The Trip Down Under...

Mostly since our last blog we have been working and running . We now train with Emily and Lauren twice a week now and have enjoyed a couple of meals out together and even took a road trip to Wanaka for the day and visited puzzle world and the most photographed tree in New Zealand. It's fair to say that the four of us have know become firm friends which is really nice. There has also been a fair few games of cards played and cookie sampling on mine and Paul's behalf from Rachael and Chris , so all in all life pretty good at the moment here in Queenstown. 

Winter is coming to Queenstown.

So after years of having Australia high on our lists the time was here to finally board the plane to Sydney, we were excited to say the least! A small three hour flight was all that was needed to get us there which is crazy it's basically just like popping over to Spain from the UK. We arrived late morning and decided to pop into Sydney for a few hours , as we had already booked a flight for that evening to the Gold Coast. Why I here you ask, well New South Wales now has a law in place where you no longer can hold a koala. This is something both me and Paul really wanted to do, so after doing some research Gold Coast was the closest place to Sydney (a 50 minute flight to be exact ) where you can still do this. So we jumped onto a train and twenty minutes later we were at circular quay which is literally around the corner from some of the most iconic structures in Australia , the Sydney harbour bridge and the Sydney Opera House, wow!
 
Harbour Bridge
One thing we noticed straight away is how cheap Australia is ,the only thing I would say that is still fairly expensive in comparison to the rest is transport. So with food being very reasonable we didn't have to worry about not taking enough fuel on to the build up of our race. A highlight after our photo session at the harbour was discovering a Lindt cafe and having the most amazing hot chocolate I have ever experienced, a must try for the chocolate lovers. So after filling ourselves up we hopped back on a train to the airport to catch our flight to the Gold Coast. Luckily where we were staying was just down the road from the airport so we after checking in we got a early night ready for our action packed day the following morning. 

Sydney Opera House.

We woke up the next morning bright and early even though it's technically building up to winter here in the Southern Hemisphere it was still shorts and T-shirt weather in Australia, which it definitely isn't in Queenstown anymore. The Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was a 6km walk away from where we were staying , so a nice easy morning stroll in the sunshine to start our day off. We got to the sanctuary for open as we weren't sure how long it was going to take us to do the whole park and we didn't want to miss out. Within the first five minutes of being inside the complex we were already holding a baby crocodile! Paul went first he placed both hands out as instructed, as the crocodile was placed in his hands it started to almost have a fit. It turned out Paul has warm hands and crocodiles don't like warm things on their bellies, they apparently react the same to start with, with a hot water bottle that the staff use to help keep them warm in the winter. Was he had settled down it was nice and calm and still for Paul, so we were able to get a picture. Next up was me I was a bit anxious the crocodile may do the same to me and with them being so strong that it would not end well but I forget I always have cold hands so the crocodile didn't even flinch for me. The underneath of them are so soft not what either of us were expecting. 
Happy J! 


Next up the big moment koalas. We were selected Happy J to hold , who was ten years old and by the looks of it the only one that was awake, koalas are very sleepy creatures! We got a picture together and then a picture each for the photo album it was such a cool experience. Happy J kept wanting to snuggle into Paul's neck and fall asleep, which was pretty cute to witness. Once we had our photos taken we then went and viewed the rest of the koalas which at that current time were all asleep, later on they were more active and we got to see them eat and climb. Luckily for us they were dotted all around the sanctuary so we didn't get to miss out.

To top off our Australian themed morning we went to the kangaroo enclosure. Here you could roam around freely with the kangaroos you usually had to pay for their feed but there was still some left over from, Their breakfast so we were allowed to just use their leftovers up. Me and Paul both got a cup of feed each and started to walk around interacting with all the kangaroos . There was also emus walking around, but they were keeping themselves to theirselves. The majority of kangaroos were basking in the sun and would hop over if they wanted food. It was a pretty cool experience. We had finished in the park around mid day and didn't have a flight back to Sydney until the evening so we decided to tick off another iconic place for Australia , surfers paradise. A short bus ride from where we were and we were back on the beach . It was so good to be back by the ocean. Once we got back to Sydney we decided to go for a walk down at the harbour to get some night time shots. All in it was one of the best days ever! 
Who is Paul feeding the Kangaroo or the duck?? 

After spending the next couple of days relaxing , taking in the sights of Sydney and fuelling up for the ultra, I even had a manicure and a pedicure! It was time to head across to The blue mountains and Katoomba, ultimately the start and finish of the 100km Ultramarathon . We spent the day like tourists and did the full package of the scenic world. This included a scary scenic railway ride, cable car ride and a visit to the three sisters and a walk in part of world heritage park whilst we were walking about we saw some of the signs for our race the next day. Later on that day we went to the expo to pick up our numbers after handing in our signed checked checklist that we had managed to get checked in Sydney so didn't have the hassle having to do it the night before there. We listened to our race briefing before heading back to our place for some food and shut eye.
 
Three Sisters, Blue Mountains.
So like last time this next bit is about my experience of TNF100 as Paul has already wrote about his experience in his running blog. Here is the link to his page http://paul-wathan.blogspot.co.nz if you haven't already read it and would like to , it's a must read.

