EKKA Day on the Sunshine Coast

Dan and worked out it was at least 6 weeks since we had left the city, so we took some much needed (for me!) time out from work, and drove up to the Sunshine Coast today.We made a quick stop for lunch at Peregian Beach
then off to Noosa Heads section of the Noosa national park for some koala spotting....it wasn't too hard, this guy was snoozing just outside the information office...

Ice Skating

On Saturday Stacey organised a trip ice skating, it was loads of fun. Amy and I have only been before a couple of times and not in years, so we were pretty nervous to go with a bunch of Canadians!


Sadly the photos didn't come out so well. Fast moving Canadians (and Morgan who turned out to be a natural) in low light is a bad combination. I'm hoping Stacey or Clo's photos came out a bit better.

Rej was second to last out at Red Rover, beaten only by a figure skater with smelly feet.

Rej wooing the crowd


3 people tried to teach me to skate backwards, 3 people failed! Next time I'll master it, or at least give people a good laugh trying again :-)



We need not have worried and despite some doubts, Amy even came back with all 10 fingers!

Photo Practice!

While Dan and Rej were partaking in some mountain biking this weekend, Clo took me on a walk round the reservoir near their house for photo practice. Here are a few of the better shots I took on the walk, and back at Clo and rej's in their bird filled garden (which I love!).


I like the photo through the fence - though I could have probably framed it a bit better and got the alpaca in a bit more focus - he (or she) is still looking a bit more fuzzy than usual close up!


These couple of pics look a bit washed out due to the fact the sun was behind the hills at this point - but we got the birds to feed from our hands so I had to put these ones up! :)

Origin

Amy did really well to get tickets, they sold out in 10 minutes and I can understand why the atmosphere was amazing. My voice hasn't really come back from all the singing and cheering we did! Queensland could really do with more variety of song though. "Queenslander, queenslander, queenslander" repeat till voice lost!

Would have been a bit better of the series was still open, but it was a really good game anyway, well at least while it looked like we were coming back. After that hope went the players resorted to entertaining us with boxing, bonus :-)

Quick mobile panorama.




On an unrelated note, best (bought) cup cakes ever. Thanks to a recruiter Amy's office was using, that didn't stop me helping eat them or us taking them round to Kate and Morgans :-)


Yes, I ate the one with the flake on the top first. Which begs the question, which cup cake would you have gone for?

More Marathon!

Sorry. Yes, I know, feels like I'm milking it a bit! I bought these pictures online and some of them came out well.

I promise that's it now.











Gold Coast Marathon

6 months of preparation and it all seemed to go wrong in the last couple of weeks. For the last 3 weeks, my right foot has been far too sore to do much running, and this week I got a bit of a cold. Still, I wanted to run, I'd put in a lot of work.

We had an early start at 4.30am to drive down to the Gold Coast.


The plan was to pick up the shuttle service at 6.30am from Runaway Bay sports center. After 40 mins there was still no sign of the bus, we started to worry, the queue of people became restless. Thankfully Amy saved the day by persuading another bus driver to take us down, there was no way I was missing my marathon!


The run itself went really well. I had signed up to be in the 3.45 pace group, but quickly found myself with the 3.30 group and I stuck with them. The drink stations were a bit hairy, I almost tripped over people as they crossed. Water and endura sports drink were available. I must have spashed 4 cups of that endura all over me, I really should have practiced drinking from a cup while running! I went well till 30k, then it got tough, by 35k I was starting to lose the 3.30 group.





Really, really pleased with my time. I completly surpassed my expectations. As the soreness subsides, I'm able to enjoy it a little more!

Big thanks to Amy for putting up with me waking her up to go running for the last 6 months and for getting me there, looking after all my stuff, taking photos and nursing me better all day!

Thanks to everyone who wished me well or went running with me.

Thanks to Amity and her dad Dave for letting me have a shower in the Marriott as well, at least that way Amy didn't have to smell me all the way home!


Time

#Bib #Name Time (Gun) Time (Net) Place Gender G/Place Category C/Place


771 M1283 DAN TREBLE 03:32:22 03:31:16 771 MALE 664 M25-29 81

Splits

# No. Name Cat 5km 10km 15km 20km Half 25km 30km 35km 40km Time
1 M1283 DAN TREBLE M25-29 00:26:15 00:50:36 01:14:01 01:39:24 01:44:41 02:03:46 02:28:19 02:53:24 03:20:08 03:32:22





(00:24:21) (00:23:24) (00:25:23)
(00:24:21) (00:24:32) (00:25:05) (00:26:43) (00:12:14)

Stats

Menagerie on the balcony....

Couple of pics taken by Dan yesterday on the balcony - the regular honey eaters had some new faces to contend with!