april 1st, port macquarie, nsw, australia

ironman oz. yes, the ironman you must qualify for to be able to do. i did, through tassie but didn't take my spot. i did not think that i would improve my time on what is suppose to be a very difficult course. and i made the right choice.

it is hard spectating sometimes, knowing you could have been out there doing the race. but sometimes, it's just not your time. there were very few females in this race. about 250 to 1300 men. the atmosphere was different than in ironman canada - and i think it's because you had to qualify to get in. you could feel an edge of competitiveness that isn't quite so nice for someone who's my speed. i thrive on the comradery where as others obviously love the competition. oh well, again, i was there to get some good pics of mark.

the start was nuts! the competitors took off from a very narrow opening (look, the only one i can really compare to is ironman canada) and when i watched the clock tick by waiting for mark to exit, i knew it would an okay swim but not much better than that. one look at our friend's face told me that it was a disastrous swim for him. he should have been out earlier than mark according to pool times, but then in the pool, you don't get the bashing.

the ride was an up and down course of my fav, hills. now mark is great on hills - he flies on them while i crank up them (think lance vs ulrich). i got great shots of him, but since he should really be the one to put them on his blog, you'll have to wait. mark and his "mate" (i really dislike using that word) appeared to be trading places but in the end mark won out.

the great part of watching mark is that he's fast. i don't have to wait around very long, but when you're watching for a couple of people, in a loop course, it also makes it hard to get food AND go off for a wee. i barely had time to go while mark was in transition. or so i thought. i started to worry waiting for him during the run until i pulled out the race course and realized we were sitting at the 10k mark!!!! oops. we finally saw mark who said, "it's going to be a long day" and with a little bit of concern i watched him go off to the turn around point. i might have worried more about him but i was too busy afterwards trying to read out people's names as they passed by. we were really the only ones cheering rather than watching so i felt it was my job. (again, different atmosphere)

needless to say, i didn't have too much to worry as mark brought it home in a great time of 10:02 and change. i think though that a good break from ironmans would be good but that's between you and me. sometimes you need that little bit of hunger to get you to your goal and i think that's what he'll need to get under 10h. but then, that's just my thinking.

post race: mark is now famous. he has made two, yes TWO magazine spreads in australian triathlon magazines. they are pretty good pictures as well. you'll have to bug him to put it on his blog.