Cody's Blog- Living the dream

An Americans View of Cricket

2012-01-25T23:30:00.000+08:00

Cricket: My new favourite sport.

For some reason I have really started to like the sport of Cricket. It is the 2nd most watched sport in the world and is played in many Commonwealth countries such as England, Australia, India, Jamaica and so on. The World's fastest man, Usain Bolt, was almost a cricket player but decided to run track instead.

The game is very slow and peculiar. Nobody really knows when or where Cricket began. There are different formats. Some go on for 3 hours, and others last for 5 days and sometime they won't even have a winner! Australians love Cricket. They play it on the beach and in backyards and also in parks on proper cricket ovals. The fields are big ovals usually.

They type I like is called 20/20. It's a lot like a baseball game and it will usually be finished in 3 hours. Our team is called the Perth Scorchers, (seen above.) The games are a hoot. I didn't really know the rules at first, but I quickly learned that when the flame throwers go off, we should clap because that means we did something good. The games are always fill up the cricket grounds (WACA, or what the team has dubbed the furnace) with 16,000 people. It has rock music, mascots, a kiss cam. We've made the championship game which will be here in Perth. I hope to score some tickets!

My favourite player is Brad Hogg. He's 40 years old and came out of retirement to play for the Scorchers. He's a bowler, (like a pitcher.) He is a left-arm Chinaman - which according to Wikipedia means that he has a unique bowling style. Basically, he's the Baseball equivalent of a 40 year old Left handed knuckleballer who comes out of retirement and re-emerges as an All-Star closing pitcher. Whenever he's in he seems to take over. The fans LOVE the guy. They often chant "HOOOgeeeeey" (Because in Oz you ad and "ey" or "o" to everyone's name to give them a nickname. He's done so well that he just got selected to the National team.

Cricket is unusual in that in some games they will score 600 runs and there are only a few outs. It's opposite from baseball. When someone gets an "out" or a "wicket" (like a strikeout) people go CRAZY!

TOP THINGS TO DO AT A CRICKET MATCH.
1. Sit around a chill. Most of the time there's not really much happening during the game.
2. Drink large quantities of beer. At the last game I went to, the guy in front of me drank like 25 cups of beer. Seriously, people just sit there and get "pissed."
3. Make fun of the foreign team, especially if they are playing against India.
4. Eat entire bucket of KFC and put the bucket on their head upside down.
5. Mexican wave. They usually do "The Wave" but they call it the Mexican wave and throw trash everywhere. (I'm not making this up, just reporting the facts.) They usually start this later on in the match as a way to get rid of their trash. See the video below.

6. BEER SNAKE. They save their empty beer cups and stack them, then make a "snake." According to one news reporter, "If you don't know what a beer snake is, then you better go get some culture." Check the video, and yes, the snake is made entirely of empty beer cups.

I am really liking my new favourite sport. I usually have to go to work and ask my co-workers to explain what's going on but nonetheless, it's a lot of fun. Go Scorchers!

Mizuno Twilight 8k Win

2012-01-01T21:26:00.000+08:00

Happy New Years Everyone! I closed out 2011 with a come from behind 8k win last night. The course is an out & back course which had strong cross winds and a bridge to contend with. I went out conservative and I thought I was following the leader. There was also a 4k race at the same time so when a lot of people go sprinting off up the road, I had to assume they were just doing the shorter race. After the 2k turnaround for those doing the shorter race I fully expected to be in the lead and I realised there was a guy way up the road on us! My group of 3-4 runners had all thought the guy, Andy Govus, was running the 4k event and we just let him get away!

I knew we had to do something fast. I put my head down and really starting working hard. Finally we started catching him. I was worried that I had used up all my matches and whats worse is that I towed a few other runners up to the leader as well. At the 4k turnaround (half way) I had caught the guy. I was feeling ok so I made an immediate move to go past.

He stuck with me for quite a while and I just couldn't seem to get rid of him. At 5k I was hurting pretty bad but I got a small lead.

At 6k my legs were quite tight and to say I was uncomfortable was an understatement. By 7k my running form had broken down and I was just trying to swing my arms and keep putting one foot in front of another!

The last kilometre was excruciating! My body was screaming for me to stop! My vision was going blurry and I was shaking my head to get rid of the cobwebs! I took a few looks over my shoulder while hoping nobody was going to catch me. I crossed in about 26:06 and I can honestly say that I don't think I could have run that race :01 second faster with my current fitness. This was :27 seconds faster than last year on the same course which I am happy about.

This race was "proper hard." One of the most important parts of racing is learning to cope with the pain, and develop an understanding that it's not going to kill you. I can honestly say that this is the most I've hurt in any race I can remember. After the finish I couldn't talk and had to hang on to the barrier rail for a minute or so to get myself back together. There's just something cleansing about trying as hard as you can to do something and having it pay off.

The official pain photo of 2011

I'll keep up with the tradition of dedicating good races to people. This was for my parents! My dad set an example showing me what hard work really is. My mom taught me endurance, having endured breast cancer and Leukemia! Thanks guys!

Janna was there to cheer on the runners but she's not fully recovered from her injury and isn't racing yet.

I parked it in the grass to rest for a few minutes and to watch the sun set on 2011!

Special Thanks to Mizuno for putting on the race. It has quickly become on of my favourite races in Australia. Also I'm happy to announce that I've re-signed as a Mizuno Brand Ambassador for 2012! The Brand has looked after me for several years on two different continents and I have found the footwear and clothing to be exceptional.

Happy Holidays Photos from Down Under

2011-12-31T08:45:00.001+08:00

Hi everyone. Writing a quick message to say happy Holidays. Although Janna and I both missed the US for Christmas, we certainly can't complain about our Christmas here in Perth.

We spent Christmas morning having a bbq on City Beach with some good friends Anne and Matt.

Our American friend Zach spent the morning with us as well and cooked some corn on the cobb.

Janna gave me a juicer for Christmas and we've been making fresh juices each morning.

The temperature rose dramatically. On boxing day (day after Christmas) I used the 103 degree afternoon to brew some southern sweet tea out on our balcony.

The Running Calendar for '11 finishes tonight with the Mizuno New Years Eve 8k which I will be racing.

We sincerely hope this holiday season has been one to remember and we wish you nothing but the best in 2012.

Janna & Cody Angell, Christmas day 2011 on City Beach, Western Australia.

My First Visit to Melbourne

2011-12-03T08:03:00.001+08:00

A few weeks ago New Balance flew Raf and I to a shoe conference in Melbourne.

It has a population of around 4 million people and is often referred to as the sporting capital of the world. It lived up to it's reputation as a very cultured city. I think it has countless cafes, places to go, and things to do because the climate changes a whole lot. Sometimes you can experience all 4 seasons in one day in Melbourne. For that reason, people probably hang out indoors a bit more than Perth where we can pretty much always count on beach weather.

One of the countless cafes in Perth which simply sold takeaway coffee and fresh baked bread.

In Melbourne they have a Tram line which runs through the middle of the street. I am glad I wasn't the one driving because the way you turn right is the strangest thing ever. Imagine being on the left side of the road and you have to get ALL the way over to the left, wait for all the cars to pass you, and wait for the tram to go past, and then turn across 3 lanes to the right! Sometimes people just take 3 left turns & drive around the block rather than turning right in Melbourne!

We got to meet our Buddy Jimmy Attard who is an elite level Duathlete and used to live in Europe with Raf. Jimmy is now going to school to be a teacher and his wife is a Fire Fighter for the state of Victoria. In fact, as I write this very blog at 8:00 on a Sunday night, we are watching his wife Emily on a TV game show called "It's a Knockout." In Australia has only 1/15th the population of the US so everyone seems to know everyone in some degree.

There were cyclists everywhere! We saw a lot of professional cyclists because they spend their winter down in Melbourne training.

The shoe conference was very interesting for me. We learned a lot from New Balance about which direction their brand is going. Also, we met a famous runner called Ben St. Lawrence who is our best Australian runner down here at the moment. I really enjoyed meeting the owners of other specialty running shops in Australia. There aren't a lot of specialty running stores in Australia so it's cool to come across another one! We learned a lot about how other businesses do things. We drank lots of coffee together!

We went for several runs with the guy on the left named Kim Gillard. He's a former 28:20 10k runner who now owns a running shop in Tasmania (A little island southeast of Australia but is considered a State.) Kim talked about traveling and racing in Europe. His wife is an accomplished marathoner as well. His wife's sister is Kerryn McCann. I didn't actually know who Kerryn McCann was- but everyone else in Australia remembers her. Check out the video of her dueling with a Kenyan below.

She inspired a nation and motivated many people to start running. She passed away as a result of cancer in 2008.

Melbourne was great and I want to go back again soon!

Sir Chris Hoy

2011-11-20T19:12:00.001+08:00

On Friday we went to a Christmas party at a legendary local cafe called Epic Espresso. Our friend Scott immediately recognised a guy, "Hey that's Chris Hoy."

"Chris who?"

Come to find out that Chris Hoy is to cycling what Usain bolt is to running. Except that Chris has earned more Olympic gold medals. Only 3 sub 1 minute kilometre's on a track have ever been recorded. Chris has 2 of them! You know you're a badass on a bike when you get KNIGHTED by Queen Elizabeth!

Scott Thomson, Chris Hoy, and Me.

The guy was extremely friendly and seemed easy going. He's gearing up for London in 2012. Track cyclist can push over 2000 watts when they're hammering. That's enough energy to power about 25 light bulbs at once! On google I typed in "Chris Hoy" and it auto-predicted "Chris Hoy Legs." Seemed strange but then I saw the picture. When you have legs like that, you probable have earned a few google searches.

I don't think anyone will be googling "Cody Angell Legs" anytime soon!

Check out this video of Chris Hoy in the Olympics.

My mate Scott was so motivated that he rode is bike 180k (112 miles) the next day! Then he ran, then he swam!!

Season Finale 10k

2011-11-07T19:44:00.000+08:00

I ran my last race of the winter season on Friday night. This was the John Gilmour 10k race on the track. I finished 2nd after in 32:29. The field contained a solid group runners which included 4 guys who've run 2:37 or faster for a marathon. I ran the first 5k in 16:20 and the 2nd 5k in 16:09. I was surprised how well I felt at the finish actually, because you expect to feel horrible during a 10k.

My prize for finishing 2nd place: a level, and a half a litre of honey!

Kicking it post-race with Gerry Hill.

My winter season is finished after having trained full-bore since June. Now I'm taking a week or two off before starting back for summer track season!

Things I'm Doing Post Season:

Spending Time with Janna and on the phone with family in USA.
Eating lots of pizza, Mexican food and ice cream.
Reflecting on this past season. What went right, what went wrong.
Setting new goals: Early look is a 5k pb and a long-term goal of a :68 or :69 minute half marathon.
Easy bike rides & yoga.

Also, Considering doing something new (old): I've thought about getting back into wrestling and have researched some clubs here. There's not a big wrestling scene in Australia. Not that I blame them. Wrestling is usually big in areas with colder climates. With beaches this nice, maybe I should take up surfing!

See, I wasn't lieing when I said I used to be a wrestler.

I would be completely remissed if I didn't take a quick opportunity to thank those who've helped me immensely this past season. First, my wife and life-partner Janna. Now it's your turn to shine this triathlon season! Thanks to my sponsors The Running Centre and Australia Mizuno Corporation who have helped me financially. And finally, thanks to my friends, co-workers, training partners who were great at supporting me and offering advice.

Next Season begins Dec 1st!

10K win in Albany

2011-11-03T22:42:00.000+08:00

Last weekend we went to Albany, Western Australia. It's on the bottom of the continent perched just off the Southern Ocean. Our friends at TriEvents WA invited us down to race the Port 2 Point 10k race. It's a small and well organised race with about 600 participants involved.

Last weekend was the CHOGM, which stands for Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Political leaders from 51 countries were in Perth for the weekend. Janna and I live right in between Kings Park and downtown Perth (Called CBD) which was a focal point for the meetings, and the place was absolutely crawling with police in cars, helicopters, boats and even on horses. They pulled up the trees on our street and put in new ones because the Queen of England would be riding through in her motorcade! We couldn't drive our car in/out of our place for the weekend. Although we missed our chance to have BBQ with Queen Elizabeth and 100,000 Aussies in the "Big Aussie Barbi" we decided that the weekend away was in order!

The problem was getting there! Perth is the most isolated major city in the world. Albany is a 5 hour drive from there. It's on a road called the Albany highway. There is NOTHING out there. No Cities, no real houses, and not even radio signals, just pastures and sheep. We drove through a little township which proudly boasted a sign called "The shire of a million sheep!" It was so sparce that when we did come to a petrol station/road house, it had a sign advertising a "live in position."

When we got there, we quickly remembered why we like Albany so much.

The race was a 10k which I was runner-up at this event last year, losing to my mate Nathan Doig. Nathan is in the US at the moment and wasn't able to run in the event.

The Race is on Sunday and didn't start until 9:00 AM. I loved the late start because I'm a slow starter and rarely train in the mornings. I find it takes me quite a while to loosen up and become supple enough to run very early in the mornings. Usually I walk around like a 75 yr old man for the first hour of the day! But at 9:00 I knew I'd be fine. My racing strategy was simple: Go out quick from the gun and get rid of everyone else very early. This worked like a charm and I had a big lead after about 800 metres and then cruised the rest of the race for a win in 34:34.

I haven't won a race in about a year so I was a little rusty at the finishing pose. This time I slowed down to grab the finishing banner and hold it into the air for the photo. Unfortunately I slowed down too much and the children dropped the banner and I never got to hoist it! Oh well. I'll have to think of a better finishing pose for the rare possibility that I ever win another race!

The race was full of short and sharp hills. Although it was very scenic, I was glad when it was over!

I got a post race massage and this lady worked me over pretty good! You can tell by the veins in my forehead that I was in a bit of pain. She said my legs and low back felt like I had been training very hard.

Also I went back and cheered the other runners on after the race. Janna, Me, and our friend Zach spent about an hour chatting up the locals. There are some very friendly people in Albany and I love hearing other runners stories about how they started running. This race was a big deal for a lot of people in Albany and I commend them all for participating. It reminds me of a little Belmont (NC) by the sea!

I'm back in action tomorrow night for the John Gilmour 10k on the track. It's also my winter season finale before taking a break from running for a few weeks. Here's last year's race report on it. This year I hope to go in the low 32 minute range.

Duathlon Nationals

2011-10-27T23:02:00.001+08:00

Recently I went to South Australia to compete in the Duathlon National Championships. Previously I've raced the US Nationals in '09, and The Australian Championships in the same place last year.
The race was held in South Australia's wine region, the Barossa Valley. I reported on this last year when we visited. It's very nice. So nice in fact that when they made the Australian Monopoly board, Barossa was one of the blue squares, like Board Walk or Park Place in US. I flew over with my mate Thomas Bruins. Tom is a talented young athlete who grew up running on the track. He's run the equivalent to about a 4:05 mile. Also we met our friends Rachael, Rich, and Macca there as well.
We rented this Beast of a Holden so we could haul our bikes. It was unbelievably fast.

The Race:

Run
The opening run was 10k, or 6.25 miles. It was 4 laps. I ran with Macca, Tom, and pro-triathlete Matty White (AUS) We were running quite hard and at 5k Macca dropped a BOMB and took off. Bruins went with him. They dropped Myself and Matty White. I ran the last half of the run with him. He sounded like he was breathing very heavy, so I tried to make a big move to get rid of him. It didn't work. We ran into transition together in 3rd and 4th place. We ran the 10k in just under 33 minutes.

The start. From left to right: Tom Bruins, Me, Matty White, Paul Mackay, Rachael Smith.

Bike (40k, 25 miles)
Matty white immediately took off and rode out of site! He bridged the gap to Macca and Tom, and went on to win by 5 minutes! I rode most of the first lap by myself. I remember seeing nothing but empty road in front of me and also behind me. I remember thinking that 4th would be a great result in a national championship race! Then I made a wrong turn! There were 15 cones turning left and a marshall standing there, so I turned left. Wrong way! Long story short it took me a few minutes to get back on course. I remained calm and got back on the course. A few K's later a group of 4 of us blew through the road where we were supposed to turn left! In both cases the course marshals just stood there looking at us and I was furious that they didn't point which way we were supposed to go! (Later on I found out the race directors told the course marshals not to give any directions!) I finished the bike in 10th place.
Run (5k, 3.1 miles)
I got off the bike and ran past one guy. I was in no-mans land and I knew there was no way to catch the guys up in front of me. I still pushed the pace and ran the 5k in about 18 minutes. That's pretty good considering that we had to climb Mengler's hill twice on the bike!

At the end of the day I finished 9th. The GPS I was using said I was off course for about 3.5 minutes. Honestly I don't think I would have finished 4th but probably 5th or 6th. Regardless I am happy with the result.

Special congrats to my friends who performed very well. Macca went on to get 2nd. Tom Bruins finished 3rd, and Rachael was also 3rd in the Womens' race. Great work guys!

We stopped to get some post-race photos in the vineyards surrounding Tanunda where we stayed.

A Race to Forget

2011-10-09T21:16:00.000+08:00

Have you ever had a race where everything just falls into place? Where you know you scored 100 out of 100 and there's no possible way you could have done any better?

Today wasn't that day.

I raced the Western Australia Duathlon Championships today. This was a race I've been targeting specifically since last year when I finished 6th. For months I have been visiting the race venue to prepare for the duathlon by racing the ATTA time trials there. I'd prepared, tapered, visualised, and even borrowed a flash set of racing wheels from my man Todd.
Today I was hoping for a top 3 position because I've improved on the run and especially on the bike in the past 12 months. But like my Dad used to tell me, "The sun don't shine on the same dog's ass every day." In other words, it wasn't my day today!

The open race started a few minutes before the age group race. This group contained many good runners and triathletes. I pushed hard from the beginning because I was determined to get rid of the better cyclists. This course is flat and fast so it usually favours the runners.

A group of 3 of us finished the 5k run in about 15:42. I was feeling good. Coming out of Transition it was Paul Mackay (5th in world duathlon championships once) and Tom Bruins (Just finished 17th in world under 23 Duathlon Championships)

Coming out of Transition Macca and Tom mounted their bikes faster than me and got away. I didn't push hard to get them because I knew the really strong cyclists would come through momentarily. I sat up, drank some water, and waited for Michael Kent to come past so I could follow him. It's much easier to ride 7 metres behind someone rather than to ride in front. Then everything went pear shaped! I am not sure why, but I just didn't ride fast. One by one, cyclists would roll past, I would do my best to keep up, and then they would ride away from me.

This is a surprise to me because I've been riding well all winter! Only a week ago I raced a time trial on the same course at 41 kph (25.5 mph) and today the best I could do was 36 (around 22 mph!) I was substantially off pace. I was slower today on the bike for 20k than I was at the Queensland Duathlon Championships for 40k!

I jumped of the bike, ran well for the closing run and finished 17th overall, and was even beaten by a handfull of age-groupers. Most of us came into the race thinking that this was going to be a day for the runners. But Michael Kent and Geoffrey Emslie had different ideas. They shredded their way through the field and belted all the faster runners on the bikes, and then cruised the 1st and 2nd place finishes. Well done guys!

