Smarter than the average bear

Our trip to Tasmania began in Hobart, the state capital. After breakfast at a scrumptious cafe (which happened to be on Kelly St! ), we ventured to the Museum of Old and New Art (the MONA).  Owned and built by a thirty-something guy who made a bunch of money in online poker, the MONA is quite a provocative place full of art from all around the world.  Check out the MONA's website at http://mona.net.au/.  Here's a sample of some of the work that we found particular interesting:

Tattoo Tim
This guy travels the world as a museum exhibit.  He plans to donate his skin to a museum.  

You'll have to ask us if you want to know what this is.   Let's just say it's inappropriate for our younger readers.

Fat Car

Bit Fall

From Hobart we drove to Freycinet National Park and hiked the 30km Freycinet Peninsula Circuit over two and a half days.  Beautiful landscape, amazing beaches and sneaky creatures.  On our first night, Adam had a hunger pang shortly before bed and decided to have a few bites of hot salami.  He wrapped the salami back up in its thick plastic wrapper, dropped it in a Ziploc baggie and put it inside his zippered pack outside our tent door.  We woke in the middle of the night to find a wallaby right outside our tent happily munching away on the hot salami.  After shooing the wallaby away Adam examined the pack and found no holes.  The salami thief unzipped the pack, opened the Ziploc bag and peeled off the thick plastic wrapper!

After a long, hot day on the trail, we were determined not to be burglarized on our second night.  We set up camp on the other side of the creek from where the wallabies seemed to be hanging out, buried the last of our food deeply in our packs, triple checked to make sure all the zippers were closed and hung our garbage up in a tree.  FAIL!  Before a pair of possums attacked the garbage in the tree, they opened the zipper on my pack, found our breakfast (a bag of oats) and had themselves a wholesome meal.  Adam, always one to look on the brightside, was happy the thieves were polite enough not to chew holes in our packs.   

Beachfront Property

Top of Mt Graham

Mama and her Joey

The Salami Thief

We can't wait to go back to Tas! Xoxo

Year in Review

We celebrated our one year anniversary this past weekend. It's hard to believe one year has passed since we got married, especially because we have not had our wedding yet:). During our anniversary dinner, we decided to recap the meaningful events from the past year. We wanted to share this to-be-annual tradition with all the important people in our lives. Our list includes memories that are happy, sad, adventurous, drunken, bittersweet and painful. Here goes...

February 23, 2011
Got married at NYC courthouse
-Lauren, thanks for keeping our secret

"Secret" honeymoon to Colorado
-Feasted with Dad and Leslie at the top of the mountain
-Snowshoe hiked with Taga and JP to the peak of Keystone

Our Engagement
-OD leads Kel's limo scavenger hunt around the city to all our favorite places
-“Will you marry me?”....”Of course I will, I already did!”
-Dinner at 1 Wall with family, Bondi Bar, Karaoke until the sun came up

Fool's Fest / Jessie and Amber visited NYC

Weekend at a B&B in New Paltz, First visit to Full Moon (wedding venue) with Mom and Dad

Kelly moved to Australia

Cousin Jeremy and Chelsea got married!

Adam and Dad rode Gran Fondo NY, first 100 mile bike ride

Adam moved to Australia

Exchanged rings on St Kilda Pier

Mom retired from teaching, 24 great years at the JDS

Road trip down the Great Ocean Road
-Carter turned one!

Carmen and Acacia got engaged!

Moved in to the new apartment in St Kilda

Kelly's birthday, the big 27
-First guests at the new apartment

Adam's birthday, the little 32
-Weekend down the Mornington Peninsula with some fine wine and tasty eats

Queensland
-Fruit farm, ocean kayak, big sea turtles, cassowary, Glenn the koala, exotic ice cream,
Aboriginal dreamtime stories
-The Great Barrier Reef - Kel's first scuba dive, tiger shark, whales

Adam went back to school
-Good-bye finance, hello freedom

Road trip to Bendigo
- Vineyard B&B, pottery lessons, delectable lunches
- Caitlin and Steve got engaged!
- Mark and Kristen got engaged!

Rosh Hashanah dinner with lots of new Aussie friends

Grandma and Grandpa's 60th Anniversary!

Melbourne Marathon
-Kelly PRs

Derby Day (Victoria's version of the Kentucky Derby)

Weekend in Grampians National Park
-Mt Difficult, feeding kangaroos, The Balconies, olive farm, film festival

Thanksgiving at the White house

Marysville Marathon (Trail run)

Girls' weekend down the Great Ocean Road

Adam finished school

Hadley and Rich got engaged!

