The Lavaman Journey

Me and my triathlon girls-- Susan Kim and Susan Conway-- at the Lavaman Send-off Dinner. The whole Team In Training Westside Tri Team got together to celebrate the Lavaman team traveling to Hawaii later in the week. This was the Monday before the triathlon and we were excited and nervous.

The crazy bike assembly: because the event was in Hawaii, we had to disassemble and ship our bikes (and then obviously put them back together in Hawaii). We all met the morning before our event in a giant ballroom at the Hilton, found our bikes and got to work. As you can partly tell, the room was pretty nuts.

The Westside Tri Team after the Pasta Party the night before the triathlon.

The morning of the event, right before the swim start. I'm in the red cap in the center of the photo. It was a beautiful morning and the water was amazing-- almost 80 degrees!

Here I am, all ready to go and not too nervous to smile.

Me and Coach Allison, looking out toward the buoys and trying to figure out where all that nasty coral was. A couple people cut themselves up pretty badly.

Admiring my race number. Go 452!

The men and pros are off in the first wave start.

Here are the girls at the start of their wave. I'm somewhere in there.

The turnaround by the first buoys. We had to do 2 large loops, so the end of the first loop was almost on the shore.

A larger view of the swim course and the huge amount of competitors.

After about a half hour, I'm out of the water! On to the bike.

Mounting my bike at the bike start.

Back from the bike-- 25 miles in 1.5 hours. I felt really sick at this point. And there's Cathy (Bren's mom).

On the run, giving a thumbs up. The lava rock is smoking hot and I'm feeling a bit ill. But I keep running.


I'm done! Finished in 3:28, and I actually feel pretty good.


Me with Dan Abruzzi and Susan Conway. Dan finished about 45 minutes before us (I think finishing first on our team), incidentally and we made him promise he would stay to see us cross the finish line.

The transition area-- we got to use the same bike boxes used in the Ironman Championships.

The Callahan family the day after for a celebration/birthday dinner.

Sara and Brendan, finally ready to enjoy the vacation after the big event.

Sara crosses the finish line at the Lavaman Triathlon

Back to Sydney - Farewell Post

We're nearing the end of our trip and are in Sydney for the second (and final) time. Before we spend our very last days, we thought we'd post a few more pics from the last week. We're sad to leave, but also eager to get back home, as well. Back to work, training and reality. I guess you can't eat fish and chips everyday forever, right? As before, comments are below each photo.

Here is the gang back in Adelaide, prepping for our NYE feast. There's Chef Marco (Michael, but the Aussies say it and it sounds like Marco to me and Bren), Margaret, Josephine and me. We're peeling prawns. Well Chef Marco is tasting prawns.

Everyone enjoying the NYE festivities. We had lots of food. In fact, we couldn't get through all the courses we had planned but we were able to get through a couple bottles of champagne, wine and beer. The next day we woke up and started drinking at 11:30am just to dust out the cobwebs.

Max, Marg and Sara in front of the beach shack. The location and company could not have been better. We were heading to the airport for Melbourne.

Sara walking toward the Docklands in Melbourne for dinner.

Us in front of the TelstraDome near our hotel. Brendan was excited about it because that's where they play Aussie Rules Football in the winter.

Biking through Melbourne. This is a picture of downtown from Albert Park. The biking would have been a better idea if it hadn't been about 100 degrees. We persevered with a lot of water and beer and a Malaysian food (Chinta Blues) lunch.

Acland Street in the St. Kilda neighborhood of Melbourne. Acland is known for cakes. Brendan wasn't too sure what that meant until he had a "Caramel Slice."

Here we are on the grounds of the Melbourne Cricket Grounds. We took a tour that was long and it was very hot outside, but with all the cricket fever around, it was actually pretty neat. This is where the Aussie's played the fourth Ashes test match. In the end Australia "white-washed" the English 5-0 to win the Ashes...we will explain later, who knew we were going to become Cricket fans?

Sunset at a nice dinner in Melbourne at Livebait.

Here we are at our final B&B-- Simpsons at Potts Point in Sydney.

