I am home

Hi all, I made it back to Australia Sunday morning (lunchtime West Coast time), I had a good flight back to Sydney from Portland via San Fran., then a 3 hour Murrays bus from Sydney International Airport, I really enjoyed my trip, I will post a summary on the weekend.

Last day in the USA

Today I fly back to Aus from the USA, arriving back Sunday, I have had a quiet time in Portland, I ran in the morning yesterday and today, my fitness is starting to come back.

I wandered into the city yesterday, it rained pretty well the whole day, the city is nothing spectacular, buildings are not very tall, it is probably the size of Adelaide city area, there are trams that run thru the city. I noticed this in Seattle, I can't remember if I commented but there does seem to be a lot of homeless on the street, maybe in the north west part of the USA they are looked after better, but with the weather I wouldn't like to be outside in the rain all day, I will see you all when I get back.

Portland drizzling one day rain the next

Yesterday I had a fairly quiet day, I started with a 6km run, actually the day before I did my first run(6kms) since last Friday, I ran down to the Columbia river which runs thru Portland, I went across one of the many bridges across the river, there are a number of paths built especially for bikes & pedestrians, so I have made use of them, they are both sides of the river, today I did a circuit across one bridge then along the river and back across another bridge, got up to 7kms, so I feel like I am on the way back again.

In the afternoon I then wandered down to the Lloyd Centre, which is a big indoor mall, unlike here, there are no shops on the outside. On the bottom level they have a ice skating rink, I stayed away from that. I did a bit of shopping, I got 3 of Matthew Reilly (Aussie Author) books for $24 ($26 Aus), in Australia I would have paid $63, now you can see why Book stores in Australia don't want imported books allowed in Aus, we are getting ripped off for the price of novels. Interestingly there is no sales tax in Oregon, not sure why, I am not complaining, the price you see is the price you pay.

In the afternoon I went and saw the movie The Blind Side, it is the movie that Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for Best Actress, she was very good in the movie, it is about a black student/football player that she takes into her home and then finally adopts, he was a big dude, it is a true story, after going thru high school he goes onto the Uni of Mississippi and last year he was drafted by on the NFL teams, it is a really good feel good movie, I actually think the guy that played the football player should have been nominated for best supporting actor, he was very impressive, when the movie it comes to Australia go and see it, even if you don't like American football.

Seattle Underground and then onto Portland

I drove up to Seattle, I actually went up 5th avenue and it was very quite not much traffic, but not the famous street of NY, I found a local car park and left the car there, I was worried about getting broken into but that could happen anywhere, so I took a chance, I decided to go and do the Seattle Underground tour, back in the 1890's a big part of Seattle burnt down and because of the problem with high water levels and flooding, they rebuilt all the buildings of stone and built the footpaths below ground and this created a sort of underground, eventually this was abandoned, and they were all built over, they were rediscover in 40's and 50's and eventually a Seattle historian started taking people down there in the 60's which became the tour I went on, we went thru the underground part of 3 blocks, whereas the whole underground covered over 27 blocks., it was very impressive.

I then wandered around along the waterfront and found a bakery that sold Clam Chowder soup in a cut out sourdough bread, it was very nice and very filling, actually I couldn't finish off all the roll, so i took it with me to finish off later.
When I got back to the car park, the car was all in once piece and not broken in to, I then headed south along the I5 to Portland..

I arrived in Portland just after 5, the Trail Blazers (basketball team) were playing the Sacremento Kings tonite, the traffic was fairly busy around the Rose garden area which is where the arena is for the match and I was hoping to check into a nearby La Quinta Inn which was close by and are a bit more up market than a Motel 6, they supply a real breakfast (cereal, toast etc), on the Internet that there was a AAA (eqiv of NRMA in USA) discount of $10 a night, so I managed to get that, plus their rooms are inside and not facing out to the open, more secure.

I went to the game and got a good seat behind the goals but on a angle, better view than last time, I find that ticket prices for these sort seats are very good value.
Portland won 88-81, I didn't put my hex on them but they did try to loose it, very ordinary in parts, early on they led 14-5 and I thought this is going to be lopsided but then the Kings went on a 16-2 run, and that happened a few times by both teams during the game, Patty Mills (ex Canberra lad) was listed as a reserve, but I didn't see him warm up so I don't know where he was.

Drove up to Mt Baker and then on towards Seattle

I left Hope in Canada about 9am, it took me just over an hour to get to the border, just before I crossed over, I had my last fix of Tim Hortons coffee & muffin, I then decided to head up to the Mt Baker Ski area, this ski area had the world record snow depth back in 1999, it had over 10 metres of snow, I thought up here there would be plenty of good scenery, as I was driving up I gave a lift to a couple of snow boarders that were looking for a ride up to the snow, they looked pretty harmless, plus in the north west part of the USA most people are very friendly, its the close influence of Canada. I had a quick look around when I got up there, very impressive sights as you can see from the pics, I nearly could have done an afternoon of skiing, it would only cost me about $70 for 3 hours, but i thought I am not taking a risk in hurting myself.