I've "deleted" the day from my Garmin and also from my memory. Sometimes you just have to chalk it up, take it on the chin, and move past it. I'll view this one as an investment. Besides, it's good to get belted from time to time! The good news is that I'm racing the Australian Duathlon Championships next Sunday in South Australia, so hopefully it won't take long to get the monkey off my back!

There were a lot of positives on the day. Congrats to all those who have trained so hard and competed very well today! Also, we were startled when they called my Wife's name to the podium today! She ran & rode her little heart out and finished 2nd in her age group! As if I wasn't proud enough of her... now I can tell people I'm married to the State Duathlon Silver Medalist!

Kangaroos and Dolphins

2011-10-04T15:13:00.001+08:00

Sometimes I get so caught up in running and cycling that I don't stop and take time to observe the abundant and unique wildlife around Perth. Here are a few short videos I've taken from my phone. The first one is some Kangaroos which live out on a little island in the middle of the Swan River. The 2nd video is some Dolphins we saw one evening. I caught the tail end of their escapade but it was very interesting what they were doing. They will come in from the ocean and swim into the river to shallow water. Then, one of the dolphins will do a quick circle in the mud around a bunch of small fish. This confuses the little fish and the other dolphins will swoop in for some lunch.

Upon review, the 2nd video isn't nearly as exciting as seeing them up close but hopefully you get my point.

Ready to Roll!

2011-10-01T21:06:00.000+08:00

The next few weeks will be the most important racing weeks of my year. I'll be racing the Western Australia Duathlon Championships and then the Australian National Championships in South Australia in the coming two weeks. Last year I was 6th in WA and 15th at Nationals.

I've done a lot of hard work over the winter. I managed respectable results in the 3 biggest running races in Western Australia: 2nd at the Bridges, 5th at Run for a Reason, and 11th at City to Surf. Also, I've worked very hard to improve on the bicycle, which has been my achilles heel since I began competing in Duathlons in 2006. I've done plenty of cycling intervals down by the river at Shelly on a weekly basis to develop some more top-end speed. Also, last weekend's training camp is sure to help with cycling strength as I rode around 190 miles over the weekend!

To consolidate the two, I've been doing brick workouts with some of the best multisport athletes in Western Australia. A brick workout is when you combine two different disciplines in the same session such as running and then biking. These brutal tuesday morning workouts are tougher than most races, with several elite/professionals in attendance for these. Also, it's tough to forget our "hour of power" sessions in Kings Park. These end up being an absolute smash-fest on the bike. Usually this includes guys like Raf Baugh (Former Word #3) and Nathan Jones (unreal cyclist who can ride me off his wheel.) Also, Tom Bruins (just finished 17th at the world U23 Championships,) was out there belting me in the winter.

I've incorporated a training strategy which worked for me as a wrestler in High School and College: training with people who are much better than myself. Hopefully it will pay off.

Tomorrow I am doing my 4th bike Time Trial of the ATTA Winter Series. The beauty of this is that it's the exact same bike course as the State Duathlon Championships next weekend. I'll jump off the bike (above) and run 2.5k as hard as I can possibly run tomorrow. This will simulate what we'll be facing in next week's Duathlon.

A recent photo of me being absolutely "rooted" at the end of a hard brick session in King's Park. Often these only last 60 minutes but the intensity is higher than a race!

Looking ahead:
I constantly remind myself not to count down my days in anything and don't look too far ahead. This is getting harder and harder as I've finally realised that my body is screaming for a break. I've been on the brink of injury since May and have had to pull out all the stops to stay in one piece. Special thanks to the Physios Marc and Raf and the Massage Therapists Nate and Elyse who seemingly put me back together each week! I now know it's a matter of "managing" my sore muscles (might have a small tear in one of my calf muscles) and then taking a quality 2-3 weeks off for some rest & relaxation after the National Championships.

It's tough for me to back off for a few reasons. For one, it's just my personality to keep pushing myself. Also, I'm close to 30 now and I've got a deep concern that if I take time off, I'll never get back to the level of fitness I have at the moment.

I'll keep everyone posted on the results in the upcoming weeks!

"This one time, at training camp..."

2011-09-28T23:26:00.000+08:00

We've made it back from Training camp down in the deep woods of the Nanga Bush Camp which is just outside of Dwellingup, Western Australia. I thought I would share some photos of an outstanding weekend which included over 300 kilometres (190 miles) on the bike and more than 50 kilometres (30 miles) of trail & bush running.

We met as a group on Friday morning and rode the 3.5 hours down to camp on our bikes. The early spring weather cooperated with us. The south is very green this time of year because of the rainy season. Aside from one flat tire, the ride was perfect.

We arrived in Dwellingup and ate lunch at an awesome cafe. This would be the last time our mobile phones would work for the weekend. It's very hard to get mobile phone reception in Regional Australia.

Our cabins were situated in the deep woods of the Nanga Bush Camp. We parked our bikes in the porch and didn't have to worry about anyone taking them.

We spent plenty of time soaking our legs in the very cold river which was situated just below our cabins. This helped my legs recover. There are no crocodiles where we live. They're farther up north where the climate is a bit more tropical.

We brought down a massage therapist for the camp to help loosen up our sore muscles! Mark was excellent and kept our legs going throughout the duration of our hard training.

With no natural predators, the Roos are prevalent in Western Australia. The one on the left had a Joey in her pouch!

Kenty is an unbelievably strong cyclist. He's also confident enough to walk into the only pub in town while donning spandex and purchase a case of beer without worrying about what the locals think!

On Saturday we rode for an hour, and then broke into groups of 3 for the Team Time Trials. My partners were Jason, a long-course triathlete who is racing Ironman Hawaii, and Macca, who currently holds a pro liscense. I pushed hard during the workout to make sure that I didn't let my team down. We rode magnificently and I was surprised to learn that we only came in 3rd place. After the time trial we ran for 30 minutes.

2 things that Western Aussies are fanatic about: Cycling, and Coffee. Cycling is the new Golf in Western Australia.

On Sunday we ran for an hour and then rode back up to Perth. I was sore and hoping for an easy ride but Macca and ex-Olympic Cyclist Matt Illingworth had different plans for us. The ride got progressively harder and we averaged around 35 kph. The last 8k of the ride was brutal. Matt rolled to the front and put down the hammer. We were doing 45 kph (27mph) into a stiff headwind! I popped about 1 kilometre from home and coasted to the apartment with my tongue hanging out of my mouth!

Hopefully I'll be building up to full fitness for the upcoming Western Australia Duathlon Championships and then the National Championships in South Australia the following week. Thanks guys for a great weekend!

Training Camp!

2011-09-22T19:16:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow I am departing for the Men's Only Western Australia elite training camp. Although it's only for 3 days, I am about as excited as a young kid who is getting ready to leave for summer camp!

Basically, there are about a dozen of us going to the camp. We are required to leave our wives at home. The venue is going to be in the Nanga Bush Camp. I've been there before for the Steve Monaghetti camp in the past and enjoyed it immensely.

If you think I'm up for a relaxing weekend down south, then think again! One glance at the weekend's itinerary will disprove that inclination! We're riding our bikes 4 hours just to get there. We'll train all weekend, and then ride our bikes back to Perth.

Also, once glance at the All-Star cast and you know that everyone means business! I'm perhaps the weakest endurance athlete in the whole bunch that is going down. Combined, they are the heads of state of the multisport scene here in Western Australia. If you tallied up wins of all the camp participants the sum would literally be in the hundreds. Here's a quick overview of who's going down.

1. Raf Baugh - Former World #3 Duathlete, Finished 3rd at this years European Duathlon Championships.

2. Paul "Macca" Mackay - Former professional triathlete who's notched a top 10 world cup finish under his belt. He was also 5th at the world Duathlon Championships and recently did a Half Ironman in 4:01.

3. Matt Illingworth - Former pro cyclist who's had more bike records than I've had hot breakfasts! Matt has medaled in the commonwealth games and made the Olympics.

4. Tom Bakowski - Sub 9 hour Ironman.

5. Michael Kent - 2nd in Western Australia Duathlon last year and recently did a 4:06 Half Ironman. Sister is a pro cyclist.

6. Jimmy Lewin - Just spent the summer in Europe Racing Triathlons. 2nd in his age groups at the triathlon world championships.

7. Troy Main - Accomplished triathlete from the Paul Mackay Academy of Sport.

8. J-Murder Verge - Super strong long course Triathlete who's heading over to race IM Hawaii in a few weeks.

9. Ryan "Bean" Baugh - Accomplished Triathlete who is no longer under the radar after logging a 4:13 Half Ironman!

10. Nathan Jones - Former Bike racer turned into accomplished long-course Triathlete.

11. Richard Yao - Definitely the class clown of the southern hemisphere.

12. Me - On a crash course to get fighting fit before the State Champs and National Champs in October.

The camp was devised by Raf Baugh and will operate under 3 rules only: (Copied directly from the invitation)

1.Invitation Only.
This camp is only for those invited.

2.No Passengers.
No waiting and no regrouping if the athlete is unable to keep up with group.

3.All Equal.
Everyone expected to share equally costs, work, cooking, cleaning and to help any athlete in the group suffering a puncture or acute injury

I'm super fired up to be in the presence of such good athletes and all around an awesome group of guys. Aside from the physiological benefits of being involved with a camp (I've always responded well to training 2-3 times per day,) there are other key components as well. Being surrounded by these guys, I am sure I'll gain some insight in regards to the phychology of racing as well. I'm close to 30 and have realised that it's harder to be leaner/fitter/faster so if I want to continue competing, I'll need to hone my racing ability! My key goal this weekend is to learn more about racing psychology from the best racers around!

There are just a few concerns:

1. I've never ridden 4 straight hours on a bike before.
2. I've been limping around with sore shins since City to Surf and have had to cut my training volume significantly.
3. I'm sick with a cold which I've contracted from my lovely wife.

Hopefully we will stop by the foundry on the way down so I can have a glass of concrete and HARDEN UP!!

Small World

2011-09-20T17:16:00.000+08:00

Sometimes it seems like we're living on a different planet. Since immigrating to Western Australia there are more differences than similarities. Cars look different, people speak a lot differently, business is not the same and even decisions are made much differently. Although Australia is a Western World Country, and an English Colony just like the US, the people are different. Aussies have wider feet and different teeth. They sunburn easier, and are much better at handling chopsticks than we are. They eat bland food and LOVE foods that we eat 1-2 times per year such as Pavlova and Quiche. Australians aren't religious for the most part and they'll have a crack at anything! (Even Sept 11th Jokes which is a big no-no in the US!)

When I realise that we're 12 time zones away from North Carolina and that we literally can't get much farther away from home on this planet, it puts things in perspective. In fact, you know it's LONG DISTANCE when you have to dial 15 digits just to call home! We feel like we're living 2 different lives sometimes as we have 2 different sets of friends. When the two worlds infuse, it takes a minute to rationalise. For instance, on facebook it's funny to see a former college friend who has the same birthday as someone who works for us here in Australia.

But there have been a few recent incidents which have made me realise that it is still a small world.

1. Recently my Perth Friend Matt Illingworth ran into My Charlotte friend Meredith Dolhare at a triathlon in Switzerland. Okay maybe that's not that strange considering I purposefully connected the two of them... but the list gets better.

2. There aren't a lot of Americans in Perth. The ones who are here usually are mistaken for Canadians. I regret to report that I've lost most of my sourthern accent and sound tragically Canadian! The other day I had a customer into our shop who spoke with a North American accent. I asked her where she was from and she said "I'm actually from the US." -Expecting me to call her Canadian. The rest of the conversation went something like this"

"What Part of the US?"

"East Coast"

"What State?"

"It's a State down south called North Carolina."

"What Town?"

"Charlotte. Actually, a town outside of that called Gastonia. Are you from Canada?"

My jaw dropped.

So there you have it. 11,500 miles from home and I sold some shoes to a girl who lived in Gastonia, NC, a mere 5 minutes drive from where Janna and I used to live before moving here! But that's not the end of it. She actually knows someone who works at my old Shop called TrySports!

CRAZY!

But my friends, what happened today was a bit of a shocker for me. We had some customer in who were doing some shopping. They asked where I was from. I told him the normal response when I expect people to have no idea where the Carolinas are (most people don't know where NC is.) "North Carolina, where Michael Jordan is from and where they flew the first airplane." I was surprised to hear that one of the men had recently been to NC! Not only that but he currently resides in Florida! I asked him what Part and he said "Sarasota."

Our conversation played out like this:

Me: "I won a race down in Sarasota a few years back. It was a half Marathon around Valentine's day."

Him: What year? (Sounded like he didn't really believe me.)

Me: 2009 I think. There weren't any REALLY good runners or Kenyans there.

He looked around the shop for a minute and came back up to me.

"Was that your wife's first half marathon?"

I was dumbfounded. "Yes, how did you know?"

The guy ran the same race as we did, AND he ran most of the race beside Janna who was indeed running her first ever half marathon. They became "running buddies" for the event which is a rare phenomenon when you run next to someone unintentionally for a long time and start a conversation so it's not awkward! He and Janna ran and talked most of that race. He went on to explain that since it was an out & back course, they saw me and some other blonde guy (Chris Lamperski) running by up front, in the opposite direction! After the race I was running my cool down and I found Janna with about 3 miles to go. I ran over and hugged her and told her I had won. He was running right beside her and remembers the conversation!

I was startled! What are the chances that you run into a guy who ran the entire race beside my wife Janna a few years ago and remembered us? Not only that, but we ran into him 2 years later at the bottom corner of the world while 12 time zones away!

Sub :40 @ City to Surf!

2011-08-28T22:36:00.000+08:00

Very delighted to report about today's City to Surf 12km (7.75 mile) race. With over 40,000 runners, it's the Cooper River Bridge run of Western Australia.

The race starts just about 1 km from our West Perth Apartment. I woke up early walked out the street and cheered on the marathoners as they ran past. Before the race, we met with some friends at our place.

Pre-race at our West Perth Apartment. Me, Nathan Doig, and Scott Thomson all wtih our Yellow Priority bibs.

Lena Inkson (Scotland) Nathan (AUS) and Janna (USA) If you look closely you can see the half marathoners running up the Malcolm Street hill in the background.

I've heard complaints that the start was a bit chaotic but I was able to secure a priority entry and was able to start up in the very front. The race starts uphill and we ran straight past our apartment on Malcolm street. The leaders were absolutely flying and I knew that if I went with them, I would have nothing left for the rest of the race. This group contained an Olympic Gold Medalist from Kenya!

Surprisingly I felt better and better as the race went along. I would end up running most of the race with my friends and training partners Gerry and Nathan. Gerry was coming hot off a 1:12 half marathon a few weeks ago. Nathan is in cracking form and had been destroying me in training all winter.

1:12 Half Marathoner Gerry Hill shown here running over the first of the 3 sisters.

We stormed through the popular town of Subiaco and ran over heartbreak hill. This is a short and very steep hill which in my mind is appropriately named. I was shocked to see that we hit the 8km (5 mile) mark in 25:55 which is the fastest I've ever run that distance!

Pain.

I managed to seperate myself and get a small gap on my two mates. I pushed hard as we hit the 3 sisters, a series of nasty hills at the end of the race. The last kilometre is downhill and I poured everything I had left into it. I ran the last km in under 3 minutes which is very good for me. I almost caught Janna's Coach Paul Mackay but the professional triathlete was just a bit too fast for me!

Here is a picture of us summiting the 2nd of the 3 sisters. I managed to pass the New Zealander in Yellow but not Janna's Coach Macca who was wearing red.

Immediately after the finish I felt like my heart skipped several beats and I became dizzy and quite disoriented. I insisted I was ok but they took me to the medical tent where I sat down. I once the room stopped spinning I walked out and felt fine. I have been taking caffeine before races and this morning I took about 200 mg which I imagine is what caused the heart to flutter a bit at the end of the race.

Regardless, I finished in 39:46 breaking the illusive 40 minute barrier for this course and taking 11th place. Last year I ran about 41:19 and finished 19th place. This was 5:16 per mile or 3:16 per kilometre pace.

Check out the map. We ran from Perth, headed west, and finished on the Indian Ocean.

I drank 4 powerades and then Nathan and I jogged the 10k back to Perth rather than taking the bus. Janna ran the event for the first time and she enjoyed it. I am very excited about today's results and also proud of many of the friends who performed very well today. Also thanks for everyone who was cheering along the way, I heard my name several times but often didn't see who was cheering!

City to Surf time!

2011-08-23T23:01:00.000+08:00

Our most popular running event, City 2 Surf, is happening this weekend. The race is mirrored after Sydney's City to Surf which ends on the iconic Bondi Beach. Ours is a 12k (7.75 mile) run from the Perth downtown area to City beach. I also wrote about this event last year if you want to check it out. I think I heard somewhere that the race is has the highest per capita participation rate of any major race in the world. I'm guessing there are only 2 million people in Western Australia but they'll still have about 40,000 people participating.

Last year I was 19th place and averaged 5.33 per mile. The course is very tough and you have to run up the "3 sisters," a series of nasty hills at the end of the race. Training has gone very well and I'm hoping to improve on last year's 41:27 finish. Tonight was our last workout before Sunday's race. I met with some other guys down at the University of Western Australia training grounds and we did a "fartlek" workout. This is a type of run which involves both slow and fast running.

The group consisted of the usual suspects: Todd "Tractor" Ingraham who is a former 2:21 Marathoner and reigning Perth Marathon Champion. also Paul "Macca" Mackay who is a pro triathlete, and finished 6th last year. He's the coach of an elite triathlon academy known as the Paul Mackay Academy of Sport. He brought some of his runners over tonight as well.

Also tonight we met with one of the elites as a Cambodian Elite runner came to do the workout with us. His name sounded like "Buuntig" and the guy knew about 7 words of English but seemed very friendly. We communicated the specifics of the workout with him by pointing at the watch and then holding up fingers to indicate how many minutes each repetition would be. He is hoping to run 2:20 for this weekend's Marathon.

The training session was nice. I find it helpful to have fast people to run with in order to keep you honest in training. Tonight we did 2 x :90 sec, 4 x 1 minute, 4 x :30, and 4 x :15. The legs felt the best they've felt since last summer's track season where I seemed to set personal best every weekend! I'm expecting to have a good race on Sunday. I'll post after the race on Sunday!

Queensland Duathlon Championships

2011-07-28T19:17:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend I travelled to Queensland to the Queensland Duathlon Championships.

I flew on a Qantas plane from Perth to Brisbane with my mate Scott from Scotland (coincidence.) If you've never been on a Qantas flight then you are in for a treat. The cabin crew are quite friendly and extremely easy going. They crack jokes, smile, and get you extra juice if you want it. The video you watch before departure shows you how do "do up" your seatbelt (rather than fasten it.) Plus the planes have a big Kangaroo painted down the side. The flight attendant gave me extra cheese AND extra chocolate. Maybe it was my American accent?? The flight itself was quite good. It's a LONG ways to Brisbane, and the flight was about 4000 Kilometres (around 2500 miles) because rather than going to shortest route, they flew around Australia counter clockwise to take advantage of jet streams.

Scott and I landed in Brisbane and we got our bikes and headed to pic up our rental van. That's right, a big van. It was great. Plenty of room, big diesel engine, and it was far cheaper than renting a car.

Scott reppin' the War-Wagon.