NY Trip
-Brunch with family, Sunday Funday
-Lunches in Philly with Beers, Scotty, Jill, Earp and Bartman
-Rangers game with Sis and Damen
-Breakfast with Taga and JP
-Kel buys wedding dress
-Christmas celebrations
-Dinner with Beers, Poston, Carmen and the ladies

Weekend in Sydney
-Manly Beach, Garfish, Opera House, The Rocks, History of the World in Reverse, Wildlife
Photographer of the Year
-Benjamin David born, a rough start, daily thoughts and prayers started today

Celebrated our first Australia Day with an Aussie barbie at Jackie and Russell’s

T'Gallant and Merricks Beach with Claire, Steve and Bentley
-Lauren kicks ass in Queens

Weekend at Queenscliff for Running Camp
-Ally and Dan got engaged!

Elsa Valentina born!

Sad news from Earp

Maroondah Dam Ultra Marathon - 50km

February 22, 2012
Packed for our anniversary weekend in Tasmania

***

We hope to continue making memories with all of you in the years ahead.

Catching Up

So blogging isn't really our strong suit.  We'll try to fix that in 2012.  Just a quick run through of what we have been up to the last couple of months.

In December I took another trip down the Great Ocean Road with a couple girls from work. Adam started working for a children's fitness program and also as a women's running coach.  We flew to NYC on December 17 and spent the holidays visiting friends and family.  It was a great trip and we were so happy to have seen so many people during our two week visit!  We flew back on New Year's Eve, which turned out to be a pretty good night to fly since the airports were empty and the planes had quite a few empty seats.  We even got a free upgrade from NYC to LA!

Since we've been back in Melbourne we have been enjoying the summer.  We've been to the outdoor cinema twice, headed to Sydney for a weekend and attended the Australian Open yesterday.

We had fun in Sydney despite torrential rains at times.  We took the ferry to Manly Beach and on the way got a nice tour of the harbor, including the famed Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House.  In Manly we indulged on a delicious fresh fish lunch.  Sydney is home to the largest fish market in the southern hemisphere.  We walked a ton to get the lay of the land, saw a show at the Sydney Theatre Company (it was a history of the world in reverse, from the current day to the big bang) and enjoyed the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit at the Australian Museum.

We've got a lot of fun things planned for the next couple of months: kite surfing lessons, dog sitting, St Kilda festival BBQ at our apt, weekend running camp in Queenscliff, long weekend trip to Tasmania, potential visit to Ayer's Rock, and a trip to Adelaide/McLaren Vale/Kangaroo Island for Easter/Passover.  And then in May we have our first visitors!!!

"The Tennis"

Marathon Take 2

26 miles on trails. Pretty pretty pretty good. Of course, I don't have the skills to really explain the power of where I ran so I borrowed some words from DandyRunner.com. Here you go...

"... immortalised set of running trails in beautiful temperate rainforest just an hour's drive from Melbourne....In winter it can be quite daunting to emerge from the car, with the mountain often shrouded in low-lying cloud or misty rain. But that's all part of the adventure. Once you're in the forest and running, who cares about the mud and the rain and the cold! And in summer the forest is a cool, leafy respite from the hot plain below...Once inside the forest and running, you enter another world. Everything becomes much quieter, even your footsteps are hard to hear as you are running on forest detritus for much of the way. The only sounds are those of your lungs sucking up the air and the occasional lyre bird calling out to a mate...If you have arrived with the intention of doing your long run, it is easy to cover 25 kilometres minimum and not retrace your steps over the same trails...Most of the running is along gently undulating trails that wind through the forest, sometimes following mountain creeks and waterfalls. The amazing thing is that you hardly feel you are running uphill at all."

My race experience was phenomenal. The idea of running a marathon through mud, over hills, and up to waterfalls with only about 5k on actual roads was a tad daunting... The event started with a ton of overnight rain and the anticipation of lots of mud. I'd love to say the race began without a hitch but of course the race leaders missed the very first turn and we added an extra hundred meters or so to the course. Starting in last place and having the course take an abrupt U-turn put me in first place, which was nice.

