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?!

Back to the US, Home of the Free...Chick Fil A Sandwich!

Originally Posted June 4, 2016

On June 1, we made our first journey back to the US. During our 2 legs of the flight and 5 hour layover in LA, I kept thinking about that movie, “Snakes on a Plane.” I haven’t actually seen that movie, but given the title, I think I have the general plot line down. I thought about how, occasionally I might have preferred a few snakes to dodge on a plane rather than share my seat with a one year old. Samuel L. Jackson clearly passed up the script for “Toddlers on a Plane” as that was too scary or a movie! In all seriousness, Isla did as well as I think she could have given the length of the trip. At one point, we ordered a beef sandwich and lamb and mushroom pie thinking Isla would have some bites of at least one. Instead, she ate both complete meals. I’m sure you can imagine the poop we had to change in the airplane bathroom after that feast! We are a few days into the trip and the 14 hour time difference has made for some interesting sleeping patterns while Isla adjusts – she mostly just wants to party at 3am which means I mostly want to cry a little at 3am.

While we rave about the food in Melbourne, I must admit I can barely contain myself being back around Chipotle and Chick Fil A. I was especially ecstatic to learn that if you download the Chick Fil A app, you get a free chicken sandwich… Yes please! I made Nate’s parents stop in a mall in the middle of nowhere, WV while driving to our weekend getaway yesterday and indulged in my first Chick Fil A sandwich in 6 months. It was glorious!

We are with Nate’s whole family out at the Stonewall Jackson resort in WV, staying in a cabin on the lake. Yesterday, Nate and I saw a small advertizement for an event called the “Rush Run,” a 6 mile trail run at the resort that starts at 8am. We figured we might as well take advantage of having grandparent babysitters and do it. We went to bed at 11, and ended up awake from 3-5am with our very energetic child whose body still thinks night is day. In the morning, in our exhausted stupor, we decided to just go ahead and do the race. We walked over to the race site, paid our money, and then realized a couple things:

1. Everyone else knew each other and we were the outsiders.
2. No one else was in running clothes. They all looked ready to hike.

As it turned out, “Rush Run” was actually the name of the hiking trail and no one intended to run except us. Being the competitive souls we are, Nate leaned over to me and whispered, “I think we are going to win this thing!” (We did). It turned out to actually be about 7 miles (but it is West Virginia to be fair and I don’t think counting is really their thing) and we never saw any other people on the trails. It was still very pleasant and we enjoyed ourselves. The highlight may have actually been during the hike briefing where they let us know lots of bears are in this area and just to be aware. Then this older women wearing a Sriracha shirt yells, “Um, excuse me, what does a bear smell like?!” Um, what? Nate and I asked each other that question about every mile which kept us giggling instead of just giving up, lying down and taking a much needed nap.

Winter is Coming!

Originally posted May 16, 2016

No joke – winter is a real thing here!  It never gets too cold, but it is definitely a bit raw and windy.  We got our first real taste of the really chilly morning and evening temperatures when we went to Tasmania over ANZAC Day weekend the last weekend in April (similar to Memorial Day). This was also Isla’s 1st birthday weekend.  (She just kept asking for a trip for her 1st birthday, so we gave in.) Thank goodness there are so many sheep in Tasmania whose wool is turned into warm clothing - Isla and I both had to buy locally knitted hats to keep warm at the market in Hobart when it was in the 40s that morning!  It was a wonderful 4 day trip!  We saw the historic sites, ate tons of local seafood, checked out the markets, went to one of the national parks, and went to an island off the main island, called Bruny.  Tasmania has so many little strips of land that are literally feet wide with water on either side which makes for some crazy scenery. They call these narrow little land strips, “isthmuses.”  I tried over and over and still can’t pronounce this word without putting too much emphasis on the “th” sound and drooling a little.  I’ll keep practicing. They are beautiful little areas though!  Tasmania is only an hour flight from Melbourne and on the way home, the flight attendant did her usual announcement about food and complimentary beverages and then added, “plus it’s Anzac Day so we’ll give you complimentary alcoholic drinks too.”  I love Australia.



When we returned from Tassie, we had a week straight of beautifully warm fall weather and then it really got cold, windy, and rainy for a while.  Ugh…winter.  For a week or two I wore sweatpants and slippers a bit more, around the house at first, but then I figured no one at storytime at the library would care if I had sweatpants on, then the grocery store…put simply, I got lazy and cozy.   Lazy and cozy was fun for a little while, but it’s just not me. I decided I needed to do something, something to get me out of a funk and back to normal.  A month earlier, I’d been toying around with signing up for another big race.  This past weekend I revisited the idea but continued to flip flop on it.  Finally, Nate told me to “stop being a sissy and just do it already.”  Clearly, this man knows me better than anyone because that’s all it took.  On Mother’s Day, I had a few celebratory mimosas for some liquid courage and registered for Ironman Western Australia!

