Australian All Schools Championships - Adelaide 2014

 

 

C competed at her first selective National event on the weekend, the Australian All Schools Championships, ran by Athletics Australia. She landed herself a place on the South Australian team due to coming second at the state event Late October. Luckily it was held in Adelaide this year.  

 

 

 

C competed in the under 14 3000m walk. She smashed her previous PB of 17:57, doing it in 17:25. Her time has qualified her to compete in the same event in Sydney in March at the Australian Junior championships.

Another Centre Record

V dwarfs had her sights set on breaking the centre record for the under 11 girls 1100m walk. The record was set a number of years ago during the 1996/97 season with a time of 6.04.9. She raced with her group and finished in a time of 6.10, which coincidentally was not only a PB, but faster than the under 11 boys centre record. Determined to beat it, she then lined up with the boys and less than 10 minutes later dropped 8 seconds from her PB to set a new centre record at 6.02.2. She now has a goal to beat the state record which currently is set at 5.40.7, also set in 1996.   

 

 

Rydges South Park - Adelaide, South Australia

Me and R celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary recently and celebrated with a night at Rydges South Park in Adelaide. I was looking for somewhere that had a spa in the ensuite, pool and breakfast included. An Executive Spa room ticked all our boxes.

 

 

We stayed on the 3rd floor as I had requested a lower floor thanks to my dislike of elevators. I learnt very quickly that I would have to just suck it up and use the elevator after twice finding ourselves locked in the stairwell, once we thankfully found an unlocked door, the other time a staff member came to our rescue. Our room was 319, it had a king bed, TV, DVD player, bar fridge, balcony and as mentioned above a corner spa. The balcony looked out to the city of Adelaide. The pool, spa and gym where on the 6th floor near the restaurant.

 

Breakfast was a buffet which included hot food such as sausage, eggs, bacon, mushroom, tomato and toast. Fruit, yoghurt, breakfast cereals and pastries where also included. To drink, there where a variety of juices as well as the usual hot drinks.

 

We thought it would be a good idea to have a bubble bath, but of course when we turned the spa on, we realised it may not have been such a great idea!

 

South Australian All Schools Championships - 2014

C dwarf came 2nd in the 3000m walk at the All Schools Athletics championships on the weekend and has now landed her a spot on the South Australian team to compete at the Australian All Schools championships early December. 

Stawell, Victoria, Australia

We had to make a short notice trip from Adelaide to Melbourne over the weekend, the total travel time was exactly 48 hours from 12:30pm Friday to 12:30pm Sunday. We decided to break the trip up and stay in Stawell. We have driven through the town many times, but have never actually stopped for longer than to fill up the car with fuel.

We stayed at Coorrabin Motor Inn, which was located on the highway. I had decided on this place as I had read many positive reviews regarding the friendliness of the staff, these reviews were very accurate and we had the same experience.  My review which I posted to Booking.Com is as follows:

"They had family rooms, often hard to come by. The staff were extremely friendly and happy to help. The accommodation was clean, tidy and better than expected for the price paid. The bowl of lollies was a hit with the kids.

The water temperature for the shower in one of the rooms was a bit hard to get just right, but other than that there were absolutely no issues at all. The location for some could be problematic being on a main road with lots of traffic, but we all slept well with no issues."

 

 

 

 

We took the dwarfs to see where the Stawell gift is ran, before having dinner at the Gift Hotel, which was directly across the road. The food was what you would expect for a pub meal, staff were friendly and accommodating. We actually got there just after the kitchen was due to shut. The dwarfs had a choice out of 4 different kids meals, half chose sausages and chips, which was a plate of chips with 2 sausages. The other half chose chicken dinosaurs, which also was a plate of chips with about 6 chicken nuggets shaped as dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were a big hit. Me and R went for a full sized pasta dish each, I had the salmon and he had the carbonara and they were massive. I only managed to get through half of it, and that was with some help from the dwarfs.   

