Winter Duathlon Rabbit Island

Sunday 15th July, -1 frost on the ground. Its 9am and I am out at Rabbit Island........its freezing!!

But it is the start of the winter round of Duathlons.

I had been naughty and have done little training at all.... still for fun thought to enter.

It is a beautiful day, clear blue sky, sun shining and a frost that looks like snow. I took the lead from the start (sexy blue wee beany aye!!) I didn't feel my toes still the start of the bike leg lol...

It was a short race today with a 2.6km walk, 11 km mountain bike and 2.6km walk to finish.

The bike leg was really hard. Biking in sand and pine needles was really tough. It felt like I had a flat tyre the whole way around.

The views over the bay were fantastic. Crystal clear day, calm sea...just magic really.

Getting off the bike and heading out for the second walk was odd. My legs had pumped up soo much from the bike ride that it took a while before I could really walk properly.

But I finally got them going and finished in around 1 hour 20mins. But I won the walk section and also my age group................first competion as a 40 year old.....now that sucks!!

Trip to New Plymouth

It was Nana's 80th birthday and we were to be her surprise present.

In the photo is Steve, Diane, Nana, George, Mum and Shane.

We were meant to fly up but due to it being school holidays we were unable to get flights, so after much discussion we decided to drive up. We booked the last ferry on Thursday night - this left picton at 7pm but due to bad weather we didn't arrive in to Wellington until after 11pm. With torrential rain the drive up was not the most pleasant. We arrived in New Plymouth at 3.45am and was thrilled to hear that Diane had filled the hot water bottles and we had a nice warm bed to climb into. I get migraines (I hate them sooo much) but anyhow as it would turn out I woke up Thursday morning with one forming and it stayed with me until Sunday night. Needless to say, I took a lot of painkillers and was high as a kite for most of the weekend but I did manage to hide just how much pain I was actually in..........I think I am getting used to them.)

Lucky for us we missed the tornado's!!! but we did have the first day with wind and rain. Saturday came quickly and it was so exciting to finally meet with the rest of Shane's family. Cousins that he has not seen himself in over 10 years!!

Here is the gang....Paul, Karlene, Belinda, Teresa and Shane.

We had an awesome night, sitting around the open fire drink in hand and listening to all the stories flow.

Shane took me to Pukekura Park on Saturday. What an awesome park. We went up to the little zoo at the top and spent ages watching monkeys and otters race around.

There were many little walks that zig zag through the whole park and a huge water fountain. I loved the waterfall - It would have been lovely to see it going at night as it has lights behind it....

On Saturday morning I headed out garage saleing while the guys went off on the bikes. Here is a photo of the likely lads.