We drove North to meet our destination duathlon friends Rachael and Richard. They also live in Perth and we often train together. We found our accomodation in the town of Gatton and it was actually a University dormitory. It reminded me of living in the dorms at Belmont Abbey College.

I was excited about heading to the Du with the crew from Western Australia. I quickly realised that our group had a great dynamic. Rich is an accomplished triathlete who was just along for the holiday and wasn't racing. Rachael is no joke. Rachael races triathlons professionally. She has "chicked" many men and this weekend would be no exception. You would think that any lady with her pro card would be a full time athlete but that isn't the case with Rachael. She's a Veterenary Surgeon here in Western Australia. In fact she got absolutely no sleep the night before her flight because she had to go into work and midnight and perform an emergency stomach surgery for a horse which lasted 5 hours. Can you imagine staying up (and standing up) ALL night only 48 hours before a high level duathlon? Note: it's the rainy season in Western Australia and apparently sand perculates up from the ground and a lot of horses eat too much of it when they're feeding on grass. Rachael said she has to do a lot of surgeries on horses for that reason this time of year!

Scott from Scotland is a great guy. It's awesome to have a high level endurance athlete living less than half a mile from me. We train together frequently as we both live next to King's Park, which is a duathlete's dream training ground! Scott is no slouch either as he has gone around the 9:30 mark for an ironman and even ran 3:06 for the marathon at the end of an ironman! Also Scott was 8th overall at Powerman Malaysia last year, so the guy knows how to boogie.

Saturday was pre-race day, as 99% of all races are on Sundays here in Australia. It's not a particularly religious country so nobody has any quelms about racing on Sunday morning. Janna and I usually go to Mass on Saturday night so we can train or race on Sundays.

The day before the race was a very relaxed day. Have a look at our photos.

We went for an easy run as a group

Post run posing in front of an Australian Boab tree. I can't help it that I have good posture!

And locked Rich in the van.

We spent the afternoon in a cafe and at one point I got to go behind the counter to show the ladies how to work the coffee machine.

We went for a cruisy bicycle ride and I was shocked at how easy it felt to ride 40kph. I could feel my confidence growing, as the bike training was surely going to pay off.

We even got to spend time with the locals.

On race morning it was VERY cold until the sun came up. Also, I felt jetlagged because we were 2 time zones ahead of Perth. Having grown up on the east coast of the United States, I've never experienced jetlag during a race because I've never raced farther east! The 5:30 AM alarm clock was really 3:30 AM Perth time!

My training partner and defending race champ Raf Baugh didn't make the trip to defend his course record and crown from the previous year as he has been suffering from a lingering "man flu." So it was anyone's race to win. I knew there was going to be a competitive field there because it was the Queensland State Championships, a part of the Australian National Series, and also because there was $1000 for the win!

So the gun sounded and I ran the opening 10k (6.25 miles) in the lead pack. I felt very relaxed. We ran in a group of 6-7 guys and competed the 10k in 33:15. We strapped on our helmets and took off on the bikes. I executed the running superman bike mount which I have been practicing. I had the bike shoes already attached to the bike. Once I got a little momentum on the bike I slipped my feet in the shoes and strapped them up on the fly. I was in 4th place for the first half of the bike ride. Then a chasing group of cyclist caught up to us.

In modern day non-drafting racing, you're not allowed to come within 7 metres of the guy in front of you unless you are passing. It makes for some interesting racing as most competitors have their head on a swivel looking to see where the referree's motorcycle is. I was a bit too apprehensive about not getting a penalty on the bike that I let a few cyclist slip away up the road on me. At one point the referree followed me for around 8k before pulling up beside me to inform me that he thought my bike saddle bag was going to fall off, and if it did so, I would have to go pick it up or face a penalty. While this was going on, 2-3 other guys went up the road on me. All said, I got off the bike in 8th or 9th place with a challenging 5k left to run.

At first it felt like I wasn't going to catch anyone in front of me, but I relaxed and reminded myself that I've been in the position many times before. Usually once they start coming back to you, you can start passing runners in sequence. I managed to run a 16:53 5k which I was happy about.

Kicking it with Scott post-race. The race took just under 2 hours to complete.

I finished the race in 5th place overall, just about 3 minutes behind the leader. This is my highest ever finish in a national series races, with my previous best being 6th in Western Australia last year.

Looks like someone stole Raf's intellectual property again. In this case, the term "legend."

The Perth crew performed very well. Scott logged a top 10 finish coming in 9th while running very well. The story of the day was Rachel. She was 2nd on the opening 10k running under 38 minutes! She then steamrolled all the girls (and a lot of the men) on the bike and had an insurmountable lead. Her 5k was a mere victory lap at the end. Way to go Rachael!

In retrospect, Scott and I should have belted the opening run and established a bit of a lead on the better cyclists. Hindsight is 20/20 though, eh?

I am fired up about a good race and have already resumed training for the next one. Looking forward to a few more trips this season as well! Who's up for Malaysia in November?

On the way back we stopped an had an adventure in the city of Brisbane. I was subsequently trapped inside an elevator and we almost missed our flight. More on that later.

Season Opener

2011-07-21T23:57:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow I am leaving for The State of Queensland to compete in my first Duathlon of the season. It's a 10k run, 40k bike, and 5k run. (6.2 miles, 25 miles, 3.1 miles) It's the Queensland State Championship and part of the Australian Duathlon Series. Last year I competed in two races in the series, finishing 6th here in Western Australia and 15th in the National Championships in South Australia.

I'll be flying from Perth to Brisbane, and then hiring a van to drive up to the town of Gatton for this weekend's Duathlon.

There will be three of us flying the Western Australia Flag as I'll be travelling with Scott Thomson and Rachael Smith. The funny part is that none of us are from Australia! Rachael is a Kiwi (New Zealand) and Scott is from Scotland. Both are outstanding endurance athletes.

I can always tell when it's race week as my clothes have gotten baggy, I'm down to 154 lbs and the hair is a bit shaggy. Hopefully I will race as good as I feel!

If you want to stay in touch, please follow me on Twitter (@CodyAngell) or on Facebook as I'll be posting from my mobile phone.

I'm back!

2011-07-10T22:25:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone! Terribly sorry to have been out of touch. I just logged on and saw the stat that there were 2,550 hits to this blog in the last month and I haven't posted at all. So what's been going on? Lots of things.

Janna went back to USA for a holiday and to be with her family for a month. The family recently welcomed the birth of her little nephew, baby Jude.

It's the first baby on her side of the family, and congratulations are in order for her sister Lenae and her husband Philip. Also one of Janna's younger brothers, Brody, graduated from High School in a small town called Newton, North Carolina. Brody is headed to play Soccer in University at St. Vincent's College in Pennsylvania. St. Vincent's is the sister school of Belmont Abbey where Janna and I graduated. Also, Vincent is his middle name so it seems like a good fit!

Home sweet home. Janna and her family visited Chimney Rock in the Appalachain Mountains while she was back in the US.

While Janna was gone, Chris Lamperski left for New Zealand and then California. So the flat here on Malcolm street was empty except for me! Special thanks to my mate Nathan Doig for coming over and cooking while both our wives were away! Nathan's wife Ash works on a remote island in Australia's Northwest called Barrow Island.

Duathlon Training

My duathlon season kicks off in just two weeks time as I will be heading for the other side of Australia to a state called Queensland. It's the 2nd race in the Australian Duathlon Series in a small town called Gatton. From what I've heard, Gatton was underwater last year during those devestating Queensland floods. Maybe when I'm there we will find out why Banannas cost about $3 each now!

I've been focusing on my cycling training for once. Typically I half-way commit to cycling training because I don't want to cut back my running volume. I've acknowledged that I won't lose a lot of running fitness if I run a bit less and bike a bit more. So, I've embarked on a campaign of specific and focused bicycle training with the goal of having my bike leg as a strength during this duathlon season rather than a relative weakness. (I used to get in trouble on the bike, and have to run my way back into contention!)

So last month I signed up for a cycling time trial out at Champion Lakes over a 20 kilometre (12.5 mile) distance. The results were alarming. I was 45th place and averaged about 36 Kilometres per hour. To put it in perspective, I rode faster on the same course during last year's State Duathlon Championships!

It is practically common knowledge that if you want to get better on the bike you've got to ride long hard miles. Everyone does it here. Truth be told, I have a busy work schedule (worked 29 straight days while Janna was away) and I honestly don't want to wake up at 5.30 AM to go ride in the Perth hills for 4 hours on a Saturday morning. So my training has been a lot different than what you would expect, especially for Western Australia's "go hard or go home" training mentality.

Over the past month I've ridden 3-4 times per week. Each week I do an easy aerobic ride, a tempo ride, and then bike intervals down by the river at Shelley. I'm not racing up and down mountains so I felt there is no need to flog myself riding up and down hills!

This morning I did another time trial race, same venue and same distance. I knew I would do better, but the improvement shocked me! The wind was absolutely howling and at one point I was doing 48 kph (almost 30 mph) and the wind almost completely blew me off the course! I finished 19th place and averaged over 40kph! I jumped off the bike and belted a 2 kilometre run as hard as I could go and 6:50 was all I could muster!

To give you an idea of how windy it was, take a look at the water in the lake! The course had us loop around the lake 4 times. I was doing 47kph with the wind and only 35 against it!

I worked very hard during this race and came just a bit unraveled during the last 400 metres. I actually coasted the last 20-30 metres over the finish line. Had I known at the time that I would finish within 2 seconds of my friend Tom Bakowski, I would have pushed the whole way. Lesson learned. Lucky for me that this time I actually got him by 1.5 seconds but from now on I won't stop until well after the finish line!

So I'm convinced that this type of specific cycling training is working! I'll continue to structure this training like that and I look forward to participating in more cycling events in the future. To all of you Western Aussie triathletes: enjoy those early morning winter rides in the hills! I'll be in bed until 8AM!

No, I'm not riding on a chicken. Those are my legs! It runs in the family.

Autumn in Western Australia

2011-06-05T21:24:00.000+08:00

Greetings from Perth, Western Australia. We are located down on the bottom left corner of the continent and obviously since we are south of the equator, winter is rapidly approaching.

Currently it is Autumn here. (They don't refer to it as "the fall." Not exactly sure why, my best guess is that it's because the leaves don't fall from the trees in the Autumn/Winter here.) The weatherman here has the easiest job. This week it will be 66 degrees f (19 celcius) every afternoon and 46 (8 degrees celcius) every night without a cloud in the sight. The funniest part is to see the Australians "rug up" whenever the temperature is slightly below room temperature. By looking at what people wear when its 66 degrees one would easily think it was below freezing outside. Long Jackets, hats, scarfs are the norm. Meanwhile I'm still wearing shorts! I guess my blood hasn't gotten thin yet!

A view of Perth from Space. We live on the banks of the Swan River, where it gets really curvy. That's the Indian Ocean on the left, and Rottness Island out there.

The good news is that it won't get much colder. Winter is about the same but with a lot more rain. The climate is perfect for endurance athletes, a lot like San Diego California. It's no surprise why there are so many good triathletes here, as you can easily cycle outside all year around.

A picture of Perth I took today while running in Bold Park.

Just yesterday I went for a ride with my friend Mr. Tom Bakowski. Tom is an aspiring triathlete with a pro-license on it's way. Tom has broken the 9 hour mark for an Ironman, that's fast. He showed me a 3 hour loop (90 k or 56 miles) which went up into the hills outside of Perth. We hit 3 big climbs, with the first being the worst by far. I am happy to report that my bike training is going very well and I am becoming more comfortable on my Cervelo racing bike. This was evident as we hit about the 80kph (50 miles per hour) mark on our way down Welshpool road! My friend Stuart once got a speeding ticket on that road.... on his bicycle!

In other news, my wife Janna is heading back to USA for the next several weeks to spend time with family. Her brother Brody is graduating High School and her sister Lenae has recently given birth to a very big boy (almost 10 lbs) named Jude! Janna is bubbling with excitement about seeing friends, family, little Jude, and even our cats, "Dixie" and "Lucy" who now reside in Hickory, North Carolina with her parents!

Our Cat Dixie is deaf with two different coloured eyes.

I will be here manning the fort at The Running Centre while no doubt feasting on cereal every night for dinner! Cooking is not my forte'. I am excited about using this opportunity to dial in on training for the upcoming duathlons, first one being in late July up in Queensland.

Also, I regret to mention that my American counterpart Mr. Chris Lamperski will be leaving Australia to go visit his life-partner (not like that though,) Glen Carrol in New Zealand. You might recall that both Beavis and Butthead spent Christmas with us here in Perth. We are throwing a big going away bash for Chris entitled "1 less bogan," and by Bogan I mean "redneck" as the two are synonymous.

Run For a Reason 14K

2011-05-22T22:44:00.001+08:00

Today was the Run for a Reason 14k. There were about 13,000 participants in this odd-distance race. I have had concerns about my current fitness and just changed my mind only a few days ago to opt against racing in a Half Marathon this weekend. So I jumped in this 14k here in Perth with no expectations and no real idea how I would perform.

Start of the Race. Photo courtesy of Sam Maxwell Sports Management.

I ran with a few of the local University students, Brandon and Neil for most of the race. We were running solid 3:20/k pace (5:20 per mile).

Running a strong pace with Neil and Brandon. Photo Courtesy of Josh O'hart.

I made a hard move at 10k and dropped a 3:07 and moved into 3rd place. I had a small gap on the two guys but I just couldn't sustain it. They caught me and passed and I didn't respond. I cruised home in 46:19 which is 5:19 per mile pace. I was pleased to have finished in 5th place overall.

Finishing the 14k in the Western Australia Cricket Grounds (WACA)

End result: Very happy with the race.

For the last 6 weeks I've tried a new training philosophy which I have called "Listening to your body." If I felt like running slow, I would run slow. Adversly, if I felt like going fast I would do that too. Some days if I was tired, I would go home to sleep and run later.

Although the plan sounds like something out of Runner's World Magazine, I am not sure it it's a good idea for me. It wasn't structured enough for me and I started to skip out on my easy runs.. This could cause injuries. I am going to go back to a bit more structured training programme for the upcoming duathlon season.

I'm also very proud of Janna who raced today too. She ran a strong race and got faster at the end. She most surely set personal bests in the 8k and 10k en route to her 14k completion today.

Down here it's okay to race with an IPOD so Janna ran with headphones and danced throughout the race!

Kicking it post-race with Chris Lamperski and Marc See -State Champion.

New Bike, Duathlon Training

2011-05-17T19:09:00.001+08:00

I have purchased a new bike! It's a Cervelo P3 Carbon. This has been the "sexy" racing bike in North America for the past 5-6 years. I thought the reason for their success was marketing but I was wrong. One test-ride on this machine and I was convinced that I was purchasing the best TT bike in the world.

This model of bicycle has won more triathlons and time trial races than any other bike in history. If the P3 were it's own brand of bike, it would still be the most frequently used bike at the Ironman World Championships by a country mile!

Most importantly, I got fitted for the bike by the experts at Churchill Cycles in Myaree and the bike fits me like a glove.

Today was the inaugural ride on the Cervelo as the first of the winter rains arrived. There's just something cleansing about riding in the rain!

I am excited about the upcoming Duathlon season! I've not biked at all in 2011 and am more than ready to integrate cycling back into the mix. The bad news is that it doesn't look like I'll get a spot in the Duathlon World Championships this year in Spain. I was hoping to go. Despite my queries to USAT, America won't take me because I'm not going back to USA to do a qualifying race to be on the team. By finishing 2nd in my age group at the Australian Duathlon Championships I qualified down here.... But I'm not Australian so I can't represent Australia either. I even went so far as to contact Norfolk Island, a tiny little Island out in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Australia and New Zealand. I explained my situation to the head of the Micro-Nation's triathlon federation. The guy was very friendly and said that normally they would be able to take me but due to red tape issues between them and the International Triathlon Union, they won't be allowed to take a team this year.

My Mate Chris and I at the US Duathlon Championships in Richmond, VA.

Racing '09 Duathlon World Champs in North Carolina.

Nonetheless I plan to do a few races domestically and abroad this winter. We've got our sights set on a race in New Zealand as well as Powerman Malaysia in November. My wife Janna is keen to show off her new found bicycle strength and she plans to participate in a few of the Run/Bike/Run races as well!

Operation: World Champion.

My boss and training partner Raf Baugh is gearing up for the Duathlon World Championships this year with the hopes of winning. He's put together an invite-only training group for some serious training. One of the requirements is that you have to be able to run a 5k in the 15 minute range. I am very excited to participate in these massive "brick" sessions this winter as well! Raf recently finished 3rd in the European Duathlon Championships this season and was 6th in the world Championships in Charlotte when we met back in 2009.

Busselton Recap

2011-05-15T22:43:00.001+08:00

The Busselton 70.3 Half Ironman has come and gone. I am very happy to report that the race was a huge success for my wife Janna. This was her first shot at the half-iron distance and she performed beyond what we thought she would do.

Training 15-20 hours per week has certainly paid off. Thanks to her coach Paul Mackay for overseeing her training and providing insight and motivation for this race.

Janna swam the 2k ocean swim in around 41 minutes. This is about what we thought she could do. The water was a bit choppy but she stayed free of elbows and sharks.

Janna getting out of the water. She had spent plenty of time practicing swimming in the ocean to prepare for the race. The Wetsuit kept her warm and buoyant.

The real surprise for Janna was the bike leg. She averaged almost 20 mph (32kph) for 56 miles! This is faster than she's ever ridden the bike, even on short distance triathlons and stand alone time trials!

Janna's new Women's Specific Triathlon Bike. She really liked the Aero drink bottle up on the aero bars.

Janna got off the bike in under 3 hours which included a 4 minute penalty because she was following too close to another competitor. There is a new rule where you have to give the person in front 12 metres (around 36 feet) of space so you're not drafting. This is applicable when someone overtakes you on the bike. Janna was passed, didn't give enough space and the referee motorcycle came up and blew the whistle at her and sent her to the "sin bin." for 4 minutes.

Traditionally the run has been Janna's toughest leg. She maintained a steady pace and finished the half marathon in 2:02, which is a personal best for the distance! It was a 3 loop course and she could see friends who were racing and many spectators. The atmosphere in Busselton was unreal!

Janna donned her typical pink skirt, visor, and water bottle.

I was very excited to see Janna accomplish a long-term goal that she had started planning over a year ago! Her official time was 5:42, much faster than her 6 hour goal! Also I would be remissed if we didn't thank all of Janna's Support crew: The Running Centre (gear) Raf and Marc See (Physio,) Nathan and Elyse (Massage.) Also thanks to her training partners Lisa, Rose, Kate and anyone else I've missed! She was in good hands!

Janna (Right) and her training partner Lisa who also had a great race.

It was great to see so many of our friends and customers down there in Busso for this event. Congrats to everyone, including Ryan (4:13) Macca (Janna's Coach 4:01) Lajos 4:01, J-Murda (4:18) Rachael Smith (Our Favourite kiwi 4:30.) Unfortunately for our North Carolina homebody Chris Lamperski the day didn't go as planned. His dropped his nutrition at the beginning of the bike ride and was forced to race the first 3 hours of the event with no calories! He had some glucose tablets before the start of the run and salvaged a 4:30. Later on he replenished his body enough to set the dance floor on fire at the after party!

Janna Angell: Mission accomplished! (And she's already making plans for another one!)

