And that's how many miles?...

Today was Sydney's famous "City to Surf" race. When I began planning my trip I read about it and since I was going to be here and I love a good race, I decided to sign up. The race is one of the largest races in the world - with over 80,000 entrants last year, so I figure it would be a lot of fun. It goes from the CBD (central business district - do we use that term in the states?) to Bondi beach, which is 14 kilometers. That is such a weird distance, until I got here I would keep looking it up, constantly thinking it was either 12 or 16 and really unsure of how far I would actually be going. Well, 14K is just shy of 9 miles. The race is a bit like Pasadena's Rose Parade - middle of winter, but historically a beautiful day - I kept hearing story after story about how it NEVER rains. Imagine everyone's surprise when at 7 am (an hour before the pros started, and two hours before I started, there was a torrential downpour! I was already well on my way, Anne's brother Bill kindly offered to give me a lift to the train stop into town as he was already taking his 14 year old daughter, Mia, and some friends, but I immediately began rationalizing calling it a day before I even began. Wearing only a trash bag to protect me, I was pretty freaked out. Amazingly, however, the rain had ceased by the time we got off the train, and only resumed for a few seconds around 8 kilometers. Sadly, due to the rain, I did not take my camera for fear of it getting wet and dying (getting pretty jealous of the camera my sisters and I gave my dad for his birthday that is waterproof...). Troops of smurfs, super Mario characters, and super heroes joined in the fun. There were bands and DJs at nearly every turn. There were more supporters lining the streets than I've ever seen. This really seems to be the Sydney community at it's best!

The run was fine, save one mild but LONG hill (dubbed "heartbreak hill"), and though I haven't trained at all for this race, I didn't feel in over my head (though I walked a TON). I'd say I broke records, but since you can search these things easily on the Internet, I'll go ahead and tell you, I think it took be 2hours give or take a few minutes (I didn't have a watch so I'll have to see how I did in the paper on tuesday morning), which is about how I expected to do. The one thing that did happen, was that I had my first incident with chafing, which has resulted in quite a bit of pain. I was wearing my skort, which have shorts with a thin band of sticky-ish stuff to hold in place. Well... That didn't fare very well with the rain. About 6K in I knew it was a problem, but I just powered through, and now I'm dealing with the VERY raw consequences. Oh well!

All in all it was a very fun experience!




Me, post race.

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