Liz-Core Online: February In Photos

Feb Summarized pictorially.

Brighton Jetty Classic, Sunday 5th February, 2011

I saw an ad in the local free newspaper for this 400m jetty swim the following weekend and was intriged. There was free open water training session the weekend before (that the Brighton Surf Life Saving Club had been offering since November... Brighton is about 3 or 4 suburbs down the coast from where we live, about 10km) so I went to that to see if I could still swim... it had been over 13months! I ended up really enjoying it and signed up for the race and felt so confident that I entered the "Fast Lap" swim aka the elite heat (Did I mention there was $600 in cash prizes at stake for the fast lap?? haha). Well. I was very nervous the morning of and when I went to line up at the starting line suddenly felt as though I'd made a mistake- two of the girls had the now FINA banned Speedo LZR suits on and the others, well they were definately not over 2 years into retirement like I was. I can honestly say that it was the most painful swim I've ever done. Worse than the 13th long course 400IM in a row, worse than awful 300s set we used to do 5 or 6 times a year, worse than Swim-a-thon, worse than any swim/race/practice. BUT I didn't come last and I went faster than I thought. So next year I'll train more than one hour and enter in the my age group heat and go for the prize hamper instead of the elite one. Here are the pics, photo credits to Andy B:

Back in my favorite Nike training suit almost 2.5 years later.

The marshalling area and start line

Off we go!

So far, so good... I'm in the white cap.

I thought I might drown soon at this point

Almost done...

So done.

Aunt and Uncle Visit Weekend in Sydney, 11-13 February, 2011

Andy's Auntie Pat (also his Godmother) and Uncle David were in Sydney for a week, about to set off on their 10th cruise (this one to Tasmania and New Zealand) so we flew over last minute to see them. They put us up in a nice, 5 star hotel views of both Sydney and Darling Harbour, took us out for a few meals, and we had a fabulous big city weekend... that lacked pictures haha.

Sydney Harbour

Darling Harbour

Dades and Faye Wedding Weekend in Sydney, 25-27th February, 2011

Damian (Dades) is a friend of Andy's from back home. They went to school together and along with his twin, Dades and Andy's older brother were also in a band together. Anyway, the twins have been in Sydney over 5 years now, and last weekend Dades got hitched! (To an English girl, not an Aussie). It was an all out wedding, the venue was spectular, the food amazing, and company terrific! The Friday night prior to the wedding I also got to do a lot of Sydney things I'd previously missed out on, namely drinks at the Opera Bar and crocodile, kangaroo, and roast duck (they were out of Emu) pizzas at the Australian Hotel at the Rocks. I also got Starbucks twice, just a drip coffee, since we don't have one in SA.