Check out this really cool video of the Busselton Race. It's an event I highly recommend if you're into swimming, biking, and running.

Perth 32

2011-05-01T21:57:00.000+08:00

Today I ran the Perth 32, a 32k (20 mile) race. Although I usually don't like entering a race just for training purposes, I thought this would be a good opportunity for a long and hard training run. It was a perfect sunny Western Australia morning and the $12 entry fee was less than the cost of four bananas here in Australia(Thanks a lot Queensland!)

I cruised the first half of the race at 4:00 per kilometre with my mates Nathan Doig and Raymond Lampard. At half way I started to push and ran from 12th place to 4th place in the span of about 10 minutes. Around the 24 k (14 miles) the fatigue from the surge caught up with me and Nathan caught me and ran past me. I ran the last 8k by myself while paying special attention to take in calories and fluids along the way. I finished in 2:07:00.

Click "view details" to see more about today's race.

This was the longest run I've done since the Boston Marathon some 4 years ago. The only complaint was the bloody nipple that you get from time to time! Hats of to Nathan who finished 3rd overall, and my training partner Gerry Hill who was in fine form as he orchestrated a great come from behind victory in just under two hours.

I spent the afternoon eating, hydrating, and sleeping... Three of my favourite things to do! After a long mass at St. Mary's Cathedral it was time to get going again for my evening run. It was tough to get motivated and there were many things I could have used as an excuse to skip the run - nipple problem not withstanding. So I cranked up the IPOD and floated through 40 easy minutes and was suprised by how good I felt!

Birthday Bash

2011-04-24T17:23:00.000+08:00

Wednesday was my 29th b-day. We decided to celebrate the occasion by turning our normal Wednesday night shop run into a smash fest. Especially since my American friend Chris Lamperski reported getting smashed the previous Wednesday by the Aussies, incluing his coach and former Pro Triathlete Paul Mackay. So we thought we would turn the run into a "race."
Throughout the day we developed a strategy of how we were going to smash everyone on the night run. Only drawback is that our friend Nathan Doig, Australian, heard about it and he was keen for a throwdown for the Wednesday Tempo.

The run started at a moderate pace for about 5 minutes. Next thing you know Nathan Doig (Former Leonora Golden Mile Winner) takes off up the road. He is closely marked by my American colleague Chris. Soon the group was wondering what was going on as Chris and Nathan gapped everyone on the run. A few minutes went by and they had a sizeable lead over the rest of us. Finally, a chase group organised which contained Johan Borg, 21 yr old Pro triathlete and myself. We covered the next 8 kilometres (5 miles) in 27 minutes before we finally caught the two leaders. With about 6k to go I made a hard push into the lead. The plan had worked perfect. Chris achieved his goal of taking the pace out very hard in order to fatigue the group as I sat back and conserved energy. Chris was running's version of Jens Voigt.
But, on that particular night, there was nothing I could do. The spirit was certainly willing, but the legs just would not comply! Perhaps my body knew it was a year older. Maybe it could have been those 3 lattes and 2 frapuccinos that I had consumed throughout the day as part of my Birthday celebration. Although I ran as fast as I could at that time, Nathan danced away from us along Mounts Bay Road and Todd "tractor" Ingraham went by as well. Todd is a former 2:21 Marathoner. The Aussies beat us.

Post Run with Chris Lamperski (Left) and Aussie Nathan Doig (Right)

I ran very easy on Thursday. Then on Good Friday I met my friend Gerry Hill for a long/hard session of Threshold Intervals. These are designed to simulate the reality of an upcoming race. Gerry is following up his debut 2:36 Marathon with two marathons this upcoming winter. So our training session was long and hard.

We warmed up and then ran 3 x 5k (3.1 miles) with 5 minutes rest in between. Although there was a very strong easterly wind, we managed 17:25, 16:50, and then 16:45. At one point we were working so hard that Olympic Pole Vault Champion Steve Hooker took notice and stopped his training to offer words of encouragement as we rolled by!

We will be doing more of these long/hard workouts leading up to Gerry's marathon in the coming few months. There is no substitute for putting yourself in a situation that simulates a race.

In other news: Janna's upcoming race is only two weeks away. She's trained 15-20 hours per week to prepare for The Busselton Half Ironman. Just yesterday she biked 4 hours and then ran :20 minutes right after. Because she's getting used to her new Cannondale Women's Triathlon Bike, she actually rode faster for the 115 kilometres than she raced a week earlier in her 70 kilometre time trial! She rode her bike about 10 hours last week and all her hard work is starting to pay off! I'll keep everyone posted as we get closer to race day.

70k TT

2011-04-17T22:10:00.000+08:00

This weekend we drove about 80 minutes South of Perth for a Bicycle Time Trial. I wasn't participating but it was Janna's first ever bike race. It was 70k, which is more than 40 miles!

The Time Trial is often called "The Race of Truth" because you can make it as easy or as hard as you want. I've done a few back in America and once pushed so hard I was literally cross-eyed at the finish. They stagger the starts in 1 minute intervals and you are not allowed to draft off other cyclists.

Today's race went well. Janna finished and averaged just under 29 kph (around 18 mph.) It was her first competition on the Cannondale Slice Women's Time Trial bike that she is trying out. She is not sure if she likes it or not. She's only ridden the machine 3 times and the position gives her a sore back. You tend to lay down on the front of a time trial bike whereas you sit more upright on a standard road bike.

I checked the results, and Chris managed to not get passed by our friend Rachael. She's "chicked" me a few times on rides and can keep up with most guys in Perth on the bike! Rachael will get another crack at Chris in Busselton for 70.3 Western Australia in a few weeks time.

There were several talented riders out there such as Janna and Chris' coach Paul Mckay. Also Matt Illingworth and Brynt McSwain, the Churchill Cycles 1-2 combo were out there rolling people up. Pro triathletes Courtney Ogden (winner of Ironman WA) and Scott Neyedly did the long race in a tune up before Ironman Australia coming up in a few weeks.

As for me - I chucked on the Spibelt and went for a long run on the farm roads. I covered 27k in 1:50. I was passed only 5-6 cars the whole time! We were in low density farmland where there were more windmills than houses, more cows and Kangaroos than People!

I snapped this photo of a Roo Skeleton. I suppose their tales have bones in them too!

2011 ASICS Bridges 10k

2011-04-13T22:32:00.000+08:00

Track season has ended for me and it's back to road racing for the upcoming winter season. Last weekend was my second road race of 2011 and I'm happy to report that it went well.

The Bridges is a very popular 10k race and probably 2nd or 3rd most prestigeous running race in Western Australia. It's a 1-loop 10k (6.2 mile) race course that starts at the Perth belltower, runs along the Swan River, crosses two bridges (hence the name) and finshes basically where it started. Perth is one of the windiest cities in the world and Sunday morning would fit the bill. There was a strong wind coming from the east that nearly blew Janna off her Bicycle as she was racing a traithlon up at Hillarys Boat Harbor to the north that same morning!

The race started off very slow. I tucked myself in with the lead group of 6-7 runners and tried to conserve as much energy as possible at the beginning. When we ran over the first bridge and took our right hander we had a tail wind. The eventual race winner, Roberto Busi, made a very strong and decisive attack which fractured the lead group into 3 or 4 packs at around the 2 mile mark. I was in 6th place at the half way mark. I started pushing and along the South Perth foreshore I ran my middle 3 miles in 15:23. I was able to catch chase group of Gerry "Homicide" Hill and Todd "Tractor" Ingraham. I made a hard move just before the narrows bridge and went in front of the two. The move didn't stick and Todd caught me as we ran over the narrows bridge and were greeted with a wall of howling wind. So I tucked in behind Todd and saved up for one last move. I have raced Todd often and I am well aware that he can kick at the end of a race. I though back to the time over the summer when we were racing on the track. My American friend Chris Lamperski looked over his shoulder to encourage Todd to "finish strong" during the bell lap of a 5k. Todd proceded to out kick Chris and edged him at the line.

I am not a strong sprinter and I knew I had to get rid of him immediately! So with about 500 metres to go I threw everything I had left into one all out attack even though my legs and lungs were screaming for me to slow down. I managed to stay away from him and sailed home in 2nd place with a road personal best of 32:54. Considering the wind, the slow start, and the tactics involved I am very surprised we were able to run that fast.

Click here to see the picture of the finish.

Here is the race photo of Todd Ingraham, a former 2:21 Marathoner and one of WA's best ever.

Former Roomy Gerry Hill fought off cramps to finish in 4th place. (Note that it is ok to wear headphones and listen to music while racing here in Perth.)

But the picture of the day would go to Roberto Busi, the Race winner who had a victory celebration in the finishing shute. Note that his T-shirt is 10 feet in the air!

For the first time ever, I scored the race a 10 out of 10 for me. Usually I look back and think of what I could have done better but honestly I'm not sure if I could have raced this one tactically any smarter. It was an honour to have my named mentioned in same breath as guys like Todd, Gerry, and Roberto- 3 guys who are capable of running a sub 2:30 marathon! Also, I had twisted my knee on Tuesday and could barely walk Wednesday/Thursday. I wasn't expecting to be able to race!

You know you've gone all-out when you catch a cold/fever after racing very hard, which was the case with me. I think I ran so hard that the immune system just couldn't cope! I woke up Monday morning and felt as if I had been on a 2 year death march through the Amazon! Sometimes I wonder why I still do this and how many more Kilometres these hips have left in 'em!

In conclusion, I would be totally remissed if I didn't mention my family in North Carolina and the unfortunate recent passing of my Grandpa Lou Moody. Sorry I couldn't be there. This one was for you guys!

-Cody

Down South

2011-04-07T22:57:00.001+08:00

Perth is surrounded by ocean on one side and desert on the other side. Up north, there are fishing towns spattered along the coast. Then there is Australia's Southwest. It's about a 3 hour drive and it's what Charleston, SC is to people in North Carolina. It is famous for it's beautiful scenery, countless vineyards, and righteous surfing spots. This truly is a gem of Australia and one of the best kept tourism secrets in the world.

Last weekend was our 3rd anniversary so Janna and I packed up and headed down south for 3 days. If you haven't read about our engagement/love story you can click here and read the story from last year.

I thought I could share some photos from our weekend down in Australia's Southwest.

We drove from Perth (left) to the "horn" on the bottom left. This is Australia's Southwest.

Heading down to our Friend John's place in Yallingup. We were so far out there that the Satellite navigation didn't know where we were. Often times it would read "driving on road" or just show us green to indicate that we were in "bushland" but it wasn't sure why!

A photo from John's driveway in Yallingup. It backs up Cape Naturaliste Vineyard. The lady who runs the vineyard is currently on a popular Australian reality TV show called "The Farmer Wants a Wife."

We hung out on this beach all afternoon. We were basically secluded because we wouldn't see another person for 1-2 hours at a time! The coastline is full of these beaches. Our friends Nathan and Ash got engaged on a beach in Yallingup. When we were leaving for the day we were excited to run into some Americans! They are currently living in Singapore and are on a holiday. I love Americans!

It's already been 3 years married to the love of my life! It was great to just unwind on the beach and completely relax after a stressful 13 month migration battle! Ready to settle into a routine and begin the rest of our lives!

Looking at the WA coastline in the mirror. I thought my friend Lajos Varga, professional legitimate photographer, would like the creativity.

The view of the sun going down over the Indian Ocean from the backporch of the house where we stayed. There was a surfing contest going on nearby so we shared the house with American Chris Ward who is a pro surfer. There was also a freelance surfing photographer staying with us. They said "gnarly" every 2-3 minutes! They were such easy going guys! I loved watching Kangaroos bounce around in the valley at sunset!

We watched the early rounds of the surfing contest. There were 4 people in each heat and they had 25 minutes to surf a few big (or in this case, small) waves. Kelly Slater (The Tiger Woods of Surfing) was in town to do battle with local hero and Taj Barrow.

On our last day it was down to Business. We went into Busselton where Janna will be doing her Half Ironman in 1 month. 70.3 Western Australia. The 70.3 is the total number of miles she will complete on the day. 1.2 mile swim, 56 miles bike, and 13.1 (half marathon) run! On the day she did the triathlon's bike course, and then tacked on a little more to get 110 kilometres (around 70 miles) in for the day. I went for a run and then joined her for the last hour of her ride. At one point I could see the sun setting over the trees and kangaroos grazing in the pastures. It's mind blowing how beautiful everything is!

Our $1500 Car, The Blue Devel was a rolling locker-room for the weekend. It contained 2 bikes, tons of food, cameras, and clothes for running & cycling. We've become quite adept at changing clothes in the car

Steve Hooker

2011-03-24T09:55:00.000+08:00

Just recently Steve Hooker visited our store to purchase some running shoes. Steve is the 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist in the Pole Vault.

Steve Hooker on the Podium in Beijing in '08.

Steve now lives here in Perth because the facilities and weather are great.

Me, Steve Hooker, and his Girlfriend Katya (a 1:56 800 metre runner and Russian National Champion.)

Rotto

2011-03-13T21:43:00.000+08:00

The other day we finally went to Rottnest Island. It is an island about 20k (12 miles) from Perth in the Indian Ocean. It is accessible by boat or Airplane. There are usually about 300 people who live on "Rotto" and nobody is permitted to buy houses or land on Rottnest.

Originally it was inhabited by Aboriginal people. The Island was uninhabited when the dutch found it in 1696 and named it "Rat's Nest" because of the Quokkas. Quokkas are like mini kangaroos which were mistaken for large rats. They live on Rotto and only a few places on the mainland of Australia. There are no Kangaroos on Rotto. In the 1800-1900's The Island served as a prison for indigenous Australians who committed offenses such as spearing livestock, burning the bush or digging vegetables

It wasn't hard to find a Quokka on Rottnest Island. This one was munching on someone's potato chips and didn't seem to mind me petting him! They hop around like Kangaroos.

We took a boat out to Rotto (half price on Tuesdays) and spent the afternoon there. You'll definately need to hire a bicycle as we did, because there are no cars on the island other than official maintenence vehicles and a few busses. Our day at Rotto was spent riding around on bikes taking photos of the beautiful scenery. We also did some swimming in the crystal clear water.

Janna and I riding bikes on Rotto.

The whole time I couldn't help but think that if this island were near America, the whole thing would be developed full of Restaurants, high rise hotels, luxury housing, amusement parks and anything else that could make money. In typical Western Australia fashion, they prefer to leave it as it is. Most beaches on the coast here are also primarily undeveloped as well.

We took the Rottnest Island Express back to Fremantle Harbour on what was easily the roughest boat ride of my life. The boat was going about 70-80kph and the water was very choppy. We were being thrown all over the place!

We were almost docked and we all had queasy stomaches when I received a phone that I will never forget. It was from my boss Jason who shared the best news we have heard in quite some time... Australia granted me another work visa! We had been waiting on a verdict from immigration for several months. It's been a tedious, year long process which was very stressful. Had they said no, we would have had just a few weeks to leave our home here in Australia and re-start our lives in another Country, probably America.

I lost my composure and became quite emotional on that boat. I'm sure the Aussies were looking at me trying to figure out why the skinny American guy was crying up at the front of the boat! My wife Janna knew exactly what it was. In the last year of living here, the place has grown on me. Although I'm willing to embrace whatever life throws our way, truth be told I would have been devestated had we been required to leave Australia.

I definitely want to plan a longer trip to Rottnest Island in the future as it seems like the perfect place for a training camp and holiday.

Looks like the Angells are staying in Australia for a while!

So Long, Spartacus!

2011-03-10T21:47:00.001+08:00

The past few months we were honoured to have Ueli Bieler from Switzerland staying in Perth. Ueli (Roughly pronounced like "Welly") lives in Zurich and is working on his PHD. He's also a professional triathlete. He's done 8:50 for an ironman and that was in Switzerland which certainly is not an easy course!

The Superbowl of Duathlons is called Powerman Zofingen which is held in Switzerland every year. This holy grail of run/bike/run events consists of a 10k (6 mile) run on trails, then 150k (93 mile) bike leg through the mountains, and then a brutal 30k (18 mile) trail run. According to Wikipedia, Mark Allen, 6-time Ironman winner, said Zofingen was the single hardest race he ever participated in. Ueli raced there. He finished tenth.

A photograph of Ueli at Powerman World Championships (I think) where he finished 10th.

I initially met Ueli at one of our group runs from The Running Centre. He ran with the fast group. Not many guys run with the fast group and very few come back for more. Ueli loved it. The following Sunday we took him to Helena Valley to complete one our legendary long runs in the hills. He ran up front all morning!

We quickly became friends and I soaked up a lot of training knowledge from him. The Swiss have different training philosophies than Australians or Americans. They are big into periodization, or dividing their training into particular phases. I think this is because it is so cold in the winter in Switzerland. I asked lots of questions and learned a lot from Ueli about his training modalities.

Ueli's strength is on the bike. Some weeks he will ride 600 kilometres-over 360 miles. Just yesterday he rode his bike from 9 AM until 4 PM- a total of 7 hours! For those reasons we nicknamed him Spartacus after Swiss Cycling legend Fabian Cancellara, (A guy who is so powerful on the bike that there was a conspiracy theory that he actually had a motor installed inside the bike!) Ueli's bike has a sticker with his name and nationality on there. That makes him legit!

My wife Janna quickly became at ease around the big guy, and she's the best judge of character I know. (After all, she married me!) We soon were going to the pool with Ueli and even took him to Albany for last weekend's triathlon and Rottness Island.

Sadly, Ueli's training stint here in Western Australia is about to end. This weekend he leaves to race a Half Ironman in Singapore before returning to Europe. I've already tried to convince him to migrate to Australia like we did but I think he's got other things to do first! We are sad to see the big guy go but with him the best with future endeavours. You guys follow the name Ueli Bieber in the future. Also check on Chris Lamperski's Blog for a post and some Q&A with Ueli as he was going to compare and contrast two pro triathletes from different backgrounds: Ueli-Long course and Macca-a short course ex-pro.

Kicking it with Ueli on Rottness Island. He is obviously the better dresser of the two!

Spartacus says his big quads enable him to ride bikes up mountains all day and dance all night!

Albany Triathlon

2011-03-07T13:28:00.001+08:00

This week was a 1 year anniversary of relocating to Australia. We took a weekend trip to Albany, Western Australia. We've been to Albany before and fell in love with this little port town on the Artic Ocean. This weekend was the Albany Triathlon. So we thought we'd drive down for the weekend. Janna raced the triathlon as her last racing hit-out before her Half Ironman Triathlon, 70.3 Western Australia, in May.

We drove from Perth on the left, to Albany, down in the South.

The weekend went well and I thought I would share some pictures.

The Swim Start at Middleton Beach. In Albany it will be cold/rainy one minute and then warm/sunny the next minute!

Middleton Beach in Albany Western Australia. This is one of the premiere Whale-watching destinations in the World from November-June.

Janna's Coach Paul Mackay running solo. Macca missed the turn-around half way through the run. He ran an extra 300 metres and still won the race!

It started raining again while Janna was doing the 10k run.

The Crew after the Race. Chris Lamperski (Left,) Ueli Beider (Swiss Professional Triathlete,) Janna Angell, And Steve Gleeson from the Break Your Limits Crew.