Once we got on course we slipped and slopped through mud

about an inch deep. While concentrating on each step I almost missed the wallaby bounce past us. From miles 5-10 we attacked the rolling hills of the forest climbing about 1000 feet. The park was devastated by a wild fire two years back. But the resiliency of the forest was in full effect, with the brightest, thickest undergrowth I have ever seen. Fern fronds out the wazoo. The bright green undergrowth, the burnt shells of tree trunks and the steady mist left hovering above left an eerie calm over the race. Near the top of the climb we came to a 1/2 mile single track climb up to Keppel Falls. It was well worth the climb.

The next 5 miles were basically downhill. Then 5 hills of muddy rolling hills leaving me only 6 miles to go. I finally stepped onto cement at mile 20 only to immediately start a vicious 2.5 mile climb of about 800 feet. I walked a ton but still passed multiple runners... This climb led to Steavenson Falls (decent photo from 2009 race).

After the falls, I turned around and completed the last few miles back into town. 4 hours and 43 minutes of running fun. Also, a special shout out to Dom, my running friend who I partnered up with around mile 16. The race was much easier to finish with a running partner! And of course a special thanks to Kelly who dragged herself out of bed at 4:30am, tackled the 6 mile waterfall climb race, cheered me on, fell asleep waiting for me to finish and ended the day a fine hue of red.

P.S. Already thinking about a 50km race (first race longer then a marathon) in February.

It ain't called Mt Easy

Go! No go! Go! No go! 2 months of the same debate. Typical corporate world crap. No problem. Except when the debate occurs first thing in the morning, NY time! That's midnight for me, which is sad.

Adam and I hoped to leverage a "free" vacation day around Melbourne Cup Day, on which the entire State of Victoria shuts down for a horse race. We planned a lovely 4-day overnight hiking/camping trip, followed by 2 days of wine tasting, in the Grampians. Of course, my client decided that this was the week of "Go!" After postponing our vacation and Italy's debt blowing up, my client went from Go, to Maybe Go, to Thinking about Going, to Not sure about Going, to No Go. I went from sane, to partially sane, to partially insane, to predominantly insane, to I'll find you $3 Billion myself, leave me the f alone.

We rescheduled an abbreviated version of our vacation for last week, only to have my favorite above-referenced client decide at 5pm the night before our departure to "Go". Luckily for me (and Adam), I have an amazing colleague who offered to help out so we could take our mini-getaway. I kind of guilted her into it by telling her that Adam had already packed "snack-packs" for us! Adam picked me up at the office at 8am after an all-nighter and we finally made the 4 hour drive to begin hiking and wine tasting in the Grampians .

We did a couple shorter hikes Thursday afternoon, then headed to the campsite and settled in for the night. We started our overnight hike up Mt Difficult on Friday morning. I hadn't had much time to put any effort into planning this trip, and given the fact that most parts of Victoria we've seen so far have been fairly flat, I had a notion that a hike up Mt Difficult would be more of a "bush walk" (as they often say here). Not so much.

The first 500 meters or so was a bush walk. Then we came upon a rock wall. I looked around for the yellow arrow trailmarkers to see how we were supposed to get around this rock wall, only to find that we were supposed to scale it. We eventually conquered that and shortly thereafter I traded the big backpack to Adam in exchange for the small pack that he was carrying. About 5 steps later, I took all the water out of the small backpack and added that to the big pack, which had previously only held a couple of sleeping bags (feathers), a couple of pillows (cotton), and a tent (cloth with a few metal poles). Oops, I guess I should have gotten some sleep in advance of this trip.

We continued on, often ascending very steeply, until we encountered an essentially flat section of the trail (relief!) that turned out to be crowded with various boulders, rock formations and crevices (hmm...kinda wishing I never saw the movie "127 Hours"). It turned out to be our favorite part of the hike, trying to figure out whether it made more sense to crawl through the crevice or scramble over the rock formation, risk leaping off a big rock or cautiously sliding down on our butts.

We made it to the Mt Difficult Bush Campsite just as it started to drizzle, dropped our packs and headed for the summit. By the time we scrambled to the top (sans trail), the drizzle had turned into more of a ferocious wind and thunderstorm. We snapped one quick picture and headed back to the campsite.

Lots more stories to tell, just ask away. Here are some ideas if you don't know what to ask about:

Aboriginal Art

Olive Oil

Sparkling Shiraz

Town Hall Film Festival

Kangaroo named Lemon Tree

The Balconies

Waterfalls

Flying Foxes

During my training for the Melbourne Marathon I met some great people and I now have my first Ultramarathon friend, Cathy. Cathy is part of my running group that does interval work on Tuesday nights. She wears her Garmin, runs perfect splits and seems to use no effort getting from A to B. I had the honor of being invited to one of her weekend runs, which I attended this past Sunday.