Ironman races are particularly interesting because you have to train in order to start training.  The race is Dec 4th.  Pre-training started today; actual training starts July 11th. I swam outside today and caught a glimpse of the lifeguard as I took a breath after a flip turn. He was wearing a down coat and a winter hat.  I thought for the first time the thought that will inevitably go through my mind 200 times between now and December: “WTF am I doing?!”  20 minutes later while chugging along in the pool still, I decided that given the location the race, which is 2 hours south of Perth (aka shark heaven) I should probably also figure out how to work shark-punching lessons into the training plan!
Nate and I always find that doing intense training together, but a bit staggered, works best for us.  He has registered for Ironman Port Macquarie (north of Sydney) which is in May 2017.  We are mental gearing up, physically gearing up (the credit card bills when you’re buying tri gear are painful to look at!), and getting excited for the experience!  Between the ironman training and our 1 year old’s affinity for smoked salmon and blue cheese, the grocery bills are about to get out of hand!

Almost Murdered By a Kangaroo!

Originally posted May 14, 2016

The title of this blog sounds scary, and it certainly was a bit scary…but also one of the wildest things I’ve ever witnessed!   On April 16th, Nate and I did “The Great Ocean Bike Ride,” a 145K (about 90 miles) ride that starts in the surf town of Torquay, winds up into the mountains inland, and then back down the mountain side down to the ocean and loops back along the ocean road.  I vaguely recalled that the last time I trained for and biked 90 miles that it hurt quite a bit.  Without training, this was quite a painful experience!  After about 3 hours of riding, my upper legs were just aching and felt like they were on fire as we pulled into the aid station.  Then I looked up and was delighted too see massive boxes of cake – Nate and I each ate 4 pieces of cake, some Tasmanian apples and bananas. I’m pretty sure nothing ever tasted so good.  After that point began the “mountain section” of the race and it started to downpour as we got above the clouds.  I should have eaten six pieces of cake…

Anyway, back to the kangaroo murder.  The first couple hours of the ride went through beautiful and slightly poop-smelling farm country – open fields and rolling hills as far as the eye could see.  We did the race with another couple and the wife was riding ahead with me while the guys followed.  Behind us, I heard Nate’s voice yell, “Hey, watch out!”  By the time I looked up, all I saw was this massive brown kangaroo in the air in front of me.  I braked hard and saw him touch down in the center line of the road, only to pounce back up into the air, clearing the remainder of the road as well as the fence on the side of the road and go bounding off into the field.  Holy crap, I’ve never seen anything like that before!  I kept thinking how neat it was until our friend pointed out that if I was riding about 3 seconds faster, that thing could have killed me (not quite as cool…) I like to think I would have just been injured, but what an awkward way to go that would have been.  Wow. So that, followed by cake, were the highlights of the day, for sure!  The whole ride with some stops here and there took about 7 hours.  I must say, we certainly needed our hot tub that night!  This is one feature of our rental property we use quite regularly and have decided, without question, that when we return to the states, we’ll be purchasing a hot tub for our house there.

Not too “hop” around too much, but I have to share one of my favorite photos of living here so far while on the topic of kangaroos.  Isla absolutely loves animals – her first word after mom and dad was dog, which she pronounces, “GOG” with quite a bit of emphasis on the initial “g.”  I take her to our local dog park almost every day where she runs as fast as she can, pointing and yelling “Gog, Gog, Gog!”  I am keenly aware I am the only person who A. Brings a small child to a dog park and B. Did not bring a dog to the dog park, so I occasionally call out a fake dog’s name (“Hey, Dinosaur, come!) and look around as if I just can’t believe my dog has run off again, and sometimes I have light conversations with the actual dog owners, some of whom now know Isla by name.
Anyway, the girl loves animals, so we were ecstatic with the amount of wildlife running around when we went to Wilson’s Promontory, a national park at the southernmost tip of Australia. There were enormous emus running around, some wombats, wallabies, and kangaroos everywhere you turned while hiking.  It wasn’t until this trip that we realized Isla thinks all furry animals are dogs.  We watched the really fat gog crossing the road (a wombat) and Isla was certainly faster than him, so we had to hold her back!  Then we went bushwalking (I think this is mostly just the term for hiking here) and there were tons of kangaroos hopping, eating, etc.  The below photo was taken when Isla had an absolute melt down because we wouldn’t let her pet the wild “gog” behind her.  Poor baby…first we made you move to another country away from all your friends and now this!

No Rules, Just Right

Originally posted April 29, 2016

I feel compelled to confirm what you may already have suspected:  Outback Steakhouse is in no way a representation of Australia.  The one exception is the first part of their slogan, as there often seems to be no rules at all here.  I was again reminded of this when we just got our cars.  We had arranged months ago to get a mini-van (perfect for visitors and triathlons) and a small car, which turned out to be a civic.  After hearing every week for 4 months that the cars would arrive “soon,” (because why would you work for more than 5 hours a day and complete your work at the car dealership when it’s a lovely summer day out?!) we were in a bit of disbelief when Honda called and said they had our cars last week.  The van was available first and Nate asked them to drop it off to him at his office.  At the predetermined time, Nate came downstairs to the street level, looked across the street and spotted a guy with a Honda Odyssey.  As he crossed the street, Nate did the “man head nod” to the guy and the said, “Hi, I think you’ve got my car.”  The man smiled and exclaimed, “Oh, brilliant!” and proceeded hand Nate the keys and then sealed the deal by telling him to have a nice day, then left.  It wasn’t until later that we realized Nate didn’t sign any piece of paper stating he got the car, nor did he receive any registration for it.  We are pretty sure anyone on the street could have just told the Honda guy they wanted the van and he would have given it to them!  After recalling this chain of events to me, I was excited to see what happened when they brought me the civic the next day.  The exact same thing happened. Jasper, the Honda representative asked if I was Ashley and handed me keys.   We did learn later than all registrations are electronic so that wasn’t an issue, but the casualness and lack of official documentation for the process was just mind blowing!