Janna's high volume of bicycle training is starting to Pay dividends. She often rides for 4 hours on the weekend! In Albany she was able to ride about 31kph (20 mph) for 40 kilometres! In this video, she was being lapped by the open/elite men.

An Example of some of the unique animals you can find at the bottom of Australia.

Not sure what this sign is warning us about!

The water comes from the Artic Ocean, so it was just cold enough for the participants to use their wetsuits.

Mona

2011-03-04T22:57:00.000+08:00

Last weekend I took a road trip to head down to the Nanga Bush Camp for a running training camp with Steve Moneghetti. I met Steve last year and this camp was not to be missed. Steve is a 4-time Olympian and 2:08 Marathoner (Winner of Berlin.)

So I loaded up the car and drove 2 hours south to the Nanga Bush camp where the camp was held. I drove to a small town called Pinjarra, jumped on another road and drove literally into the middle of nowhere. Eventually the Garmin in the car just showed roads without names. I finally found a sign reading "Nanga Bush Camp" and knew I had arrived.

I entered the facility and greeted the campers.. I was excited to see my physio Damian there speaking on glute/core strengthening for runners. I first went to Damian last July. He diagnosed that my leg problems were a result of my left glute being too weak and quickly put me on a very serious strengthening regimine. Not only did my injuries go away, but I got faster at running! Damian (or Damo as they call him,) talked about my specific situation/improvement as an example for what a commitment to core strengthening can do for a runner.

demonstrating some 1-legged stabilization exercises for runners.

Sunday morning consisted of a long run over trails which reminded me of those at the US Whitewater Centre in Charlotte. We then went swimming, hung out, and cooked breakfast (brekky) for the campers.

Kicking it with Steve Moneghetti, a 4 time Olympic Marathoner, at the Nanga Bush Camp in rural Western Australia.

Cooking Breakfast with Marc See, Western Australia 1500 Metre Champion.

Here is the departing picture of everyone at the Nanga Bush Camp. I enjoyed the company of everyone there. Thanks to Raf Baugh for conducting the camp.

John Gilmour

2011-02-28T18:23:00.001+08:00

The other night I got to meet a remarkable man whom I have been wanting to meet for a while.

His name is John Gilmour, and he is the stuff that legends are made of.

Last November I came in 2nd in the John Gilmour 10k race, named after him obviously, and won a new toolbox and a copy of his book called "All In My Stride." I was totally inspired by his book.

John is a Western Australia native who has a fantastic story. He went off to fight in World War Two. Only a few weeks into their campaign he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and spent the next few years as a Prisoner of War. He was in a terrible prison camp in Changi where he suffered from Malnutrition and lots of beatings at the hands of the Japaneese. The malnutrition badly damaged the optical nerves in his eyes and he has trouble seeing. He returned home, here in Perth where I now live, and was basically just skin and bones. He resumed running and set age-group world records at every event (I think) from the half mile up to the Marathon. In fact, he ran a 2:38 Marathon and hit the qualifying standard for the Australian Olympic team. He was sixty years old! Australia didn't take him to the Olympics.

So last Friday was the John Gilmour track 10,000 metre race. Due to the heat I did not participate but we went along to watch. I saw him there at the finish line cheering competitors on. He is in his 90's but doesn't look a day over 70. He was wearing dress pants, a dress shirt and a pair of running shoes. I grabbed my wife and camera and introduced myself. I told him I've read his book and that it was an honour to meet him. I told him I got 2nd in his 10k race and he said the next one is in November and he looks forward to seeing me if he is still around!

If you ever have a bad day and don't want to go run, I encourage you to think about John Gilmour and what he's been through. Or if you're looking to be inspired to begin a running programme for yourself, I suggest buying a copy of his book "All in my stride."

Me (Right) with John Gilmour (Centre,) With Paul Mitchell-a man worthy of his own blog entry- 2000 Sydney Special Olympic Gold Medalist (Left.)

Failed Attempt for 15 minutes

2011-02-22T22:02:00.000+08:00

I was hoping to break 15 minutes for 5k on the track last Friday night. It was not to be. I had the short hair and the "Kennedy" beard which I was hoping would bring some good luck. I even broke out the new all white racing kit consisting of the new Running Centre white 2XU singlets and white compression shorts.

Despite looking the part, I made a tactical error at the 400 metre mark, deciding to let the lead pack go ahead without me. I calculated that their pace of :68 for 400 metres (4:32 per mile pace) was over my head and I was hoping to run each lap in :72 seconds which would put me at 3:00/k pace (4:48 per mile) or 5k in exactly 15:00.

In order to obtain a sub 15:00 time I was hoping to have a group of runners to pull me through. It works a lot like cycling.. or NASCAR for those of you reading back home. You can go faster, easier, if you're running in a pack of people. There is up to an 8% advantage if you're racing in a pack. Earlier that week I was expecting 5-6 of my training partners to race with me. But after running one lap, I realized I was all by myself!

So I ran the rest of the race in what they call "no man's land" and at one point I looked to my wife Janna and just shrugged my shoulders as I ran by as if to say "not tonight." I ended up with a 15:25 for 5k which is still my 2nd fastest time over this 3.1 mile distance. I was not totally spent once I crossed the finish line, which tells me that there was a little more in the tank.

Congrats to the boys from work: Marc See ran 14:30 something and Raf made his comeback on the track by belting a 14:47 as he prepares for what he says will be his final Duathlon racing season in Europe.

I was disappointed for a few minutes about the outcome of the race. Whenever I have setbacks I look back at times when I was injured and would have just been happy to go out and complete a 3 mile run with no pain! Also, I thought back to a solo time-trial I did on the Belmont Abbey Track about 5 years ago to the day when I ran 19:00 for 5k (and was excited about it!) I never would have thought I'd be trying to break 15:00 (In Australia!)

Momentarily disappointed but there will be other days!

Special thanks to those who came out to cheer us on! Also, Thanks to Pistol Pete Lever for the Photographs.

3000 Metres of Pain

2011-02-06T22:23:00.003+08:00

Greetings from Perth.

The last few weeks of training have been going very solid. I have fallen in love with racing on the track. They have meets here each Friday night. Although I'm sure my wife's idea of date night doesn't include sitting on the sidelines watching her husband race people 5-10 years younger on a Friday night but she has been more than accommodating!

Friday night track meets are a staple of our Western Oz Weekend. Note that Janna's not the only girl who has to come watch her husband race... Ash Doig has to come support my mate Nate.

Last weekend we went to the track and I got psyched up and spiked up for the 3000 metre race. This is an event which is a half lap short of a full 2 miles. Those of you who know me will recall that I don't possess a lot of natural leg speed and tend to stay away from shorter races. 3000 is about as short/fast of a race as you'll ever find me participating in. My previous 3000 metre experience was earlier this summer when I ran 9:17.. I felt much fitter, lighter, and stronger and was hoping to surely improve that personal best this time. So with the race underway I was able to get into a good hard rhythm and go through the first k in 2:55. I did my best to stay out of trouble but the down side is that I was leading out a few runners, including my running buddy Chris Lamperski. He has more speed than me and invariably sprints past me at the end of track races so I knew I was in trouble. I looked over my shoulder at him to indicate that I was ready for him to pull through and do some of the work. He didn't budge but stayed behind me. I was able to put in a couple of hard laps and got rid of him before the last lap. I came unglued with about 500 metres to go but came home in 8:56! This was a nice :19 Second personal best time for me. Chris cruised home in 9:09 which is a strong effort considering he'd ridden his bicycle about 800 kilometres (500 miles) in the preceding 2 weeks before the race.

The pain didn't end. I put on a different pair of shoes and jogged over to the practice grass track next to the stadium and completed 5 x 400 metres (quarter mile) HARD. The purpose was to use this race + 400 metre reps as a workout to prepare me for a 5k race in a few weeks' time. I didn't want to do these before the race because too often I find that it gives us an escape clause should we under-perform during the event. It's easy to say "I ran slower than I should have but that's okay, I did a workout before the race!" and it's justified by all who are listening. So I managed to complete these 400's in 70-72 seconds and the last was :67. Ideally this will simulate the demands associated with a 5000 metre (3.1 mile) race.

I'll keep everyone posted on the 5k race in 2 weeks and the 10k race the following week. Also, in an effort to get a few seconds faster with my running, I have elected to grow a righteous "Bob Kennedy Beard." Bob Kennedy was the best American 5k runner of the 90's and is actually the first non-african to break the 13:00 barrier for 5000. So in honour of BK himself, who by the way I met a few years ago in Charlotte, I am growing the "Kennedy" to help with my sub 15 minute 5000 attempt.

One of America's Greatest Ever - Bob Kennedy and his Gnarly Beard + short hair combo.

Still Living the Dream

2011-02-01T23:32:00.000+08:00

Greetings everyone. Sorry for the long break between posts. Yes I am still alive. Our American visitors Chris and Glen have moved out of the house and things are getting back to normal at our apartment here in West Perth, Western Australia. Best of luck to Glen who has ventured back to New Zealand and Chris who is living just south of the river whom we still get to interact with on a daily basis.

So what's up down under? Plenty of things. I don't know where to start! I'll just list in no particular order.

1. What a difference a coach makes. I'm not talking about me. I've been self coached since '07 and loving every minute of it. I'm talking about my wife and source of inspiration, Janna Angell. She has been participating in triathlon for 2 seasons now and has signed up for 70.3 Western Australia. This is a triathlon which consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 52 miles on the bike, and a half marathon (13.1 miles or 21k run.) She decided that accountability is a key factor in a training programme for such a serious venture. She mentioned that she wanted to be coached by my friend Paul Mckay. Paul knows a thing or two about triathlon. He used to race professionally in Europe and has notched a few top finishes in some high profile races. He was also top 5 in the duathlon world championships a while back. Paul is currently one of the best Triathletes in Western Australia and he coaches a few triathletes locally. He is very humble and listens to Janna very well. Paul has transformed Janna into a motivated training machine! She now trains twice most days. The Australian sun has tanned her skin brown. Her legs are more defined and she's getting a 6-pack stomach! At last weekend's triathlon she averaged 30.5 kph (about 19mph) on the bike for more than 25 miles!

The lady loves pink.

2. I'm happy to report that my fitness is coming around. I've been running between 60-80 miles most weeks. I realize that I'm 28, not 20 and can't train with the intensity and density that I used to. I've paid particular attention to consistency and injury prevention. I stretch, hydrate, and eat healthy. I supplement my iron, drink lots of fresh juice smoothies each day, sleep in compression tights to recover quicker. I wear barefoot shoes a few runs a week. I eat 4000 calories a day but I'm down to 152 lbs with about 5% body fat.

3. Enjoying Racing: I've been racing frequently and make no apologies for this. I managed a 15:12 for 5k. Maybe 14:XX is a possibility. I also went down south to the town of Bunbury to race on Australia day. It was my 2nd race in Bunbury and my 2nd win there as well. It's great winning a race in a small town because you usually get interviewed by the local TV stations and newspapers. I managed to run 15:37 for the 5k win and was impressed that Raf ran the course twice and came home with the 10k victory in 31:49. Not bad for a guy who's back was out over Christmas and he couldn't run at all. Speaking of Raf, he is celebrating his 10 year partnership with Ryders Eyewear, a Western Australia based Sunglasses company that has sponsored him for the past decade. They made a pair of glasses in his honour, called the Nitro X.

Racing 5000 metres at Perth's 60 million dollar stadium. Does anybody recognise the skinny bloke in front of me?

Raf's commemorative glasses from Ryders Eyewear. His nickname is Radar so he wanted his glasses to be called "Radar." Ryders didn't think that was a good idea. I'm sure Oakley wouldn't like that idea either.

4. Triathlon Relay. Last Saturday was the City of Perth Triathlon, which is the Western Australia State Championships. It was an Olympic Distance. We put together a team to compete in the relay race. My man Scotty P ripped the opening 1500 metre swim and then sent off big Matt Illingworth on the bike leg. Matt is an accomplished track and time trial cyclist who has several UK cycling records to his name. He succeeded in dismantling the rest of the field on the bike. I thought I heard his TT bike screaming for help at one point during his ride! He surely averaged close to 50kph (or 30 miles per hour if you're on the old money.) As the temperature reached close to 100 degrees f with NO shade, I took the chip and cruised a 10k "victory lap" for our team in about 35 minutes. The medical tent looked like a war-zone and there were guys getting in ambulances because of the heat. Our team won the relay race and our prize was a 6-pack of beer which will surely sit in my fridge until we leave this apartment considering I don't drink!

5. Welcome Ueli Beiler to Western Australia. Ueli is a Professional triathlete from Switzerland who has chosen to train here to avoid the European Winter. Ueli scored a top 10 finish at the Powerman Duathlon World Championships last year in Switzerland. At present, he is cycling about 600 kilometres per week! That's more than most people drive! I've been on a few runs with Ueli and have learned a lot about from watching the professionalism he displays with regards to all faucets of being an elite athlete.

6. Goodbye Jimmy. My mate Jimmy Lewin is moving from Perth to the East Coast of Australia to pursue his triathlon Career. Jimmy won an age-group world championship and is one of the up-and comers in Australia for sure. Look for big things from this young man in the future. Jimmy is one of the first people who I sold shoes to in Australia. Hey Jimmy, maybe you can leave me some of your swimming skills?

7. It's hard for me to update the blog each week so check out a few of my training partners blogs.

Tom Bakowski. Tom is hoping to get his professional license as a triathlete very soon. He has been to the Ironman World Championships in Kona a few times. Tom recently did sub 9 hours for an Ironman. Stay in touch with "Sweet T" as he documents his training.
Bean Baugh. Follow this surfer turned triathlete who has only done 10 triathlons but one of them was a 4:20 half ironman!
Raf Baugh. My boss and the guy who initially brought me to Australia. Raf was the #3 Ranked Duathlete in the ITU world rankings in '09.

All the best guys!

-Cody

I Wish Every Day Was Sunday!

2011-01-16T16:06:00.000+08:00

Every Sunday morning we meet outside of Perth in a little area called Helena Valley. Helena is inland and on the edge of an escarpment, or steep series of hills which divide Perth from the rest of Australia. Each weekend you can find this place packed full of distance runners who all come to do their long run on Sunday. It's a right of passage if you are a distance runner in Western Australia. There is not much out there at all. the road is gravel the whole way and can be rough at times. There are only a few houses on the 15 mile loop we typically run. Aside from the occasional mountain bikers, horses, and kangaroos we normally have the road all to ourselves.

The level of talent coming to the Helena Valley long runs is rediculous. Today there were around 25 runners out there. It was a laundry list of who's who in Western Australia. Accomplished marathoners, Ironman triathletes, all the fast runners in town, and some elite triathletes all make running Helena a regular part of their training. The course has a lot of ups and downs which includes one massacre about 45 minutes in which is known as Kelly's Climb. This climb is just short of 2 miles and has several hundred feet of elevation gain. It's like running up Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. My fastest time up the hill is 13:00 and I was shattered at the end of it!

Here is a video I shot from my camera a few weeks ago on the long run.

Once we reach the top of the climb we stop for a sip of water from someone's garden hose. Then we have 45 minutes of fast running to reach the bottom. The groups seldom hold back during these runs and nobody obeys the "Long Slow Distance" principle. There are often surges and races among the runners throughout the run. Today for instance my 20th kilometre was in 3:06 which is about 5:00 per mile pace!

The best part about the long run is going to the local independent grocery store after it's over. You can walk in with no shoes and no shirt! We usually buy plenty of food and then sit out front of the store and eat it whilst sharing war stories from the morning's run.

In typical Western Australia fashion, this run hasn't changed since the 1970's! It's got a cult following and we're even getting our own T-shirts printed up with the quote "Train harder, not smarter!"

Mizuno New Year's Eve 8K Race

2011-01-03T15:27:00.000+08:00

On Friday night I raced in the last event of 2010. It was an 8k Race along the banks of the Swan River here in Perth.

The race unfolded like I expected. I was in 12th place at the 1 kilometre mark and finished the race in 2nd. My mate Chris Lamperski ran the race but got a little confused and ran off course just before a bridge which cost him his :05 second lead over me and threw off his rhythm for the balance of the race.

I've lost those last few pounds and am down to racing weight.

Hurting at the end of the 8k (5-Mile) race

After the Race

My plans for 2011 are starting to take shape. I usually don't talk about goals much but two key plans are to stay injury-free, and to spend more time on the bike! In January I am racing a 5000 Metre track race and a Duathlon on Australia day.

Happy New Years to you all!

Holiday Season in Western Australia

2011-01-01T19:34:00.002+08:00

Hello everyone. I trust that this holiday season was safe and enjoyable for everyone both here in Australia and abroad. It was Our first holiday away from America and I must give a special Thanks to Dr. Rachael Smith for hosting us for an Orphan's Christmas which was one to remember. It was mine and Janna's 3rd Christmas together as a spouses!

On Boxing Day (Day after Christmas) we packed up our car with food and bicycles and heaps of training equipment and took a road trip to Jurian Bay, Western Australia. This was the perfect time for a well deserved holiday and a long overdue training camp! Jurian Bay looked to be a perfect place for a vacation with white sandy beaches and crystal clear water.

Jurian Bay, Western Australa in December.

We arrived to our friend's fishing house where we were set to stay and were pleasantly surprised by the accommodations. Usually these holiday homes are used only a few times a year for just sleeping so we had no expectations of anything nice.

I soon realized we were taking a vacation to 1950. There was no Air conditioner and no fans! There was very little industry and only 2500 residents. The town even had a power outage for the better part of an afternoon! The local hardware store was closed so we were forced to just deal with the heat for the first day we were there. Oh, and the temperature for the first two days were easily the hottest two days of my life, with the thermometer topping 42 c (almost 108 degrees Fahrenheit!)

The Water was nice except for the stingers!

On our 2nd day there it was time to get down to business with training. By 8 AM it was already 90 degrees and I soon realized that I should have commenced our training session when the sun rose at 4:40. So Chris and I took off on a 2.5 hour brick session which included running and riding bikes. The plan was to ride an extra hour but I got another flat tire so we cut the bike leg short. We ended up with a total of 6 flat tires for the trip! Although I drank 7-8 bottles of water during the training, I simply couldn't keep up with the hydration in the hot and arid environment. I think humidity would have been better as it would have helped the sweat stay on our skin rather than just immediately evaporating and leaving us a crusty, salty, dry mess!

For the next 16 hours I was so dehydrated that I felt like I had a hangover. I did the best I could to rehydrate and finally caught up on the liquids as the sun went down that night and we cooled down. All said, I ran between 15-20 kilometres each day and even did a bit of open-water swimming which was halted because we kept getting stung by small "stingers" which feel like Jelly-fish but don't hurt quite as much.

Me, Janna, Chris, and Glen

On the way back we stopped at the Pinnacles which is a park that is quite eery. I've never seen anything like this. It consist of thousands of these roch hard pinnicles which weren't put there by man but were formed by the elements throughout time. The park is 5-6 k around and you find these things everywhere.

Note the white sand dune on the right and the Indian Ocean on the left.

In typical Western Australia fashion, they only discovered these things about 50 years ago and everyone still argues about the mechanisms that produced them.

We found our way back to Perth and I was reminded how much I like this place. I sort of believe that when you live in Perth, most of your life is a vacation anyhow!

Perth, where we have black swans which live in the river.

