T-7...

This time next week I will be in PNG. The fact that my grand adventure has arrived has suddenly dawned on me; I'm feeling rather nervous about Kokoda right now. Hopefully the butterflies will be flying in formation by next Monday....

Now, as for the updates - let's see, where was I...

Sat 16/8 - R's birthday (happy birthday mahal!) - everyone headed to the snow. Me? I stayed in bed & had a nice long sleep-in at our apartment in Jindy before a rather slow 50mins run along the shore of Lake Jindy. The pace was incredibly slow - I choose to blame the altitude ;-) Finished with 7.22k - av. 6:55m/k - av. 143BPM. Afterwards a visit to the bakery for breakfast & coffee, I spent the rest of the day reading the paper, watching the Olympics & taking in the view from our apartment -



Nice :-)

Sun 17/8 - rest. Spent the day at Blue Cow reading & drinking hot choc :-)

Mon 18/8 - Fri 22/8 - 5 day mountaineering course. Wow! What an incredible, exciting week!

Met up with my team for the week at Jindy at 8am on Monday morning and, after getting organised, we travelled by mini-bus, snow-cat & then finally on snowshoes to our camp somewhere between Charlottes Pass & Blue Lake.




I had a fantastic time, ate lots of chocolate (the sekrit to keeping warm at -10!) & learnt soooo much during the course of the week - I learnt how to show-shoe, tie all manner of knots, build snow caves, use crampons, build ice anchors & stop myself sliding off the side of a mountain by using an ice axe. The week culminated in a multi-pitch climb up a snow slope adjacent to camp.



Yes, that's me - on the right ;-)

Unfortunately due to the weather, we were only able to make the 7k return trip to Blue Lake on
snow-shoes once.



Despite the obvious reminder of last Sunday's tragic event, it was a beautiful place to train. I rounded out the week by carrying my pack (weighing around 15kg) and pulling a sled (weighing around 10kg) up 3/4 of the slope from the Snowy River to the top of one of the ski runs behind Charlottes Pass and then down the other side to the chateau - now that was bloody hard work! A truly fantastic week - can't wait to put some of my new knowledge to good use; not to mention head back next year for some ice climbing :-D :-D

Sat 23/8 - I was due to have a rest day but a christening in Canberra on Sunday meant that I had to swap my long sessions around. To allow for the fact that I was still tired from the mountaineering course, I dropped the pack weight back to about 16kg and did a 4:20 hike,
'summiting' Mt Majura twice & Mt Ainslie once. Finished with 19.09k. Surprisingly I felt reasonably strong although a bit tired & hungry by the time I finished. Afterwards, I cleaned myself up & headed to the War Memorial for a quick lunch in the café before spending a couple of hours looking at everything I could find related to Kokoda. All I can say is that I'm going to be a serious sap the whole way along the Owen Stanley Ranges I suspect.... As my head & thoughts have been in the mountains so much lately, it was also a good way to end my last real training session & to start getting my head in the right 'head space' for Kokoda. As all the hard work is now done, that is the only thing I can still do...

Sun 24/8 & Mon 24/8 - rest days & start of taper week :-)

MTD:
Bike - 51.41k
Run - 22.5k
Hike - 47.85k