 

 

 

Saturday morning we drove to Melbourne at 6am and arrived by 9am. We spent some time with family before heading back to Stawell at 6pm, arriving at around 9:30pm. It was one very busy day, but we surprised ourselves with just how much we managed to fit in.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Mail City to Bay - 21st of September 2014

V had a goal to run this years 12km Sunday Mail City-Bay Fun Run in under 55 minutes, which would be breaking her PB by almost 5 minutes. I told her if she ran it under 55 minutes she could have $20 as a reward for beating her goal. Unfortunately for V, she would have been $20 richer if she had of just ran 0.01 of a second faster! She ran it in exactly 55.00 minutes. Fortunately for her, I'm feeling generous.

For the 4th year in a row, she won her age category. If that wasn't enough, she also beat the 10 & 11 year old boys and the 11-15 year old girls. She ran a few seconds slower than the 16 year old girl.

Next year they are running the race twice, in April the first Bay-City will run.

State Cross Country Champions!

Today was the South Australian state cross country championships held in Banksia Park, where 2 of the dwarfs did exceptionally well.

 

Miss K came 1st in her under 9 girls 1500m cross country run, completed in a time of 6.15.1.

Miss V came 2nd in her under 10 girls 1500m cross country run, completed in a time of 6.09.9.

 

 

Master X, who is 3, ran the 1000m fun run at the completion of the championship events. I have been told he ran the entire distance, although did need some help jumping over the creek.

Lake Burley Griffin Racewalking Carnival, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

Over the Queens birthday weekend C, V & K were involved in the biggest race walking carnival in Australia, The LBG carnival held annually in Canberra.

 

We left early afternoon on Friday, drove to Mildura and spend the night there at the Mid City Plantation Hotel, before waking early on Saturday and driving the rest of the way to Canberra.

 

Unfortunately our family had come down with a viral infection which left those who caught it with a fever, horrible head ache and a feeling as if they were seasick (I came down with the same virus about 2 weeks ago). Thankfully some Maxolon and Panadol allowed us to continue on to Canberra. We arrived at the Carotel Motel in Canberra in time to meet up for dinner with the SA team, as we had planed to, however most of the kids where too unwell to go anywhere, so we had an early night.

 

C & V as well as some of their brothers had a pretty rough night, thankfully by the morning they had began to recover and the girls were well enough to race, however poor X was the next victim. The only good thing was whatever it was, it often left as quickly as it came.

 

K did an under 10 1km race, came 6th overall and 2nd in the handicap, she also did the under 12 2km and came 15th. V did the under 12 2km and came 13th, then the under 14 2km and came 25th. C did the under 12 2km and came 8th, then the under 16 3km and came 25th. The 3 girls made up the under 12 SA1 team and came 4th. V was in the under 14 SA2 team and came 7th.

 

Between the races and the presentation at the Burns Club in Kambah, we visited parliament house, the dwarfs where very excited to see the house of representative and the senate, especially C as she is meeting with our local MP today as part of a leadership event.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 16 - Grand Mercure The Hills Lodge, Castle Hill, Sydney

Disembarkment day, always the worst day of the trip. It's rushed, busy, complicated, tiring, stressful and it's just down right sad that you have to get off.

We decided we'd be the last group off since we couldn't pick our hire car up until midday and couldn't check in to the hotel until 2pm. While it was nice not to have to wait around off the ship, the truth is it's not much better waiting on board other than you still have access to the buffets, but there is only so much you can eat. We were off by 10am, in a maxi taxi by 11am and at the airport waiting for our car soon after.

We spent our final night of our holiday at the Grand Mercure The  Hills Lodge in Castle Hill Sydney. I specifically chose this hotel as the kids wanted somewhere with a swimming pool. Unfortunately the weather was so severe that it absolutely bucketed down and all we could hear was the clap of thunder, it was so close that someone in the same suburb actually got hit by the lightening! Needless to say no swimming happened that night.

Other than the disappointment of that, the hotel was rather nice. We had 2 ground floor rooms which both could fit 5 people in. It was close to the local shopping centre, restaurants and an AMF bowling centre was right night door. We had the buffet breakfast the next morning which was really nice. The staff were friendly and helpful, rooms where clean and well presented. There was plenty of parking available also.