The other recent activity that made us realize just how few rules there really are was a dolphin swim excursion.  The Mornington Peninsula, a 1-1.5 hour drive from Melbourne is a magical area filled with fruit orchards, award winning wineries, precious towns with great beaches, and hot springs.  At the very tip of the peninsula is a town called Sorrento and then a national park that goes to the very end of the land with excellent walking tracks.  We heard you could swim with dolphins off boats near Sorrento and originally were pleased with the vision of a Seaworld-like encounter where the trainer lets you pet the dolphin who is barely considered wild anymore.  The logistics of what we actually did blew us out of the water (pun intended).  In the water surrounding the peninsula, there are about 100 bottlenose dolphins, but a unique species to the area.  They are quite large and, as we learned, extremely playful.  The boat trip went like this:

We arrived at the pier at sunrise where two crew members, Theo and Jess, handed you a wetsuit in exchange for cash or a credit card payment (no waivers, no documents, just a zip lock bag of cash).  We boarded a small boat with no actual seats.  You just grabbed your snorkel and plopped down on the front or back deck to watch the sun come up.  Theo explained to us how this was going to work and what to expect.  Once we got out into the water and the captain saw dolphins jumping in the distance, he yelled for everyone to get ready.  The back of the boat had a platform that lifted up and down, much like a moving truck has on the back.  The 4 self-declared “strongest swimmers” sat on the edge of the platform while the next 4 people stood on it behind them (like an elementary school class photo, except with lots of shivering and anticipation!)  Then 2 ropes with buoys on them were released to float behind each side of the boat.  The captain kept up at full speed as the platform was now lowered to the same level as the water, so the front row of peoples’ legs were dangling in the water.  Within minutes, the waters were swarming with dolphins jumping everywhere.  Theo yelled, “GO, GO, NOW, GET IN!”  We did as we were instructed, to jump in, holding onto a rope immediately as the current was incredibly strong, and the swimmers spread out along the rope.  Nate and I agreed this was no joke – neither of us had ever felt a current so strong.  You actually needed to hang on to that rope!  So, you are swaying around in the current on the rope, looking down into the deep turquois water, watching the dolphins swim around and play just beneath you.  It was amazing.  Nate and I had taken Isla along, so we took turns jumping in and swimming with dolphins and alternated holding her and watching them jump around at the water’s surface.  You then got to repeat this processes with seals who were also cute, but definitely a bit more smelly!  What a freeing experience though!

The other Sorrento highlight had to have been the Asian noodle bistro we ate at the night prior. It had excellent food and live music, but this live music may have been the worst singer we have ever heard…think American Idol reject reel so bad that you think someone must have double-dared them to try out.  We couldn’t believe they were letting this guy play.  Nate and I were trying to keep a straight face while our likely also tone-deaf daughter stared and danced the entire time.  We think she loved the music, which made us think this may just a be a preview of some godawful band she is going to like when she is 13 and we have to draw straws for which one of us takes her to their concert.  We’d love to keep exposing her to some good music, but that is no easy feat in this country!  I think even my usual Pandora station tried to pull a fast one on me and play that Tracy Chapman Fast Car re-mix again.  Thumbs Down, Pandora.  And you should have known better.
In other news, we had our first visitors!  My parents came for 9 days at the end of March and we had a blast showing them the sites and trying out a few new experiences as well.  In short:

- My Dad reported after the flight that he has never in his life felt so “airporty”
- They came to adore brekky here as well as the flat whites.
- We realized we must have really gotten used to high winds very often, because they were “blown away” by how windy it is most days here.
- Together, we had quite a lot of wildlife interactions including front row seats for all those precious little penguins exiting the ocean and coming up onto land on Phillip Island after being out fishing at dusk.  This was a freezing cold, super windy 8pm activity, but those little guys are so cute and we were so close, we wanted to just scoop one of them up and take it home!
- On our way back from the Great Ocean Road, we passed Bell’s Beach, where the RipCurl World Surfing Competition was going on.  We made it in time to see the last heat of the day and hang out for a bit.  It seemed like a really neat event that we plan to attend more fully next year.  In the true Aussie spirit of everyone getting a fair opportunity to attend big events, the world championships cost a whopping $10 to attend and $2 to park.  As we were leaving the competition, we looked up on the hill in the distance and noticed a huge pack of kangaroos just chilling on the hillside – a perfect way to end the week!