The day started with a 10km bike north through the city. The roads are much better at 7am on Saturdays... We met in an empty parking lot next to a golf course on the Yarra River. There were 13 runners of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Of course the morning started with sarcastic jokes about people being slow, lazy or showboating which seem to accompany every close running group (or for that matter any sports team). Our plan was to run an "easy 20k" trail run along the paths of the Yarra River. Only in a group of Ultra runners can a 20k trail run be called easy. Not only was it an easy run but for some it was also a recovery run (recovering from the 100k run they had run the previous weekend. Loco.)

I was a little intimated at first but started running with an older guy with an awkward gate who was carrying a few extra pounds. I'm thinking of all the runners here I should be at least be able to hang with this guy. We started talking about what races we have done and realized we had both done the Melbourne marathon. We commiserated about the wind, weather, etc both wishing we had performed better. Unfortunately for my confidence his disappointing time was 3:20. He was targeting under 3 hours. Oh-oh.

After 5k or we came to the top of the hill with a nice lookout over the river and we all took a break to regroup. After catching my breath I realized the lookout wasn't designed for the river but instead to view the flying foxes. There were thousands of them! Most of them were fast asleep but a few flew a little to close for my liking. This is what those buggers look like:

After the flying foxes we all settled in and I felt like an aboriginal on the move. Pretty sweet feeling... Well this is already getting to be a long story so I'll wrap it up with this. Survived the 20k run and was invited to join Cathy and the Flying Foxes (unbeknownst to the group, I've given them this nickname) at her next race, which happens to be a long one (shocker). It's in about 5 weeks... https://sites.google.com/site/marysvillemarathonfestival/home/course/42-2km-marathon

Yes another marathon. Yes on trails. And maybe I'm crazy.

Melbourne Marathon

We ran the Melbourne marathon last weekend, 42.195 kilometers of fun (and pain).

Kel:

They'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag.

As work had been extremely busy throughout September, my training had really suffered and I was simply hoping to cross the finish line. The race started at the “G” (aka, the MCG, as in the Melbourne Cricket Ground (Australians love to shorten words and use acronyms as much as possible)) at 7am and headed through the CBD (aka, the Central Business District), out to St Kilda (aka, our ‘hood). We turned into Albert Park, a course we’re quite familiar with as it’s a block from our apartment, popped back out in front of our place and headed for an out and back on the beach road. We passed our apartment again around 30k (aka, ~18 miles), and I was quite tempted to call it a day and crawl back into bed. But I persisted and journeyed back to the G. Ks 30 through 38 were extremely difficult, but once I realized I only had 5k left, I put the World Cup theme song (“Wavin' Flag”) on repeat and kicked it into gear while “singing” the lyrics and attracting quite a few odd looks. I crossed the finish line in 4:26:37, 9 whole seconds faster than my previous best time! I hobbled around until Thursday, when my legs finally decided to start working again. I’m still suffering from toenail issues. Gross.

Adam:

Awesome journey but still looking for the destination.

I developed some great friendships with the other runners in my training group. I didn't miss a long run. I banged out my tempo and interval runs. I felt absolutely great and am closing in on my college fitness level (less some fast twitch muscles). The 4 month journey of training gave me plenty of confidence for race day.

On race day I banged out 5:30km like it was my job (3hr 50min pace) for 30km. Spot on for my training, talking to all the other runners, and feeling great. However there were a few warning signs that the final destination of 42km wasn't going to be so easy... 1. A fairly consistent set of 25km gusts blowing the water stations over. 2. Not having enough saliva to eat a cookie waiting for me at the 28km mark. 3. Cramps. Damn you cramps! They seem to own me every marathon. And this race they were especially bad over the last 10km making the final hour of the run (or, in my case, hobble) an ugly mess.

Although I am very disappointed with the "results" of the destination, I am more satisfied with the journey of disciplined training, developing new friendships, and watching Kel cross the finish line with a new PR. I have a few more marathons in these legs and one of these days I'm going to solve those damn cramp issues...

We’re looking forward to tracking Dad, Sis and Damen as they run the Marine Corp Marathon on October 30th. Rest your aches and pains until then and have fun on race day!

Xoxo,

k&af