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.