People of Perth, Lock up your Daughters!

2010-12-21T18:06:00.002+08:00

Janna and I are hosting our good friends from North Carolina for the Holidays. Chris, left, has been here for about a month now. His roommate Glen, right, has been bumming around New Zealand for the past few months. Although we had invited Glen over, he told Chris that he needed to purchase new tires for his van and couldn't afford the flight for Christmas. Then the other night Glen surprised Chris, as Chris was at the airport under the preconception that he was picking up a friend of a friend. The look on Chris' face was priceless when he is approached by his roommate from Charlotte in the Perth Airport at midnight last Thursday!

Am I the first one to see the resemblance?

The picture above is a clear indication of the level of sophistication and intelligence that Chris and Glen have endowed to the people of Perth. We're taking a road trip very soon. More to come.

Happy Holidays and warm regards to all of you back home. C'mon down, the weather is fine!

Shark

2010-12-15T22:47:00.000+08:00

The other morning Janna and Chris dragged me to Cottesloe beach for an open water swim. I don't like swimming, and I don't like waking up early. So an early morning swim in the Indian Ocean isn't exactly a perfect way to start off the day! But it was a chance to try out our new wetsuits. I figured one swim wouldn't kill me. We got out wetsuits on and slipped off into the water. We swam for just a few minutes and then they pulled us out of the ocean. Someone saw a "very large shark." Sharks aren't all that uncommon down here. There have been two shark attacks on the Western Australia coast since I moved down here in March. They have a warning system in place and the shark alarm went off. They also deploy helicopters to spot them. This is easily done because the water is clear and the sharks can be massive! Chris shot a video.

note: the popularity of speedos or "budgie smugglers" as they call them down here. It's not uncommon to see people wearing these on the beach!

The lifeguard said that the helicopter discovered that it wasn't a Great White but it was a 4 metre (13 foot) Sun Fish. I've never heard of a Sun Fish. I looked them up on the internet. It's easy to mistake the two. Either way, I'm glad we got out of there as we would have basically swam right on top of it!

Really Big Sunfish

Really Big Shark

Regardless, had I seen either one of these, it would be save to say that my new wetsuit would have required a good cleaning. Maybe I'll stick to running and riding!

IRONMAN Weekend

2010-12-09T22:45:00.004+08:00

Hi guys. Been out of touch lately and flat out busy down here in Western Australia. I wanted to tell everyone about the outstanding weekend we just had.

It started with my wife Janna, doing a Women's only triathlon on Saturday morning. She performed very well in what was surprisingly only her 2nd triathlon in 12 months. With the relocation, unfortunately, competing in triathlons had taken a back seat for her but now she's training hard and building up for a Half Ironman in May. I ran about 15 k during Janna's triathlon, shouting encouragement from as many places as I could on the course.

I know girls in Australia may find this pill tough to swallow, but American Girls LOVE pink. This is evident with Janna's Pink visor, triathlon skirt, Rudy Project Sunnys... even pink bartape and water bottles on her bike.

After that, we departed on our trip to Australia's Southwest. We live on the west-coast and were headed 3 hours south to the bottom corner of the country. A few of our friends, Chris Lamperski and Nathan Doig decided that they were going to ride their bike from Perth down to Busselton the day before Ironman Western Australia.

Look at the bottom left corner. The boys were going to ride from where we live, Perth to Busselton. The distance is more than 130 miles!
We got the word that Nathan had been left and was "dieing a thousand deaths" a few hours into their ride. We sped to the nearest Servo and picked up some Coke's for the boys. We were delighted to see that Nate had regained his mojo along the path and was keeping up with Chris.

The boys were very happy to see people as there is not much between Perth and Busso other than some trees, and Kangaroos. The Cokes kept the guys going. (hey, it works for guys in the Tour de France..) We expected Chris to make the trip but there was a pool going as to when Nathan would bonk and give up. Prior to this ride Nathan had never ridden his bike farther than about 50 kilometres. He was going to ride about 4.5 times as far. Nate used every last ounce of energy and made it all in once piece.

We made it to the small town called Busselton which is home to the Busselton Jetty (or pier) which is said to be the longest wooden structure in the southern hemisphere (over a mile long!)

It's also home to Ironman Western Australia. The Ironman is a triathlon of epic proportions. Participants have to swim 2.4 miles (around to the end of the Jetty and back, then ride 112 miles, and then run a full marathon's distance, 26.2 miles or 42.2 K at the end. Believe it or not, these events are massively popular and invariably sell out well before the race starts.

We weren't staying in Busso however. A friend of ours named John had invited us to stay at his house farther south in a place called Yallingup. This place was simply unbelievable and I'm sure this blog post won't do it justice. Yallingup is known for it's ridiculous beaches, famous surfing, and wineries. Nathan proposed to his wife Ash on the beach at Yallingup. John's house was spectacular to say the least. He is a connoisseur of surf boards. Come to find out that he's had many of the world's big name surfers stay at his house for weeks at a time to hang out and go surfing at the nearby beaches. When they leave, they usually depart without their surfboards- They leave them for John as a gift. In fact, he had a guy there over the weekend who apparently was a famous surfer. My wife Janna asked him if he goes surfing and he mentioned that he goes from time to time, which later on we found out that he's the center fold in the most recent Australian Surfing publication. Looking back, Janna asking this guy if he goes surfing was probably like someone asking Fabian Cancellara if he goes cycling from time to time!

Above is an arial photograph of John's house in Yallingup. (It's on the bottom rightcorner of the photo.) From his back porch you can look out over the valley and the beach. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and were fascinated by his decorations and Australian Yard Art which included a 15 foot long white thing which we later found to be an actual jawbone of a whale that had washed up on the beach years ago!

An image of the Coastline near Yallingup that I took with my cell phone.

Sunday morning was race day and we went back up to Busselton to watch the ironman. For reasons unknown to me, when we arrived at 6:30 AM, my friend Chris got out of the car and basically sprinted away. No phone, money, suntan lotion, water, or anything. We didn't see Chris for another 11 hours. We watched a large part of the race, went out to eat, went back to tour Yallingup and check out all the scenery, and then finally our friends Chris and Michelle called us to tell us that they located our American friend sleeping on the sidewalk in Busso. He was badly sunburned, dehydrated, hungry, and wearing someone else's clothes!

They weren't kidding. Chris even took a picture of Lamperski.

The Ironman was an amazing spectacle to watch as I think it's one of the few times you'll ever see someone so completely exhausted and also completely elated at the same time. This is seen in the afternoon at Busselton during it's finest hour as the competitors hit the home straight.

We were also excited that two Western Australians won their home race. It goes to show that there are some legitimate athletes down here. The race was so motivating that I had decided to start participating in triathlons and begin training for an Ironman. Then my friend Raf Baugh (former world #3 ranked Duathlete) talked some sense into me and I decided to stick to running and duathlon. You won't catch me in the swimming pool or ocean at 5:00 AM swimming!!!

We made our way back to Perth Sunday night and we were completely exhausted. I am totally looking forward to our next trip to Busselton. Next time we do Janna and Chris as both going to be there participating in the Half Ironman! Let's hope Chris brings sunscreen!

Down Under Thanksgiving

2010-11-28T22:13:00.000+08:00

In America, Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays behind Christmas. It was originally done by the Pilgrims who had successfully established themselves in a new land and made it through a harsh New England winter. They had a giant feast to celebrate. Then it became a US Public Holiday. For the 2nd year in a row, I went to work on Thanksgiving Thursday. We decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday with a cookout down by the Swan River with many of our Aussie friends and "family." We gave Thanks for successfully navigating our Pilgrimage to Australia, although the winter wasn't exactly harsh down here! Special thanks to Jason for nailing the Oz stereotype and bringing Kangaroo meat for the Barbie!

A chip off the old block. Little Sebastian Baugh, Raf's son.

Raf and Chris hung out back in the US in '09 before we moved down. They still debate about who has a better spin move.

Chris, my wife Janna and I in front of the Perth Skyline. This photo was taken south of the river.

Just hanging out after our feast which we grilled out.

The current hat craze in Perth.

One Year Anniversary

2010-11-24T22:20:00.000+08:00

Today marks exactly one year since I stepped off that Qantas plane in Perth, Western Australia for the first time. It's been one action packed year. It's also the one year anniversary of this blog so I wanted to share a few facts that you may or may not find interesting.

1. It's not my blog! This blog was originally created for a friend Daniel Kanyaruhuru who is a 28:30 10k runner from Congo. He was going to blog his professional running experiences as an ambassador for my old shoe store, TrySports. Only problem was that Daniel didn't have internet access, which makes it hard to blog. So I took it over as part of my deal with TrySports when I initially came down to Australia in Nov ember of 2009. Before then, I used to make fun of people with Blogs. So if you've ever wondered about the e-mail at the top saying danielkanyaruhuru@hotmail.com... it's Daniel's e-mail which I have no access to. I wonder how many e-mails he's gotten regarding this blog?

2. The first name of the blog was "The toilet flushes backwards" which I think was a suggestion from Anne Leo, Lance's wife. Only during my move to Australia did I change the name to ""Living the Dream" which is aptly named I think. The first post I wrote was from Raf's house about 3 hours after I got off the plane last year. I remember my wife getting mad that I put up a blog before I e-mailed or called to tell her that I'd arrived safely. The most recentl blog, Now, is being pecked out on Chris Lamperski's laptop, (Mine's busted) in my dining room at our Apartment in West Perth at 10PM on a Wednesday night.

3. Popularity and metrics of the blog. Since Blogger started keeping stats in May, this blog has gotten 9435 hits from 45 different countries. It's more popular among Australians than it is with Americans, which is why I now try to write about the metric system rather than talking about miles.

The most viewed posts have been the Western Australia Duathlon Championships, followed by a Farewell to Courtney Carter. My favourite posts I've ever written were The Love Story and the one about my friend Daniel.

Top Referring Websites:
1. The Running Centre
2. facebook
3. Google
4. Tim Budic's website
5. Google Australia.
6. www.CodyAngell.com (my actual website which I never really update!)

These are the 3 blogs that send the most traffic to my site:
1. Tim Budic
2. Paul Mainwaring (Ironically, 2 blogs that I've never visited but I'll certainly be checking them out soon)
3. Mark Hadley's Blog

In Australia, if you google "Cody Angell" I'm at the top of the list.

4. Misc: I usually blog about 7-8 times a month but try to not spend more than one hour per week on it. That's why you'll find some errors on here. Also, I noticed that people get mad when I mention pressing topics such as politics or Lebron James but seem to enjoy hearing about what the lifestyle is like here and also I think it's appealing to the Aussies to see an American's view on things that they may have taken for granted.

Enough for now, I'll check back in over the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Workout Down By the River

2010-11-18T22:46:00.000+08:00

Just a short update tonight. My 5k Training is going well. I'm starting to put in more running volume and should probably hit 60 miles (100k) this week. Tonight was a tough session of 10 x 500 metres down by the Swan River. I had my friend Chris ride the bike beside me to keep me focused. It's easy to lose concentration when you're holding your hand to the fire.

Tonight the plan was to do these in 1:30 which is 3:00/K pace- the pace required to run under 15:00 for 5k. I was pleasantly surprised to have run 1:25 (which is like 4:40 per mile pace) for the first few before fatiguing. During the middle repetitions I was starting to labour a bit and was doing 1:26-1:28's. By the 9th one I was kicking hard to just maintain 1:28's. I flattened myself and needless to say it took a while to run the 1000 metres back home to our flat on Malcolm Street.

My friend CL snapped this while I was running.

Although it's still Spring here, today gave me some insight about the Western Australia summer. It was 99 degrees today and all the locals are simply saying that it isn't hot yet... It's supposed to be HOT this weekend! I'm quickly learning to have a bottle of water nearby in order to douse the back of my head, down my carotid artery, and wrists in order to keep the body temp down while running.

A Win For The Abbey

2010-11-14T21:18:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend I won a small Duathlon down at Coogee beach. The race was unique. It was a 2k opening run, followed by 6 loop, 30 kilometer bike ride which contained 18 turnarounds and over 100 turns. The end was a 6k run towards the warmer part of the morning. The bike course was technical enough to negate the advantage that good bikers have over me, which was the reason I was able to win.

I want to dedicate this small victory to the guys in Belmont, North Carolina at Belmont Abbey College. Janna and I attended College (You Aussies call it Uni) there and I ran for the Cross Country Team. About a week ago their head Coach Bill Hodge had a heart attack during their Conference Championship meet and passed away. You guys are in our prayers and thoughts.

There is something special about Belmont Abbey. It's a small College built around an actual Catholic Monastery. Many of the buildings are made of handmade bricks that their Monks made. I participated in 2 sports there: Wrestling and then Cross Country. I got a degree from there, met my wife at The Abbey and reinvented myself as a runner by running mile after mile out back on the Brother Paul Trail. I got married there. After College we lived exactly one mile from Campus and I continued to train seriously there for 3 years. Leaving Belmont was one of the hardest things I've had to do.

This victory is dedicated for the Abbey Community including the runners and Brother Paul Shanley.

The bike course was very technical.

Dismounting the bike at the power station

I found it richly appropriate that I got bib # 704, which is the Belmont area phone code!

Belmont Abbey Cross Country Team Photo 2004 on the Brother Paul Trail in Belmont, NC. We were lead by our Coach Brother Paul Shanley who is a Benedictine Monk and lives at The Abbey. Can you see which one is me?

Birthday Feet

2010-11-11T18:54:00.002+08:00

I was a fan of barefoot running for a few years. Each summer I would gradually build my way up to 45 minutes of easy running unshod in the grass before the winter hit. Then I would start back over in the spring. One spring I did too much too soon and developed an Achilles problem. That was seemingly the end of my barefoot running days.

Recently we started selling the Vibram "5 Fingers" shoes at my store. They're basically a rubber out sole, no midsole, and a mesh/neoprene type upper. The distinct feature is that they have individual toe slots. The knock against them was that they were for slow runners and hippies. I've never been beaten by a runner in these barefoot shoes. (In fact, if someone beats me running barefoot, they better be speaking Swahili or I'm going to be quite disappointed.) I reluctantly bought a pair.

Here are the benefits:

They help "wake your feet up."
These teach your toes to work independently from one another
Cause you to land midfoot instead of on your heel.
They promote shorter and quicker steps rather than long loping strides.
More natural feeling
Machine washable

Here is the down-side:

Tough to put on at first. It used to take me 15 minutes! It was hard to get my dead pinky toe into the 5th slot.
Lower legs and Achilles were sore at first
Invariably they cause you to look like a fool.
Require special Injinji toe-socks, otherwise they start to stink.

The verdict so far has been good. I'm using them a few times a week for my recovery runs. They're tough to get used to at first. You can't just tap dance on the forefoot but have to be constantly in motion. Before you know it you're running quite fast with little effort in these shoes. During my last easy run in these Vibrams I looked down at the Garmin and saw that I was running 3:50/kilometer! I can actually feel the glutes having to work which is a good thing when running! Also, long story short, having a shoe with a heel that is too far off the ground (like Nike Shox) basically tilts your hips and forces you to do the Donald Duck while running. This subsequently causes other problems down the chain.

No, I'm not saying to scrap your trainers and just run in barefoot minimal shoes. But, it's important to stress your body with new stimulus from time to time and I would suggest trying a pair and SLOWLY working into using them.

Hairy legs not included

If you're looking at getting a pair, remember the following 2 things:

1. They are sized in euro sizes and they run weird. I normally wear a 45 Euro but I sized up to a 43 in these!

2. There are loads of cheap knockoffs online that aren't put together properly and the sole isn't moulded right! Be sure to try a pair on before buying them.

Addendum:
I should mention that I think Americans for the most part would benefit from these even more than Western Australians. I have noticed that Australians have wider feet with more muscles in them than Americans. It's crazy, their arches are lower and their feet look like they've been in the weight room. The Americans I've fitted in the past, along with British immigrants who now live down here in Western Australia have skinny, atrophied feet. I guess the difference is because of the warm climate and the fact that many Aussies run around barefoot for most of the early years of their life. This was confirmed when I met an American man who has lived down under since he was 10. His feet resembled those of an Australian, so I am convinced it's the conditions and not hereditary. Down under, Most women's feet are a "D" width which is Wide for Americans who usually register a "B" width. Also, I've fitted a few indigenous people such as Aborigines (Australia), Maori -(New Zealand) , and a few people from Zimbabwe and they all seemed to have very strong, very flat feet, with a lesser need for arch support than Americans have.

Track Time

2010-11-05T22:34:00.000+08:00

Hi Guys. It's been quite a busy week and Janna and I are proud to announce the arrival of our friend from America; Chris Lamperski. Chris was a groomsman in our wedding and will be hanging out down here in Perth with us for a while.

Tonight was my season opener on the track. I ran the John Gilmore 10,000 metre race. It was 25 laps! I'm happy to report that I ran 32:45, good enough for a personal best! I ran even splits and I think my 5k's were probably 16:25 and 16:20 so I am happy about that. I was 2nd place and was lapped by the race winner Roberto Busi who ran 30:22.

My prize for finishing in 2nd place: a toolbox!

Thanks to the Western Australia Marathon Club for putting on a great event tonight. We celebrated by going to McDonald's where I did the unthinkable and drank a milkshake! I enjoyed every last ounce of it!

News

2010-10-31T21:05:00.000+08:00

Been busy and haven't had time to update. Please see the latest news from down under.

I was recently interviewed by Sport FM here in Perth. If this works correctly, you can click below to hear the interview.

cody angell by codyangell

The Top is a page from Bunbury when I recently won a small 5k. Below is the write-up from Albany where I went down to run the Port to Point 10-k Race - (which I did not win!)

,,,Click below to read the article. And I promise I don't say "learned" as "learnt."

Road Trip + Road Race

2010-10-26T16:38:00.002+08:00

Last weekend we took another trip to a small town in Australia's Southwest called Albany. I was invited by the guys at Tri Events to go run the 10k race down there called Port to Point. They took care of our hotel and race entry which was much appreciated.

Leading up to the race the organizers did a good job of getting publicity for this event in hopes of getting many last-minute signups. (And indeed they did.) I had a radio interview on Sport FM and also a newspaper interview with their bi-weekly paper, The Albany Advertiser. (If fact, later on when we arrived in Albany we flipped on the TV and the news mentioned that there was an American coming down from Perth to run the race and also an AFL boundary umpire, my friend Nathan. They encouraged people to come out and see how they stacked up against the guys from Perth!)

But first, we had to get to Albany. It was a 5 hour drive from Perth and I realized that there is NOTHING between Perth and Albany. There weren't even radio stations, so it made the ride seem longer! There were plenty of "road trains" which are tractor trailers pulling 2 or 3 trailers. At one point we were faced with the lingering possibility that we could run out of fuel for the car. But, we did come across a petrol station so that problem was avoided. I must mention this station. It was in the middle of NOWHERE. It was a Bar & Grill (sign said they had a position available for a live-in bartender) and a gas station.