Our visit to Bondi Beach. Can you see all the people in the background? It was insane-- exactly like all the pictures and postcards you see with wall to wall people in the water and on the sand. It was so great to visit. And that's me in my new Coopers hat, courtesy of Emily Ormsby and her awesome swag-heavy marketing job.

Another meal of fish and chips? It can't be! Seriously, though, fish and chips on the beach can't be beat. And we now have to have a picture of us eating fish and chips for all our vacations.

Happy New Year from Adelaide.

Hi everyone. We're still in Adelaide, enjoying the hell out of the beach mansion and the company of the Ormsbys. Since our last post, we have taken a tour of Adelaide (via the tour guides Max and Marg) and driven around the Fleurieu Peninsula. Here's more pics, captions are below.

This is Max and Margaret and me in front of their house in Adelaide (not the beach mansion, this is their nice house in the city.)

Sara and Max shopping in the Adelaide Central Market. Max loves shopping, no seriously you should always invite him to the mall when you go.

The gang at the Victory Hotel pub at the bar before dinner. We tried Kangaroo for the first time this night. We didn't have the guts to order a full plate, but we tasted Michael's and it was FANTASTIC. Really, really good.

The gang playing cards-- the game is Up and Down Whist. Sara won the first night, Brendan won the second night and Emily took the prize on night three.

This is from our trip to the Urimbirra Wildlife Park. They had kangaroos roaming freely all over the park. I fed them while Brendan hid behind the camera. We'll tell you more about it later, but we found the whole place really frightening. We're just jerks from the city, I guess.

Jennifer and Emily Ormsby. We met Jennifer (who is Mike and Cathy's goddaughter) for the first time this trip.

The wine/beer bottle graveyard, and there are more in the trash. No, this isn't even New Year's Eve yet.

Sara trying Vegemite for the first time and Marg looking on... it tastes like soy sauce.

This is the sign for the beach where we're staying. We're just a minute away from the shore.

Sara on the "wave ski" (it's like a kayak).

Hello from Adelaide!

By popular demand, this is a photo-heavy post. To sum up: We have successfully moved from NZ to Australia and are with our good friends, the Ormsbys. We are having a great time in Adelaide, and we've been here for a full day now. Today, we went to the Barossa Valley for wine tasting and a lovely lunch (and I had my first run in about 2 weeks this morning on the beach, which was amazing), and we're finishing up a fun dinner and about to play cards. Tomorrow, it's the Adelaide city center and Saturday is a drive up the coast. Anyway, here are lost of photos and captions below...
Christmas morning bike ride-- Mike, this is for you because you thought we were so attractive in helmets.

Us on the phone talking to you all on Christmas Day.

Our Christmas Day dinner location, and Brendan looking handsome.



Two pics of the outside of our Queenstown B&B called the Dairy (where we stayed for Xmas eve and Xmas).

We left Queenstown for some DREADFUL weather, but it was okay, because we were leaving. But, we went sightseeing to Mt. Cook, which is the highest peak in NZ. It was raining and super cloudy, though, so we don't actually believe Mt. Cook exists.

After the non-sighting of Mt. Cook, we went to the town where we were staying-- Twizel. It kinda sucked, and it was the first place that was not so great in NZ-- did you know there were a lot of low riders and tricked out cars owned by teens in NZ? There are. Well, at least we had a lot of beer, and there was a laundromat next to the cafe.

Finally, we think we saw Mt. Cook the following morning as we left for our flight in Christchurch. See the tallest snowy mountain in the background-- we think that's it.

Here we are in the Antarctic Centre-- did you all know that Christchurch is the gateway to Antarctica? Well it is, and the very cool Centre is across from the Christchurch airport which was very handy for wasting time before the flight. In this photo, we are in the Antarctic storm simulation room, right before the blizzard simulation began.


Here we are in Adelaide-- actually doing some wine tasting in the Barossa. We are with our friends Emily Ormsby and her new husband Michael Van der Sommen. They toured us around the valley and took us to a lovely lunch.

This is the balcony of the Ormsby beach mansion. We are enjoying apps and wine here and are looking forward to the rest of our Adelaide vacation.