I then headed south towards Seattle, I have stopped in Lynwood which is about 20kms north of Seattle, I am hoping to do the Seattle underground tour, and then drive onto Portland and spend 3 days there and have a look around before flying out Friday, if you want to say hello email me @ rpilk58@hotmail.com

Snow & on the road again

Our last morning in Kamloops, we packed up and checked out, Rad had a late flight out of Kamloops to Vancouver and then flying back to Aus, so we decided to drive up to the Sun Peaks ski resort that is 50 odd ks north of Kamloops, the road was very good to drive on, similar to the one up to Perisher but the difference here is that there are farms all the way up to the resort and the trees were Fir and not Gum, plus there were a few frozen lakes which was confusing because the temp was about 6-7C.

We just parked the car in one of the lots, we then wandered around the resort, checked all the Ski gear shops, we even ran into Bob Pierce from Adelaide who was up skiing for the day with his wife/partner, I can remember seeing Bob run at Christmas in the Bay Sheffield events at Glenelg. The resort it is probably similar to Thredbo with lost of places close to the bottom of lifts, you can see in the picture that some can park there cars close to the lifts.

We headed back to Kamloops and I dropped Rad at the Airport, he had a quite a few hours to wait for his plane, but I am sure he will have plenty of people to chat to because there will heaps of people flying out in the afternoon/night.

I then headed South for USA, I went via highway 1 which was different from my trip where I went via highway 5, I was following Fraser Canyon, I had a few tunnels to drive thru, there was a quite a bit of rain in the last couple of hours driving, it was getting close to sunset, so I stopped at the town of Hope, I think I still have a bout 100 odd ks to go to the border.

The Farewell Dinner

Tonite we had a farewell dinner for about 25 of the 36 Australians that had competed at Kamloops at the Lynx Grill, we seem to be lacking the male sprinters, they probably go to bed earlier, it was a great night, telling war stories and how we could have done this or that, the week had been great, the support for the relays today show the camaraderie that Australians show as a group and one of the people said that we punch above our weight with 30 of the 36 people attending getting medals shows the standard, but I am hoping that more people will go along to World Championships, they are not just for elite, I am a perfect example of it, I will be looking to next time to improve on my times here (which won't be difficult).

The Restaurant was great, we had an area to ourselves with about 4-5 tables, I had a full rack of pork ribs, the meat was just falling off the bone, it seemed to be the popular choice, we finished up about 10pm, I gave Steve from Darwin a lift to where he was staying, talking to Steve who I thought was familiar said he had been involved with basketball for a number of years, so I am sure we had crossed paths in the past. Everybody on the team was friendly, everybody had a chat, there was good friendship, it shows the mateship of the Australian character.

Rad strikes with 5 medals & Aussie relay success

Today was the last day (Saturday) of the Championship, my leg was still strapped up from the 1500 yesterday, it was still sore when I woke up, i put some more strapping on & a loop bandage with some more strapping, so my left thigh was now mummified, I took Rad to the track at 7.10am because he had a high jump at 8am and to check in by 7.30 and he wanted to warm up, we started to do some laps on the outdoor track, i went about 50 metres and realised that I wasn't going anywhere today, so I pulled out of the half-marathon, it was disappointing but I had done my 1500 yesterday and I thought in the back of mind that I wasn't going to make the half.enIt didn't worry me that much because I watched some great 400metre & 1500 metre finals, Australia picked up another 5-6 medals in those events.

Rad on the final day got 5 medals, Silver -high jump, 1500M, weight throw, Bronze - triple jump & 400M, report on this later. In the afternoon we had the relays for all the ages, it was a 4x200 so each leg ran 1 lap, we had 6 relay teams and they all won medals, we did Australia proud -: Gold - Womens 60, Silver - Womens 35 & 40, Mens 40, Bronze - Mens 50 & 60. Below is a number of pics from the realys.

To my sister Carol I did get your message, thanks for reading all my crap over the past couple of weeks

Australian Masters Curling team training in Kamloops

Bob Banens arranged for us to try Curling at the Kamloops Curling Center in Town, a lady that helps out there gave us training, as you can see from the 2nd pic I hard trouble staying on my feet the first couple of times, Curling is like Lawn Bowls on ice, you have slide the Granite 'Rocks' from one end of the rink to the other, you can see the circles inside each other with the Blue then White and the Black mark in the centre of the Red circle, you try and land the rocks inside the circles closest to the Black mark. After the rock is released the other 2 people can then sweep in front of the moving rock to make it go faster. It was a fun afternoon, it was really hard, when you release the rock along the ice you normally slide with it for awhile but I couldn't do that so I let the 'Rock' go from the start.

Rad hurdles his way to Silver

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Rad struck again today in the M80 60 metres hurdles winning Silver, the picture above is a shot of the 4 runners that competed in the M80&M85 race, the gentleman to Rads right won the Gold.