I walked in side to use the bathroom and in typical Australian fashion I found 3 different signs about the bathroom. (Called "toilet" down here and if you ask for the restroom nobody will know what you mean.) The first sign read "NO TOILETS!" The second sign on the other wall said "Public Toilets: $1.00" and then the third sign said, "Toilets are for paying customers ONLY." I went to the clerk and asked for a key to the toilet and they gave me a big flyswatter with a key attached to the end of it and said "out the back." I was sure that the flyswatter would be foreshadowing as to the condition of the bathroom once I got in there, and this ended up being true. There were plenty of flies. But once I walked out the door of the place to look for the toilet I found a system of cages and there were many giant birds being held in captivity such as parrots, Emu's and so on. Probably the most random bathrom experience of my life. Once I went back inside the building a guy came up, obviously confused by the signs as well, and said "Where are the bloody toilets in this place?" I just gave him the flyswatter and pointed out the back and told him to watch out for the birds!

We got back on the road and continued on our Journey. I quickly learned a few things.
1. Australians need to stop bagging the New Zealanders about their love affair with Sheep because we passed hundreds of fields with literally thousands of sheep in them.
2. Maybe people here should stop saying that we are going to run out of room for all these migrants. You could drive for what seemed like an eternity without seeing a house! There is plenty of room.
3. The Kangaroos are a lot bigger in-land.

There were more Emus and Kangaroos than there were people!

We eventually arrived in Albany and immediately fell in love with the place. It's an enchanting small town down on the Southern Ocean which is Western Australia's oldest town. It was originally a whaling station and now that whaling is illegal it makes it's money from shipping from their port and from tourism. It provides magnificant views and would surely be a premier destination spot in the Southern Hemisphere if it weren't so hard to get to!

Albany, Western Australia

We spent most of the weekend checking out the scenery which included cliffs overlooking the ocean, and one really cool wind farm.

Here is a video I shot from the wind farm.

I asked one of the locals if they had any radio stations, and she was like, "yeah we have two.... annoy ciggs foive and ate e ate" (Which i interpreted to be 106.5 and 88-something, I was correct.) At dinner we found a newspaper and I was in there. This run was getting a fair bit of publicity!

Downtown Albany

Post-Race Awards

Regarding the actual event, it wasn't very good for me! My Dad has often said "The sun don't shine on the same dog's arse every day." Except he didn't say arse. Sunday wasn't my day. I felt sore from doing 20 x 400 metres on Thursday night. Plus the course didn't favor me at all. I do well on flats and also on hills, but not on courses with short steep "bumps." This course was just nasty! It was tough to get into a rhythm and my friend Nate left me at the 2k mark in the race. By 5k we headed through Middleton Beach and I was about 5-10 seconds behind, in a good position I thought. He simply ran away from me over the last 5k on the rollers. I finished 2nd but wasn't happy. The hard part was forcing a smile and acting happy for the post race TV and Newspaper interviews that commenced!

We departed Albany and took the long way home on the Southern Highway. We stopped at Valley of the Giants and took the treetop walk where you can actually walk on a pathway that is 120 feet in the air and check out the enormous trees there.

Treetop Walk: 40 Metres up checking out the Trees.

Most of the drive back was uneventful and again, we had no radio! The drive was through the great southern forrest where you can drive for 20-30 minutes without seeing another car. We arrived back in Perth exhausted but excited about checking out a "secret" town in Australia's South that nobody has ever heard of.

More pictures from the weekend.

Valley of the Giants: Many of these trees are 400 yrs old!

Albany gets more than half of it's electricity from this windfarm just outside of town. The wind turbines automatically turn to face the wind.

The Artic Ocean is often referred to as the Southern Ocean.

My wife Janna said this is her favourite place in Australia. She wants to move to Albany!

Doing the Tourist thing the day before the race probably wasn't the best idea! We walked around all day!

Albany Coast Line is a prime place to see Whales.

Big Win in Bunbury!

2010-10-17T16:46:00.001+08:00

Some days you have good runs and some days they are terrible. I'll never forget Bob Marchinko telling me that the more consistent you are with training the more consisent you will be with racing. Today was a good day.
Today was a road trip/road race down to Australia's Southwest to a coastal town called Bunbury for a 5k race called Surf to Surf. The night before I didn't feel like racing and I also remember being quite tired early in the morning today. The race wasn't a huge priority to me because it's basically a hit-out for the two 10-k races I'll be contesting over the coming weeks. Regardless, I was committed and paid for my own entry so I didn't want to bag the race.

I did get a jolt of adrenaline this morning as we're rolling down Freeway South and Springstein's "Born in the USA" comes on the radio. I started to think to myself that maybe this was going to be a good morning after all! (I'm much more patriotic than I used to be, and even wear my USA shirts because I'm proud of my country!)

We got to the race and it was tough to warm up after 2 hrs in the car. The legs felt stiff and didn't want to turn over during the warm-up. It was getting hot, and the course wasn't supposed to be fast at all. It had some rollers and the wind can catch you and stand a person straight up. To make things worse, I was racing with my mate Nate who won the race last year and was down to defend his title. Nathan beat me at City to Surf and also finished the opening run of last week's State Duathlon Championships ahead of me. (The bike was a different story.) I knew I felt a bit off this morning and was even a bit out of it mentally. I just wasn't "switched on" when we first got there. This can be confirmed by the fact that I went #2 in the girls restroom rather than the men's room! (C'mon, we've all made that mistake before... right?)

But when the gun sounded, I just felt great! I made sure to go out easy and sit on Nate's shoulder as long as I could while using as little energy as possible. I've learned there's a difference in running 5:00/mile pace hard and 5:00/mile pace easy. I was determined to do the latter of the two.

Trying to stay relaxed at the start of the race. Indian Ocean in the Background. It was a great spring day down in Western Australia!

Just before the half way turn-around I noticed Nathan started looking at his watch a lot. Maybe the undulating course had taken the sting out of his legs. After the turn-around the pace slowed a bit more and the lead 3 were packed in a tight triangle shape. I decided to push on and urged Nathan to come with me. My goal was to run 16:00 and was willing to concede a victory to my colleague if need be so I could do it. I soon realized that Nathan and the other guy didn't respond to my push and I was all alone up front!

Those of you who've ever lead a race will most likely agree with me, it's NOT easy to run up front! I was facing oncoming runners without a lead vehicle to show me where to go. I was having to weave in and out of other runners who hadn't hit the turnaround, dodge little kids, and even ask volunteers which way to go. To compound problems; Nathan is capable of running a mile in under 4:20 which is much faster than I can turn over my ol' chicken legs. I was the prey and he was the predator. It's easy to second guess your effort by wondering if there is enough gas in the tank to get you to the finish line without suffering "the bonk."

There comes a point in every race when running just plain out hurts, and we have to make a decision to either back of from the pain (natural response) or stick your hand in the fire, tighten the screw a little more (or whatever you want to call it) and run harder through the pain! Not only do you have to make that decision, you have to be able to pull it off by having trained specifically for that moment. It's tough to conceptualize but it is a reality that runners face in every endurance race. I thought a lot about Craig Mottram who inspired me earlier in the week. He is one of the few westerners in the world who won't back down from Kenyans in a race while others are intimidated by them. I also thought about my wife for a few seconds to take my mind off the pain. I'm happy to report that for the first time since my comeback from injuries, I was able to push past the pain and run harder! Just like how you train your body to withstand the demands of a race, your mind also has to be able to cope with the pain!

We hit 1 mile to go, (1600 Metres) and I put the hammer down. I managed to run the last mile in 4:59 and stayed away from Nathan who was closing on me!

Here is a photo of the "hurt so good" feeling at the finish line.

My mate Nate was closing in on me but ran out of real-estate and I managed to hold him off. Nate is my massage therapist so I'm sure he's going to return the favour by sticking his elbow 4 inches into my lower back at some point in the immediate future.

I hit the finish line and the clock read 15:59 exactly, which seemed a little long. Later on, both Nathan and my Garmin GPS watches confirmed that the course was long. I think I went through the 5k in 15:35 which is a road-racing personal best for me!

Garmin Tracking shows that I went through 5k in 15:35

I was totally excited to see that I was able to run a PR (personal record) in the 5k at the age of 28 yrs old. Usually runners get slower and have to move up to longer distance racing when they reach their late 20's so this race confirms that there might still be a little hope for me to conjure up some speed in the next 2-3 years!

Gerry, Nate, Ashley, and me post-race on the beach.

I was also excited to receive a winning cheque of $100 Australian Dollars, which is now worth exactly $100 American Dollars! (Last time I won $100 in a race down here it equated to about $85 US dollars)

Perhaps they were right when saying that Kenyans are just more motivated to win because they run races so they can EAT. In the back of my mind I was hoping to win the money today and use it to purchase a microwave. Maybe in a roundabout way I was running to eat as well. (Maybe it's not the same premise but does anyone else see a parallel?)

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out Bunbury and snapping a few pictures of the Harbor; which is pronounced "haaaaaaahhhh-buuuuuuuuuhhhhh" by Nathan.

Also a big congratulations to my buddy Gerry Hill for winning the 10k which completed a clean sweep for the crew from The Running Centre today!

Next week it's on to Albany down on Australia's south Coast for a 10k race. More on that later.

Buster

2010-10-16T22:08:00.000+08:00

The last few days were quite busy with Craig "Buster" Mottram coming to Perth to visit my store where I work. He's been one of my favourite runners for a long time. He once ran 12:58 for 5k (3.1 miles) and was the 2nd non-african runner to run sub 13 for 5k. Since then he's had injuries and missed international competition for 18 months after the Olympics. Now he's healthy and quite fit, but the only problem is there's no major track meets this time of year!

Thursday night I rode to training with Raf and Buster and his partner Christine. He conducted the workout which was 8 x 400 @ 5k pace with 45 seconds rest, then 1 mile @ half marathon pace.

In the car on the way back he told us an interesting story. I asked him about racing Kenyans and if he got along with them. He said they were lovely people and very easy going, but quite tough to race against on the track. He said one time in the UK they were at a track meet warming up and getting ready to race. A guy walks up who was the manager for a lot of the Kenyan runners. He goes over to the bell and starts ringing it. They all look at him and he's like "1 MORE LAP!" and he rang it again, held up one finger, and they all nodded their heads. He later told Craig that those Kenyans didn't know how many laps were in the race, they just knew to sprint when they heard the bell!

My wife and I with Criag Mottram and Christine his partner.

I'll keep everyone updated as I'm racing a 5k hit-out down south in Bunbury (spelling?) this weekend and then a 10-k in Albany next weekend followed by a 10,000 on the track in 2 weeks time.

Western Australa Duathlon Championships

2010-10-10T22:25:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone. I am happy to report that the race went very well today. We made the 45 minute drive over to Champion Lakes and got there very early. I liked being at the race site early and can't understand why so many Australians rock up to the race about 10 minutes before the starting gun.

This morning it was rainy before the race started and I just couldn't seem to get the legs going during warm-up. I had the race-day Red Bull for breakfast and also had the race-day beard for good luck. I tried to stay relaxed and remind myself that there have been a lot of times where I felt terrible whilst warming up but felt great during the event. Today was going to be that sort of day!

The Open Race had about 20 competitors in it and we started a few minutes before everyone else. It was basically an out and back which started on an island in the middle of Champion Lake. The Lake is a facility made for rowing and boat racing but with a complex of paths around the park, it makes a great venue for Triathlons, Duathlons, and bicycle time trials that they frequently hold. 3 guys bolted away from the start. I was running in a pack of 7-8 guys and was contemplating chasing those guys down because I was feeling good. I glanced down at my Garmin which said I was running 3:05 per K pace, which is 15:25 for 5-k pace and I thought I would just hold off on the attack, knowing that the Anerobic moster would jump on my back soon enough. Eventually the pack I was running in fractured and I went out with one other guy. I was quite pleased to have run 15:55 for the opening run, which was about 40 metres short of a legitimate 5k according the the GPS watch. I entered transition in 5th place.

There was a pack of us at the start of the race. I was tucked in the back to avoid the wind.

Here are the details according to Garmin Connect.

We jumped on the bikes and I was anxious to see how I could do on the four loop course which covered 21 kilometers (13 miles or about the distance of a half marathon.) The transition from running to biking was good. Today was the first race that I've ever left my bike shoes clipped into the bike, gotten a running start, and put my feet in the shoes while pedalling the bike. It's a skill that honestly didn't take that much time to master and definately saved a lot of time during the race. The bike ride was good. Funny thing was that the more I rode the better I felt. I managed to average 38 kilometres (23.8 miles) per hour.

I'm new to Western Australia. There are certain "firsts" things I will never forget. My first time seeing the Swan River, first time on Cottesloe Beach, first time paying $6 for a coffee, and so on. Today I can add another one to that list. It was the first time I was passed by Matt Illingworth on the bike. For those in America, I doubt you know who he is but I'm sure most everyone down here knows who he is. He was several British cycling records, a Commonwealth Games medal, and even has olympic rings tatood on his arm if that gives you an indication of this guy's legitimacy on the bike.

I remember glancing down at my computer on the bike which read 46, meaning I was doing 46kph or around 28 mph. I heard a "woom, woom, wooom" and before I knew what happened, Matt blasted past me as if I were just sitting still. Watching him manage the chicanes and S-Bends was a thing of beauty. He rode out of sight in no time.

Drafting is illegal in most races and you have to stay about 10 feet behind the guy in front of you. Even on this course which was packed full of people, I can honestly say that there was no time during this race that I was illegally drafting off anyone. This is something that I am proud of.

Riding Solo on the bike for 13 miles. When doing non-drafting races you are allowed to use those aerobars which is where my arms are on this photo. Thanks to Martin Dolinsheck for letting me borrow the bars! It's also a good idea to use an aero helmet which is shaped like a tear-drop but has been shown in wind tunnel testing to be much more aerodynamic. The down side is that you look like a fool.

I got off the bike all in one piece and managed to change into my running shoes very fast thanks to the elastic shoe laces. Ironically, these laces are called Yankz.

The final run was a 2.5k run, or about 1.55 miles. I came out of transition with my buddy Jimmy Lewin. I remember thinking that I was going to smash Jimmy on the last run but he had other plans. I ran a respectable 8:12 and couldn't stay with Jimmy who ran sub 8 minutes! I crossed the line with a respectable 6th place finish.

Finishing up the last 1.5 mile run in my new Orange Saucony racing flats. I also use the white Compress Sport Calf sleeves to promote more circulation through my lower legs and to reduce fatigue.

The Garmin connect shows that I was on pace to run about 16:15 for a 5-k on the last run. The red line below (the GPS path that I ran) looks like I was running on water but if you click "satellite" button below you can see that we were actually racing on a penninsula/island on top of Wright Lake.

Congratulations to everyone who competed today, especially the crew from The Running Centre, our regular blog follower Lajos Varga (overall winner today,) and Ryan Baugh, first Age Grouper done. Our super Kiwi friend Rachael finished 2nd overall female today as well!

I managed to finish in front of my competitor Jason. I am definately not going to boast about beating my good friend because he's a triathlete and if we raced one another in a triathlon he would be finished, have tea, walk the dog, and mow the lawn before I even got out of the water! Plus, if I rub it in too much he might fire me and send me back to America! In all seriousness thanks J for the motivation and I look forward to more duels in the future.

It's easy to become disillusioned with where your fitness stacks up. I just had the best duathlon of my life and was only 6th! The answer is to stick with more consistent work and train specifically for the event that is next!

I took it very easy the rest of the day and chowed down on some well deserved ice-cream and a nap on the couch. Training resumes Monday morning as I'm now shifting my focus towards two 10-k (6.2 mile) races and then starts track season as the Australian summer comes into full bloom.

The post race excitement with my Wife and Best Friend Janna. Photo: Ryan Baugh

Tomorrow is Race Day

2010-10-09T13:41:00.000+08:00

A while back I wrote about the showdown between my friend Jason and I for the upcoming Western Australia Duathlon Championships. Training has gone well and I am excited that tomorrow is finally race day.

The race format is a 5k (3.1 mile) run, then a 21k (13 mile) bike around a flat course, and then you jump off the bike and run 2.5k, about a mile and a half.

Over the past several weeks I have been focusing specifically on this Duathlon. I've been doing brick workouts twice a week which consists of lots of running and biking in the same workout. In fact, each Tuesday morning we've been meeting at Kings Park at 6:00 AM for the King of the Park Duathlon Series. We all meet up at the DNA tower.

The DNA tower is where we meet to train each week for our Brick Sessions.

It is an informal "brick" workout which basically turns into a race between everyone out there. A typical format has been: run, bike, run, bike, run, take a 5 minute break, and repeat 2 more times. The bike has a massive 1 Kilometre lung-busting climb which makes me wonder why I participate in sports like this! I would be completely remissed if I didn't talk about some of the training partners who show up each Tuesday. It's almost like a who's who of triathlon on the local scene. Jason, my colleague and competitor is there most weeks. He's building up for Ironman New Zealand and has recently notched a 4:17 Half Ironman onto his list of accomplishments. There Stuart Denton who has competed for Australia at the World Championships before. Stuart teaches a triathlon class at a local High School and I've never seen someone transition from the run to the bike as fast as he does! Then there's the Dark horse Tom Bruins who is an accomplished track athlete and is just now moving over to multi-sport. He's my pick to suprise some people this weekend. Tom can run a 5k in around 15:00. The young guns are Kenji and Jimmy. Kenji is one of the best triathletes in the area and he's only 17. He is sponsored by ASICS and earns money racing. Jimmy is a University student who finished 2nd in his age group at the World Triathlon Championships last year.

this is a view of The Green Mile from the top of the DNA tower in Kings Park where we train. We do our running on this section and then jump on the bikes underneath the tower to take off on bike loops.

The mastermind behind it all is Paul "Macca" Mackay, who was a professional triathlete for a few years and also once finished 6th in the World Duathlon Championships (while wearing a speedo.) Macca devises the workouts to keep us ramped up. Some weeks it is draft legal and other weeks we have staggered starts to let the slower guys in the group (like me) have a 20 second head start. All the while, Macca is following us in his car yelling encouragement out the window to us as we try to smash each other to pieces on the bike legs!

This is a view of Perth from Kings Park. Janna and I live about 3 minutes walk from where this photo was taken. Sometimes it's hard to train because you want to stop and just look at all the scenery!

With all the biking and running I've done, I've lost a few kilograms and am the lightest I've been since moving down to Perth. The past month I've managed two training sessions most days and the body fat it now down to 6%. In retrospect, having no TV set since we've moved to the new place was probably the best thing for my training regimine because I've been averaging 8-9 hours of sleep each night!

This is the road within Kings Park with virtually zero traffic. Most morning there are 10 times more bicycles than cars on this road. It's a perfect place for bike riding except that the road is quite bumpy.

The Duathlon has over 300 participants and more than a dozen people who are racing open/elite like myself. There is prize money but it will be very hard to end up on the podium for this event. There are going to be more participants here in Western Australia than there were at the Duathlon National Championships in South Australia, where I finished 15th place. Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's race, I am thankful for my wife and colleagues (including Jason) who've gotten me motivated for this event. The showdown between Jason and I is the talk of the town. I've also heard of people placing bets on who is going to win. He might get me, but I'm not going down without a fight! I'll post results Sunday after the race.

Buster is Coming to Perth

2010-10-01T17:39:00.000+08:00

One of my favourite Runners of all time is Craig "Buster" Mottram. He's probably the only Australian runner who people in America know about. No offense to Steve Moneghetti who I met back in March when I first moved here, but Buster is larger than life! I'm very excited because we have arranged for him to come to our store in 2 weeks!

