Follow the herd

I had a good week of training, felt strong for most of the sessions. I finished the week with a back to back ride weekend - 4.5 hour ride on Saturday, starting at the eastern hills which took me about 3 hours, and I made up the remaining 1.5 with a ride along the river. On Sunday, while the most of Perth community were out running the City to Surf, over 42,000 runners to be exact, I did a 2 hour ride on Freeway South. The weather was calm and cool, with slight overcast. I truly enjoyed my ride and I'm sure those who ran this morning did some pretty fast times. Well done to all those who competed, and congratulations to those who achieved their PBs!

Entries opened today for the inaugural Ironman Asia Pacific Championship to be held at Melbourne in late March next year, offering 75 qualifying slots for Kona, more than 25 from the usual Ironman events. The event was sold out in a record time of just over 5 minutes! It seems like it is the norm now, with Ironman events selling out on the same day and interested participants have to commit themselves a year in advance. With more and more people taking up this sport, the natural laws of supply and demand dictate increasing entry fees. This particular race is more than 20% dearer than Ironman Western Australia.

Congratulations to those who managed to secure a spot and having the courage to make the commitment, especially for those entering their first Ironman event. I didn't join the bandwagon, in contrast to the title of this post. A couple of reasons, as I think 3.5 months will probably be not enough for me to recover from Ironman Western Australia to be at my racing best. Another reason as I'm pretty keen to try Challenge Cairns, an Iron distance event outside the Ironman series. The timing will be perfect, a few weeks before our wedding and it will be a good race to do before I take a break from endurance events and start looking at other things in life (but I make no promises, so don't hold me onto anything! Haha)

The odd thing is... despite offering the same distance and similar experience, the entries for Challenge Cairns are really trickling. The race would not offer any qualifying spots for the Ironman World Championship but I'm sure the event organization is top notch and the satisfaction of completing the race is just as great. Anyone keen to join me?

On the lighter side, I have relatives over for the week. My cousin, his wife, his daughter, my aunty and uncle are here to visit. We went to Fremantle today, which was nice as it's been a while since Li-Ann and I have been there. And even a longer time since we did the touristy stuff like visiting the markets and having fish and chips by the harbour.