So around 4 the next morning the alarm goes off and it's time to try and eat as much as you can stomach at that time of the morning and get your race kit on and make your way to buses to transport you to the start line. We weren't sure how busy it would be but it turned out that me and Paul got a double decker bus to ourselves which we found quite amusing. It wasn't long after we got there that it was time to start making our ways to our pens there was different time slots to start the race depending on how fast you are. Paul was in the pen before me so I got to see him start, which was pretty cool. It was time for me to put my jacket in the bag as it wouldn't be too long until I was starting , I had a minor hiccup of leaning on my tube of my bladder without realising and water leaking onto my pack and my poles wanting to fall out of their holdings before I had even started. Luckily I didn't have too long to panic as it was my turn to start. 
 
Race Numbers.
The first bit was an out and back on the road before making our way in to the Forrest. I got to see Paul which was awesome we gave a quick high five as we passed. Thanks to Paul's guidance I have gotten stronger on the technical stuff I still have a long way to go but an improvement is a big step in the right direction for me. The first aid station came around fairly quick I took a couple of sweets and a drink and was on my way . I took a tumble off the side of the path by ladders I had a couple of grazed part dotted around my leg but on the whole got off very lightly. The next few hours ticked on and so did the checkpoints I had started yo notice there was no fizzy drinks or salted crisps at the stations which I was started to crave but water, sweets , hot cross bun and iced fingers was the order of the day for me.
 
Gem flying with her poles.
I got my poles out fairly early on I guess but wanted to be as strong as possible on the climbs as I'm not as strong of a climber as Paul and they really helped me keep a good rhythm up the hills and thousands of steps we had to negotiate. It wasn't until about 60km where I hit a major wall and pretty much after that it was very up and down in pace and energy for me. I had luckily not had the drama like Paul in the lead up to the race but I ended up having a couple in my race I couldn't fold down my poles so had to carry them when I didn't use them which wasn't bad until you had technical steep downhill to deal with . The biggest problem I had was that around 80k my gps watched died so I had to run blind the rest of the way , I really don't have the best of luck with technology! 

Nearer the latter stages of my race I was getting quite mentally tired it was really tiring to have to focus on the technical ground with your head torch on most of the time my brain wasn't quick enough to register to my legs that they needed to move to miss hitting the rocks etc , so most of the time I was stumbling all over the place. I enjoyed the wider paths more so I could just focus on running ! With about six or Seven km to the finish I hit a huge wall that this time I didn't recover from. It was strange though as not once did I think I wouldn't be finishing. The last 5km was on a countdown they must of been my slowest km ever I felt every step! I got to the last km and there was 400 steps to climb up (I was starting to hate the sight of them but knew I was so close to finishing) I practically dragged my self up them! I saw the crowd and heard their cheers and I knew I had done it , I crossed the finish line and pressed stop on my watch ( a small glimmer of hope was that my watch had just gone into hibernation , but it had well and truly died) I looked around to look at my finishing time 17hrs 31minutes was my official time I had got the bronze buckle wahoo. I went to get a drink and Paul approached me and we congratulated one another. He had raced an awesome time to get his goal of a silver buckle I was so proud and happy that he had managed it especially with his foot giving him so much bother it was truly well deserved . It is always a relief to see Paul when I finish as I have spent most of my time during the race wondering how it was going for him as there is no way of me knowing without a support crew. 
On his way to a Silver Buckle.


Once I got my buckle I went and got some chicken soup and Paul went and got me an orange fanta. Once I had finished we made our way back to the bus and back to our room where we both had showers before climbing into bed just after 2am, would you believe it but my hands kept going into spasms not what I was expecting . We woke up a couple of hours later and went to get some breakfast , I had taken all the skin off my Achilles during the race and with the adrenaline all out my system it was really giving me bother now so we went to the supermarket to get some cushioned plasters which helped a lot . Apart from that and a slightly bruised back from my pack I was feeling remarkably well. It must of been down to the hokas shoes that Paul had recommended I get that helped his recovery so well. I also suffered from heartburn which is a common thing for me after long runs but good old gavison sorted me out. We spent the rest of the day back in Sydney before it was time to make our way to the airport the next morning to fly back to Queenstown, where our housemates had baked a cake as a well done for us . We both really loved Australia and hopefully will be back there someday . Also just want to say real quick a big thank you to everyone that took the time to congratulate us both it means a lot.

The next day we were back into the swing of things here as we were both back in work. Paul went for a run with Emily and Lauren but my foot hadn't stopped weeping so I had to sit that one out. It was soon our weekend again and on Friday evening we decided to enter a local race the next day luckily my foot had sealed so I could run without causing more problems. I did the 10k and Paul fancied the 5k to see what speed he had as he has the Christchurch marathon the following weekend. I was a bit apprehensive about the race as I genuinely hadn't run since the ultra so didn't know what I was capable of but we both had good runs Paul came 2nd and I was 3rd female so the training must be paying off.

Paul has just returned from Christchurch where he raced the marathon on Sunday he didn't know how he is going to perform but we all know Paul always gives his best despite falling on black ice just over half way and busting his elbow and feeling sluggish the whole way round he still managed to pull off a time of 2:53. I think he did amazing but even though he would say otherwise!

Thanks for reading

Gem & Paul x