Here's some important things to know about Buster Mottram:
1. Proud owner of a glorious mullet as seen in the picture below
2. One of only a handful of Non-African Runners to ever break 13:00 for 5k (3.1 miles)
3. Doesn't take any crap from the Africans when he races them. (Shown here outrunning one of the best ever back in '06)

The guy is assertive enough to say on NBC that racing comes down to "the size of your balls." (Check the video, 5:30 into the video!)

If anyone from USA wants a Craig Mottram autographed photo, let me know and I'll send one back to you!

The Queen's Birthday

2010-09-27T18:46:00.000+08:00

Today is the Queen's Birthday so that means it is a public holiday down here in Australia. I was excited about a day off and wanted to make the most of it.

This morning we went to Cottesloe Beach or "Cott" as the locals call it. It has bleached white sand and beautiful blue water. It's easy to mistake the beaches here for Jamaica.

Cottesloe Beach.

Janna and I both went for a half hour shake-out run down towards Fremantle and back. We then joined a group of 15-20 people who were having a birthday breakfast for our buddy Stu Denton. They all did an open-water swim of around a mile while we were running. Breakfast was at a little beachside cafe. We sat with Paul "Macca" McKay and his girlfriend Celia. Janna was pleased to find out that her and Celia just got a job at the same place and will work together later this week!

Towards the end of dinner I got a call from an old friend Neil Mcdonagh who used to work at TrySports in Mt. Pleasant before moving to Florida. Neil is coaching a Division 2 University Cross Country program and they are starting to turn heads. Last weekend they beat a division 1 school, which doesn't happen to often! Also, Neil is hoping to be a miler turned marathoner when he attempts to Qualify for the USA Olympic Marathon trials in the upcoming US winter at the Houston Marathon. In America, if you can run sub 28:30 for 10-k, 1:05:59 for a half marathon, or 2:19 for a Marathon you will qualify for the Olympic Trials. Neil has a legitimate shot at doing that.

On that note, do you ever wonder what Kenyans do to get so good at running? Two years ago Neil went to Kenya and trained with the who's who global distance running for 3 months. He documented the whole experience on his blog, which you can check out right here. At one point he ran 10k (at altitude) in 31:14 and was an estimated 150th to 200th place in the race! His blog was so well written that it got published in a US running magazine when he got back!

Janna and I were very excited to get a call from Neil. We all have a handfull of friends who, regardless of the time or whatever you're doing, when they call you'll drop what your doing (and in this case, walk out of a restaurant) to speak to them. Neil's that kinda guy and I wish him the best.

In the afternoon we left the beach to head back to our apartment in Perth which is about a 15 minute drive from the beach by car. For a long time I had been wanting to take Janna for a bike ride up to the hills outside of Perth, but never really found the time. Today would be that time. In the US, they would have called them mountains but in Perth they call them "the hills." In reality the geographical term is probably neither, but more like an escarpment or the side of a plateau. There is no downhill on the other side. You basically stay at that height for several thousand miles until you reach the Eastern side of Australia. Most weekends you can expect to see hundreds of cyclists stomping the life out of their bike trying to summit many climbs just a half hour or so East of Perth.

So we packed up the water bottles, pumped up the tires, slathered on the sunscreen, and my favourite training partner and I departed for the hills. The climb we were told to do was the zig zag. It is a one lane road with probably a manageable 3-4% gradient with 8 or so switchbacks which give the road it's name.

When we reached the bottom of the climb we noticed two signs that got my attention. The first one said "NO BICYCLES" which was complete with a picture of a bike with the red circle and a line through it. The 2nd sign said "DO NOT ENTER." It was obvious that nobody should be going up the zigzag road but only down the one lane road.

Better to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission. Off we went.

So I got into a good rhythm and cruised up the climb with my reluctant wife peddling behind me. We got yelled at by about 3-4 cars full of ticked off Ozzys. They had a right to be mad, but honestly, I rode all the way out there and I wasn't going home without climbing the hill!

I'm guessing the road had about 8-10 switchbacks like this. We rode up the wrong way!

Here is a quick video I took from my mobile about 1/3 way up the climb.

So we made it to the top without being hit by oncoming traffic and drank the nicest Mocha Frappe I've had in a long time. Once you sit down for 15-20 minutes, it's hard to get back on the bike! We cruised our way back down to Perth with good ole' gravity on our side this time. All said it was about 3.5 hours on the bike but you couldn't have asked for better cycling conditions!

This is a view of Perth from ZigZag.

I was very impressed with Janna's stamina on this bike ride as I speculate that it was one of the longest days in the saddle she's ever had. She came home, showered, and collapsed into the bed!

Penguin Island

2010-09-19T22:03:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone. It's been a busy week with work, training, and moving to a new apartment. Our lease expired on the old place but we like the location so much that we moved to another apartment in the same building! We still have Kings Park in our back yard and a great view of downtown Perth from our back window. The difference is that this one is probably twice the square footage and rent is $40 per week cheaper. In Perth you pay rent by the week instead of by the month.

We try to do something different every Sunday and today was no exception. Janna and I visited Penguin Island which is about 45 minutes south of Perth. It's just outside of this town called Rockingham, which is cleverly nicknamed "The Swinging Pig" Get it? Its known for it's rednecks, beautiful beaches, and one righteous shark attack a few years back.

The Island was great and spring time is upon us. Today it was room temperature both inside and out! It is only about half mile from the main land and there is even a sand bar that you can use to walk out to the Island. It's been known to be dangerous and the internet confirmed once that 40 people had to be rescued from the sandbar when the tide came in. We opted to pay the fee for the Ferry to get over there.

This is the ferry that took us over to Penguin Island. We actually saw an American Family on the boat. You could tell because they were wearing American Eagle and Abercrombie & Fitch. 

My wife Janna looking over at the mainland.

Lots of ticked off birds. They were nesting and NOT happy about us being there.

One side of the Island. If you look to the end of the island you can barely see a bunch of pelicans nesting.

This species are the smallest Penguins in the world and the only kind native to Australia. The keepers said the Penguins take a partner but they have about a 20% divorce rate.

Fremantle Fun Run

2010-09-12T13:53:00.000+08:00

Today we went down to the historic port town of Fremantle for a race. I ran my first 5k since being down here. I was hoping for a fast race and with some really strong runners out there. I was thinking today would be a good day to run sub 16:00 on the roads.

The early spring weather wouldn't cooperate with us. It was rained before hand and then the wind kicked up. I didn't run the smartest race but ended up running 16:21. I have quickly learned that it is hard to run a fast time in the 8th windiest city in the world.

On my cool-down I shot this quick video on the Jetty. I really like Freo as it kinda reminds me of a mini Charleston, South Carolina in a way.

Here is a picture of Gerry and I before the race. Gerry ran well and got 4th in the 10k while I finished 4th in the 5k.

Duathlon Training Programme

2010-09-11T14:54:00.000+08:00

For the past several years the participation in duathlons has gone down. It's the red headed step-child of Triathlon. Raf brought up an interesting point that when Triathlon was accepted as an Olympic Sport in 2000, it could have been the death of the duathlon.

That's why I'm excited that its growing in popularity here in Western Australia. Our store had put out the word that there is going to be a Duathlon Training Program to get ready for the Western Australia (WA) State Championship Duathlon in October and the class immediately filled up to capacity. The fact is, for duathlon to survive as a legitimate sport they need to get runners to start cycling, not convince triathletes to stop swimming. That's exactly what we're doing. I think we're going to see more people participating in the WA state championships than we did in the Australian National Championships! I am a huge fan of Duathlons. I did one on my wedding day. Also, in a round about way, Duathlon is what moved me to Australia.

Our Duathlon Training Group braved cold temperatures for the first Saturday Morning Brick Session which consisted of an hour ride + 20 minutes steady running + 60 minutes hanging out at the coffee shop.

Note: The pretty lady in the Red Jacket in the middle. That's my wife Janna who will be competing in the Duathlon next month as well.

Australian Politics: A Made for TV Movie

2010-09-07T11:07:00.000+08:00

Imagine there was a made for TV movie that was supposed to be a comedy about politics. It would be one of those ones where the plot just gets dumber and dumber as it goes along and you'd soon loose interest and change the channel.

That is what is going on in Australia right now. I am no political expert, nor do I come from a country with a flawless political system (far from it.) but I thought I would explain this situation to see if anyone else thinks it's amusing.

There are 2 major political parties. The Liberals and the Labours. Only the Liberals are really like American conservatives, and the labours are like American Liberals or left wingers. The difference is that the right wing and left wing in Australia aren't really that far right or left. They seem very similar.

The Labours (left wing) were in charge and they decided to impeach their Prime minister (President) for no real reason other than the fact that they just wanted to impeach him. Then they put a new lady in Charge, Julia Gillard. She speaks with the enthusiasm of a librarian. Then the party decides that they are going to hold a new presidential election in say.... oh 3 weeks.

The country is left scrambling to enlist voters. I later found out that if you register to vote, it's against the law NOT to vote! The political parties are scrambling to "Campaign" (and I use this term loosely) for 3 weeks.

Her opponent: Tony Abbott. Did you ever wonder what happened to the cover child for MAD magazine? Well, he moved to Australia to start running around in skimpies and run for Prime Minister.

Above: Tony Abbott, former mad magazine cover child who turned into a mediocre politician.

The campaigning (if you call it that) was 3 weeks of pure confusion. Both parties couldn't agree on when there would be a debate. They would just debate about when they would have a debate. It was "I want to debate about the economy," and "I will only debate about the economy for 30 minutes and then I want a town-hall style meeting the following night." To make things worse, neither party would actually really debate on anything that people wanted to hear about. It was 3 weeks of "That's not what I said, that's what she said." and "What I said was taken out of context and what I really meant to have said was this."

Then there was one point where Gillard decided to get a makeover and said it was the "new me." Apparently she had been just pretending to be someone else for the first half of the campaign but now, she was being her true self.

One big point of argument was the "stop the boats campaign." Australian are furious that they have illegal refugees who try to move to Australia for a better life. Keep in mind that there are thousands and thousands of uninhabited miles of land in Australia, but they for some reason think it is becoming overpopulated down under. In some places you can drive a car for literally hundreds of miles and not see another person or even another sign of mankind, yet they think there isn't enough room for more people. What's worse is that the "boats" are bringing over people at an alarming rate of a few thousand people per year. That's it. Yet "stopping the boats" and "moving forward" were basically the only two things that the people talked about.

Then came the election and the story gets worse. I was expecting a winner that night. They don't know who won. In fact it's been 3 weeks and they still don't know who is going to be the next prime minister! The public cared about this for about a half of a week and then football playoffs started so the whole political situation has since taken a back seat. Keep in mind that 10 years ago in USA we had a virtual tie with an election that was also too close to call, and at the end of the day, the guy who got the most votes didn't even win. That having been said, this is worse.

Now it's up to 4 independent party winners to decide who they want to be prime minister. It is now up to the 2 big parties to court these 4 independents and get them to pick a side so they can decide who will be prime minister.

Australian politics is like a game of dodge ball. You don't have to try to win, but you spend the whole time trying not to lose!

City to Surf Results

2010-09-04T13:14:00.000+08:00

City to Surf was last weekend and I am happy to report that the race went well. It was the end of winter here in Perth and the race temperature was right around room temperature outside. There was a big leadup going into the race about the showdown between my co-workers Gerry and Nathan.

The 12k race was one for the ages. Nathan took it out HARD and went through 5k (3.1 miles) in about 16:20. Gerry and I came through about 15 seconds later. Gerry pulled away from me during the hills around 4 miles. He caught Nathan with about 10 minutes to go and I was just behind watching the whole thing unfold. I was convinced that Gerry was going to win. For a few seconds the two were running side by side. Nathan dug deep and managed to squeeze past Gerry and stayed ahead until the finish.

There were 40.600 people in the events.

Nathan: 15th place, 40:51 - (5:28 per mile)
Gerard: 16th place, 41:08 - (5:30 per mile)
Cody: 19th place, 41:27- (5:33 per mile)

I was excited to stay within contact of these guys and watch the showdown.

The Race started in Downtown Peth, (They call it the CBD instead of downtown.)

City To Surf is a 7.5 Mile race which has a lot of hills and finishes at City Beach. That's the Indian Ocean on the right of this photograph. They had food, rock music, and lots of powerade at the finish. You don't see much Gatorade in Australia, Powerade is king. Also, check the vegetation in the photo. Most of the trees here are evergreens so although it's was winter, everything is green!

Nathan Doig, former Leonora Golden Mile winner, in full stride at City to Surf. Notice how his head, shoulder, hip and knee are in alignment. Nathan has run around 4:10 for a mile.

A picture of me trailing Gerry up one of the hills towards the end of City to Surf. We were both sporting the store's new 2XU singlets.

I made my own shoes

2010-08-28T13:12:00.000+08:00

Do your feet ever get tired while wearing unsupportive flip-flops? Back in college I would wear flip flops (or thongs as they call them down here in Australia) and the Athletic trainers would yell at me because they weren't supporting my feet properly.

I had thought about making my own flip flops for quite some time, and I am pleased to announce that I have finally completed this project.

Back in the US I casted my foot and sent the mold to the ACOR labs in Chicago to have a custom set of insoles made for me. I asked for the softest foam possible and a top layer X-tatic which has silver in it. The silver keeps you from getting hot-spots and most importantly, helps keep your shoes from stinking.

Then, I used the "Y" from a set of Havianas which are a popular type of flip flops down here. They're as common as Rainbows are in the USA.

The rubber on the outsole is from a pair of ASICS running shoes. The heel has Carbon rubber (ASICS AHAR+) so they won't wear out as quickly. The front is blown rubber because it's more flexible and a little bit softer.

I had an old-fashioned shoe-cobbler in West Perth put it together and he also added a layer of EVA foam (the same midsole foam as what's in your running shoes) to the middle to add a little bit of cushioning. He even put a midfoot shank in there so the shoe doesn't twist around like a washrag. He then smoothed out the sides with a sander so the shoes would be shaped normal. The side has black/green imperfections but I can fill that in with a permanent marker later on.

The shoe cobbler was quite angry with me because it took him a LONG time to complete. He mentioned that if I ever wanted to make another pair of shoes, that I should leave him out of it!

End result. I can walk around in flips with supported arches for the warm season, which is September until May in Peth.

City to Surf 12k run in 3 days.

2010-08-26T21:51:00.002+08:00

This weekend is City to Surf. It's a footrace from Downtown Perth (Called the CBD which I guess means Central Business District) to City Beach which is the Western Side of the Continent, right there on the Indian Ocean. The race is 12 kilometres which is 7.5 miles. I could be wrong but I heard that this is the biggest per capita race in the world, meaning for the amount of people living in Perth, they have a very high participation rate. Probably about 40,000 people will participate in this weekends events which run from 4k up to Marathon. People who don't run a mile all year will still go do City to Surf every year. Raf and I have gone to the corporate offices in downtown Perth to peak to the suits about how to prepare for the event. Everybody wants to run in this event.

The course itself is quite hard. Just a few hundred yards into the race you have to run up Malcolm Street, (where I live) which is a hill that will put the fear of god in any runner. Then there are a few climbs midway, followed by the three sisters, a series of three hills that you have to negate near the end. The good news is that the last 5-6 minutes are either downhill or flat so if you have anything left in the tank, that's the time to go for it. Many runners will be lining up and putting their pride on the line and hoping for another year's bragging rights.

I wanted to let everyone know about the big showdown for this weekend. It's between two good friends, and guys I work with. The two are very distinct and opposite runners. They've been talking trash for a number of months and it all boils over this weekend when the two collide. Let's discuss:

Name: Nathan Doig

Cody's thug nickname: Nate-Dogg and also Nasty Nate
Theme Music: Shawn Michaels Entrance music from Pro Wrestling.
Profession: Australian Football Boundary umpire and Massage Therapist.
Bio: Nate is the equivalent of an NFL Referee, he's in the top division and has a possibility of making the playoffs in a few weeks. He has to run up and down the sidelines of an Aussie Football Game. It's one of the most excruciating jobs in Sports, and not many guys are capable of doing it. Go outside and sprint as hard as you can for 100 yards, stop, repeat for 10 miles and see how you feel! Not only that but you have to make quick and accurate decisions with 40,000 crazed football fans ready to rip your head off. That's what Nate has to do every weekend. He also is a Massage Therapist and works in the back of our store. Although Nate is a scawny little guy, he is known all over Western Australia as the guy with the strongest hands in the business. He specializes with working on runners. I've had a massage from Nathan and trust me, it's a DEEP tissue massage which works quite well.
Height: 5'9
Weight: About 130 lbs soaking wet.
Background: Nate is a former Golden Mile Champion, which is a big deal down here. He's also raced Cross Country meets on a world stage before. Nathan is a miler through and through. He has run about a 4:10 for the mile. He recently signed a sponsorship with Saucony Aparrel.
Misc: Just like most Australians, Nathan likes to wear scarfs when it gets below 70 degrees outside. He loves to drink red bull as he calls it "Sweet Necta of da Gods."
Strength: Nathan has a great wife, Ashley. He definately "Married up" if you catch my drift.
Downfall: Nathan simply can't grow a mustache. As a marketing expert I told him it would be good for his professional football referee image if he became known as the referee with the "stache." Think about it.. Those of you in USA, do you know of any other referee in the NFL other than the one with the giant arms?? Of course not, the "guns" are that guys gimmick. Nathan's gimmick could have been his stache except for one thing... he can't grow one. He's tried researching it, and expiramented with weightlifting and an all-meat diet to stimulate a stache growth but it was unsuccessful. Think about it, Jesus and Steve Prefontaine both had staches.

And his opponant.

Name: Gerrard Hill (Pictured on Right above.)
Cody's Thug Nickname: G-Money
Theme Music: "Replay" by Iyaz (And yes, he listens to it over and over.)
Profession: Works at The Running Centre and will soon be a PE teacher at a local High School.
Height: 5'10
Weight: 165lbs
Background: Most of you who've followed this blog since I moved to Australia know that Gerry and his family took me in when I first relocated to Perth. He's got a Field Hockey Background and began running seriously only about 18 months or so ago. He shocked all of Western Australia with a 2:37 Marathon Debut in June and has been laying low since then, training and performing his "secret" workouts. Gerry is your classic strength runner. He doesn't wait to outkick you at the finish line, he sticks the dagger in during the first mile of the race and slowly starts twisting it!
Strength: Gerry is a Marathoner and there is something to be said about running 100 mile weeks like he has. This could give him the strength to bite the bullet and hang on!
Downfall: Gerry has a devout love for bread. I once saw him eat 8 pieces of bread for dinner. Could the carbo loading be effective or could he possibly just stuff himself prior to the race? Also, Gerry doesn't have a spectacular kick at the end of the race like Nathan.

The Scoop:
If Nathan can stay close to Gerry it's light's out in the last 400 metres because Nathan has a much higher top-end speed. Believe me, Gerry knows this so he will look to escape from Nathan early without over-expending himself. Look for Gerry to "Sell the house" sometime during the 2nd half of the race.

The race is too close for me to call so I'll have you guys vote on who you think will be the winner. Will it be The Miler or the Marathoner?

I'll let you guys know how it turns out this weekend. For those of you interested in reading Nathan Doig's Blog entitled 2 feet 1 track, click here.