We're back! Sorry for the delay in blog updates. We've been a bit sloppy in getting this done. Also its starting to get cold here so our number of activities has slightly diminished. Since our last post Marty has been promoted to a manager at the Bike Store and even has his own business cards (I've made it now!) and Erin keeps on keeping on at the Lab, with the possibility of travelling for work soon. We have enjoyed some of the local arts, Major League baseball, Canadian Football and National Soccer. We enjoyed our first Halloween festivel and spent our wedding Anniversary in Whistler. Also Marty has competed in a triathlon and marathon, we have tried our hands at one of the most difficult hikes in North Vancouver, disc golf, Ice Skating and Erin enjoyed herself immensely at Oktoberfest in the Bavarian village of Leavenworth, WA.
On the 3rd of September Marty competed in the Vancouver Triathlon, an Olympic Distance event consisting of a 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run. My training leading up to the event hadn't been spectactular with only a handful of swim sessions and sporadic cycling training at best. However my running is probably the best its ever been so I went into the race knowing that I could go hard on the swim and the bike and the run would take care of itself.
I had decided not to hire a westsuit for the event and this proved to be a mistake as air temperature was only around 8deg in the morning and the water temperature only around 15deg. However I got through the swim in a good time (for me) albeit with most of my digits numb. The bike leg was four laps of Stanley Park which suited me perfectly with a steep climb to Prospect Point each leg. My run leg was strong and I finished in a PB time of 2:28 and in the top 40 overall.
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| Marty pre-race at the Vancouver Triathlon |
One of the toughest hikes in North Vancouver is the Hanes Valley route. It is only open in August and September due to snow cover and impassable creek crossings. It begins in Lynn Valley and finishes on Grouse Mountain. The climb up Grouse Mountain is from the backside of the mountain and part of it is a 1km climb of around 400m elevation on scree rock and boulders. In september Erin and I thought we'd give this a crack and 5.5hrs later we pulled into the Grouse Mountain lodge exhausted and in need of a beer! A few weeks later on Thanksgiving Day Marty did the same route as a trail run and did so in about 3hrs. The BBQ they were having on the mountain was a welcome and well earned surpise!
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| Erin slowly scrambling up the scree slope in Hanes Valley |
Each summer at Kitsilano beach a local players company does 'Bard on the Beach'. Temporary stages are set up off the beach and each night a couple of Shakespeare plays are performed. We treated ourselves to 'MacBeth' and were pleasantly surprised at the high production quality. It was an enjoyable evening especially when MacBeth provides the viewer with so much blood, violence and gore!
Vancouver is home to the Major League Soccer team the Whitecaps. Alas we missed the game against LA Galaxy and thus, of course, missed the chance to see 'Becks' in the flesh. The game we actually saw was against Colorado Rapids. With more pre-game entertainment than the AFL Grand Final we thought it must be a game of significance, but no, just a standard home and away game. The Whitecaps were up at the half, but the Rapids leveled just after play resumed. Vancouver scored again midway through the second half only to have Colorado level it again with only minutes remaining. Unfortunately only a draw, but otherwise an enjoyable time was had by all.
The following the weekend saw us heading south of the border for the first time for the Bellingham Bay Marathon and a sidetrip to Seattle afterwards. Although Bellingham is only 150km south of Vancouver in Washington catching a bus across the border proved to be more time consuming than hoped and 4hrs later we arrived at our Motel.
Race morning arrived with cool air, but no wind and perfect day looked promising. The race started well for me and after about 10km I was feeling pretty good. I found myself in a group of six other people and I ran with them for about 20mins. After that I dropped out of the group after their pace started to lift and I felt I couldn't keep that pace up for another 25km. At the 32km pace I was still on a 3hr 10min pace and was feeling confident I could keep that up until the end. However at the 34km mark when I passed the finish line for the first time everything fell in a heap and I walked/hobbled/jogged the remaining 8km, losing around 15minutes in that time. In the end I finished with a respectable 3:26 and 4th in my age category. I don't think I would change anything on race day but I didn't do enough long runs in training and I paid for it on the day. Erin was going to do the half-marathon but pulled up injured in the week leading upto it and had to pull out, once again her feet failed her.
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| Marty after finishing his first Marathon |
The following day we went down to Seattle and had a wander around downtown in the afternoon including a tour of the underground (Seattle is a city on a city) before gearing up for our first Major League Baseball game in the afternoon, Seattle Mariners vs. LA Angels. $7 for a beer and $6 for a hotdog made the MCG look like spare change prices but it was funny watching the hotdog guys hurling hotdogs to customers over five rows of seats.
With the Mariners scoring a home run in the first inning we thought were in for a high scoring exciting event. However, Seattle didn't score again until the 7th and went down 7-4.
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| Safeco field lit up for Mariners vs Angels |
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| View of Downtown Seatlle from Space Needle |
BC Lions play in the Canadian Football League and a saturday night in October saw us at BC Place to watch them play against Calgary Stampeders. Since our outing there for the Soccer they had changed all of the seats to match the colours of the home team, so the ground was fit out in orange and black. Another game with impressive pre-game entertainment was the most tension filled for the whole evening, with the game being very stilted with stops in the game every minute or so. We had alot of fun though trying to figure out all the rules and BC Lions got up which marks the first game we have been to where the team we are barricking for has won.
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| BC Lions vs Calgary Stampeders in the CFL |
With the weather starting to get worse we started to get a bit stuck for ideas of things to do in Vancouver. However on a Monday that wasn't that bad we headed to MEC to buy some frisbee's and then went out to play disc golf. We visited the disc golf course at Queen Elizabeth Park and then attempted to figure out what we needed to do. With the help of some locals we figured out that we needed to get the frisbee's into the cages on each hole. Erin wasn't particulary good at this (although I did blame it mostly on the inadequate discs we had bought) but it was alot of fun anyway.
The following monday's activity was for a favourite Canadian pastime, Ice Skating. This was a first for Marty and by the end he was able to do a few laps of the rink. Erin had done this before but had to re-teach herself as it had been a while. It was also a lot of fun, even if we had kids zipping by us, and are keen to go back again.
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| Ice Skating |
The third weekend in October saw Erin saying goodbye to Marty and heading to Leavenworth in Washington, USA for Oktoberfest. Leavenworth is a Bavarian themed town that runs Oktoberfest for three weekends in October and it is a 4 year tradition among a few of the ALS crew to visit during this time. So tagging along with this I enjoyed much Beer, German food and German music (including apparently, Sweet Caroline and the Chicken Dance). It was a great weekend and I will miss not being able to go next year, I will have to find somewhere in Aus for Oktoberfest.
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| Erin at Oktoberfest in Leavenworth |
The end of October brought the North American tradition of Halloween. A few days before Halloween Martyand Erin went to "Fright Nights" at PNE which is a fair for Halloween, where there were haunted houses, rides and shows with fire-throwing. There was some really freaky stuff in the haunted houses but all in all it was alot of fun. The actual day of Halloween happened to fall on a Wednesday so Marty and Erin decided to dress up as Zombies (zombie bride in Erin's case) and head out to a local games bar called The Storm Crow. They were doing some Halloween themed activties, with Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Shining on TV, people getting "murdered" every half an hour and dry ice in the drinks so they go all smoky. It was a good night although do to work the next day earlier than we would have liked.
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| Zombie Erin |
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| Zombie Marty |
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| Our Pumkpin attempt |
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| Green Lake near Whistler Village |
Well that was a super long blog but we have been a bit lazy.
We hope everyone is well back at home and we hope to hear from some of you soon.
Cheers, Erin and Marty
