mail a month or so ago.  $700 later, Nate learned you can't exceed 63 km/hr on the road just around the corner from our house, and I learned you can't turn left on red. (I know, this sounds bad, but it is like going right on red in the US when no cars are coming!)  I stand by my action and think going left on red is perfectly fine. The only problem is the state of Victoria disagrees, so I won't be doing this anymore.  We don't think there are any more fines coming in, but they are about 2 months delayed so I hold my breath every time I get the mail.

We have continued to figure out these little things along the way, but Aussie slang sometimes still catches me off guard.  I was texting with my hair guy trying to schedule an appointment this week (you text/call your stylist directly here as opposed to calling a salon). Anyway, he texted me that he was sorry for the delay in responding but he "got a bit crook" this week.  Hmm, this didn't sound good so I wanted to be sure to respond with the appropriate amount of sympathy. This is tough when you aren't sure whether someone got robbed or got sick.  I later confirmed with a friend (after googling a bit) that it does indeed mean sick.  No shortage of continuous learning here! 

BYO...What?

Around the area we live, BYO is primarily used for 2 things.  The first, you may have already guessed, is for alcohol (as in, "Uh yes, it's my turn to BYO the sauv blanc to the park while our kids play together today.")  The other is actually "BYO Baby" to events, which makes it possible to do stuff that normally parents just can't do with their kids.  My favorite BYO Baby option is at the movie theater.  Two of our local theaters have one movie a week during the day where admission is half price for adults and you can bring a baby up to 2 years old.  The online description actually reads, "Kicking, screaming and breastfeeding are encouraged."  If you don't have kids, I'll admit this sounds like a godawful way to spend an afternoon, but if you have a baby, this is really awesome.  I've taken Isla at least once a month for the last 6 months. 

At first, when she was younger, she just danced in the seat and ate her box of raisins and then fell asleep.  Then she discovered she could crawl up and down all those stairs!  She'd climb to the very top of the stairs next to the film screening box and sit as high up as she could.  Every time this one male employee would enter the dark theater and come up the stairs, Isla would squint through the darkness, see a male figure, and yell, "DAD?!"  (Would you believe it wasn't him, even once?!  Toddlers are hilarious).  Now, Isla is approaching 16 months and I need to pay slightly closer attention to the movie choices.  We played a lot of peek-a-boo during shooting scenes in Jason Bourne recently so her eyes would be covered, for example. I am definitely out of the Hollywood gossip loop without seeing US Weekly Magazines on a regular basis in grocery stores, so I actually went into Jason Bourne assuming it was all about that other actor (the one from Jarhead and The Avengers who that last Bourne movie was about) so in the opening scene, as soon as I realized that was not the case, I yelled excitedly at Isla, "That's MATT DAMON!"  She giggled and we high-fived.  Eventually she fell asleep and I held her ears against me with one hand while consuming my other BYO item discretely with the other. 

Perhaps the most hilarious scene at the theater was at the BYO Baby screening of Bad Moms last week. The theater was absolutely packed ("chockers," in aussie-speak) and it was at one of the hipster theaters nearby - you know, the ones who write all the show times on brown paper with a marker just to make a statement even though using a damn Light Bright would be one step higher technologically?  The other crucial element of a true hipster theater, of course, is an extensive craft beer and cocktail list.  I've never seen so many people trying to push a stroller holding multiple glasses of bubbly at the same time.  It was like nobody let these moms (and a few dads) out of the house all week and they just broke free!  It was a fun, giggly time all-around. 

So, we are surprisingly keeping up with all the latest movies!  Nate watches them on planes during his heaps of work travel (he has an Asian country tour coming up, so I've got my work cut out for me) and I hit up hipster theaters with my kid's during nap time! 

The other excellent place to bring kids here is the horse track.  They have a ton of free activities for kids so that adults/families can fully enjoy themselves.  Pictured below is our trip to the local horse track last weekend where Isla got her face painted for the first time.

Quidditch with Shaved Legs

Originally posted July 13, 2016

One staple of Australian culture that we had yet to witness was an Australian rules football game, known around here as just “footy.”  We recently checked out our first footy game and it was really quite exciting!

If I had to describe it, I would say it is most like a combination of rugby and quidditch.  Sure, they don’t fly on broomsticks, but the players jump insanely high and the field is an enormous oval with multiple poles at the end of each side marking multiple goals associated with various point options. The game is fast-paced and invokes punching (not throwing) the ball as well as kicking it, and lots of fast running.  Given all this, the players look to be in amazing shape and they all seem to have perfectly shaved legs, highlighted by the very short shorts they wear.

I think my favorite part of the game (other than the shaved legs and short shorts of course) was the throw-in that must be done when the ball goes out of bounds, much like in soccer.  The ref turns around with his back to the field and throws it as far as he can behind him.  It looks like some inappropriate maneuver I would do while playing H-O-R-S-E on the basketball court!  It’s a really fun game to watch, not to mention the fans!

People are very into footy and since they are also very into drinking, it makes for some very enthused and energetic cheering at the game.  So much so that they carve out a separate area of the stadium for kids/families, which turned out to be awesome for us as we could even get Isla her own seat for a really cheap family package price.  The footy games are known for having very intense fans (much like going to an Eagles game in Philadelphia). In fact, I actually was reading some footy stadium FAQs online to learn a bit more prior to the game and one of the first bullets states, “The Mexican Wave is strictly prohibited.”   Nate and I figured the Mexican wave must be a really bad kind of wave that involves punching, or maybe the last person in line getting lightly stabbed or something,  but when we looked it up, it is actually just the regular old wave I grew up doing at Orioles games.  I’d love to learn how that one got banned from footy games. We loved the game and are still learning what is even happening half the time, but will definitely return to another game soon to continue our education.

As far as other updates go, we returned home last Sunday after spending a few weeks in the US. Isla is getting to be quite a good traveler and shocks all the flight attendants with the amount of food she eats on the plane (on our leg from LA to DC, she actually ate the pilot’s meal when he didn’t want it!)  Coming back to “winter” hasn’t been too tragic – I put it in quotes because the highs are still in the 50s every day; it’s just a bit raw and windy most days.  Not too bad.

Now that Isla and all the other babies in our playgroup have turned one, there were, of course, a number of kiddie birthday events and parties, but the main event was a Friday night dinner and drinks out for all the moms without the kids.  It was the perfect way to celebrate the previous year!   While I continue the mom flirting when it seems most appropriate, I’ve also found that play dates with wine very much entice lots of moms. I’m hosting my first “Mum & Bub Happy Hour” this Thursday and am expecting a decent turnout already. Afternoon wine and cheese for adults and raisin boxes while playing in our Mountain Hardware camping tent in the living room for kids. What could be better?!