1500 Metres Heat - 5.52

Today I was finally go back on the track after 2 days off, my race was @ 9am, I had a booking @ 8am with a guy in a sports medicine place at Sports Centre to strap up my hamstring, I was going to need that if I was going to get thru the race, he strapped it well and I did a few warm up laps on the outside track, it felt ok but when I tried to increase the speed I still had a bit of pain. I was in the first heat of 7, they all looked really good, it was 7 1/2 laps of the 200m track, they had a clock at the start and at the finish, so you knew your time every 100 metres.

I started off ok, but the rest of the guys quickly ran away from me, I was struggling and I felt really unfit and the legs were sore, I got thru the 1km in 3.48 and then I was lapped by the whole field with just over a lap and the straight to go, I finished in 5.52 (close to that), I was reasonably happy with the run, I was glad to get under 6mins and I think if I had not hurt myself I could have run under 5.30, so I would really like to go to Finland in 2012, as I said to Rad I have un'Finnish' business with the Indoor events. Stuart Patterson ran in the 2nd heat and he comfortably qualified for tomorrows final, below is of him & me after the heats, in the 2nd heat there was a guy that did 6.06 and another about 5.40, I think we wished we were all in the same heat.

Tomorrow I have the half marathon, it is 2 laps, so I thought I will start it, if I am really struggling I will drop out after the first lap.

Here are Gay & Carol Dixon from Florida USA, I competed against Gary in the Pentathlon, Carol actually lived in Sydney when she was young for 4 years.

Rads Day of Gold

In the morning Rad did his 3000 metres while I iced up my hamstring again, he said that he was very happy in winning the Gold Medal in 17 mins 17 secs, which is a great run for a 82 year old, Rad is a inspiration to me, he is a young man at heart, I hope I can keep going like him, below is him with his Gold Medal at his ceremony.

In the afternoon Rad and I walked down the hill into the City area, it was very quiet, like a big country town, Rad had broken his glasses on the way over, so he thought he would get the frames replaced while he was here, we found a glasses place and he found that he could pick up his new pair the following day, I wanted to send a couple of post cards and we had trouble finding any, the dollar store had some general ones and I bought 2, we found the Post Office and then I sent them off, below is a picture of the City looking back from the uni where the Indoor track is.

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Athletics Dinner Tonite

Tonite was the Athletics Dinner at the Activities Centre, a few of the Australians went along, there is a shot of Rad & I, he has been a good influence on me while I have been here, also our team managers Janet & Stuart who have done a great job looking after the team and organising things behind the scenes, also Bob & Jan and another couple from Qld whose names allude me. The dinner consisted of a Hot beef roll with salad and cake, I had a couple of beers, I thought it wasn't going to hurt since I wasn't running the 3000m tomorrow. When Rad & I left the dinner it was raining, so I thought we will get wet walking back to the Motel, but luckily we met one of the guys that does shuttle runs in his car, gave us a lift back to the Motel, I gave him one of the little Koala Bears that I had brought with me as little gifts, I had also given some to the ladies who clean our rooms at the Motel.

A day at the Athletics

After icing the hamstring this morning I went over and watched the events at the track, mainly today were the 200's & 800's, Rad did both, he was 2nd in the 800 in under 4 mins, he was 4th in the 200 and also he was 4th in the Shot put, that is 3 medals he has won so far.


Here is Rad at the Track

In the 200's Australia did pretty well, 2 Gold - Peter Combie in M65 & Marie Kay in W50, 2 Silver - Marj Allison W65 & Kathy Heagney W55, 2 Bronze -Andre Wilcox M45 (Ken Telfer 5th) & Julie Brims W40.

There was nearly a disaster in the one of the fast mens race, as the men came into the straight, one of the main officials had a brain he was standing in the middle of the track screamuing at some other officials forgetting that there was a 200 race on, he just got off the track in time.

In the afternoon I watched my mens 800 final of 11 people, there should have only been 9 people but they stuffed up the heats, Stuart Patterson (aussie) had a good run in the final clocking about 2.21 which was his fastest time in a couple of years, he was very happy with the run, i think I would have beaten one runner home, he was lapped by the winner, it shows how fast these guys are moving.

Hammy Report

It is Wednesday moring, my hamstring is feeling a lot better today, but I couldn't race on it for a day or so, I think I will miss the 3000 metres tomorrow and rest it up for 1500 friday, i will keep icing it and I may get a massage on it tomorrow.

Pentathlon , the Hammy again

Hi all, thanks for all the comments that I have got, I am told that my Blog link has been setup on the USA Masters, like to say hello to all those people trying to work out what that bl....y Aussie is saying. I will cut to the chase, I have hurt my hammy again, this time thru a combination of the long jump and then finally the high jump, it is sore, I am at the moment icing it at the Motel, I have withdrawn from the 800m final tomorrow and I will probably dropout from the 3000 Thursday and see if I can run the 1500 Friday, we shall see.

Back to the Pentathlon, the mens 50 started at 10am, there was a bit of confusion on the heats, a few had been left off and they had to redo from 1 heat to 2, because of my previous issues with my hammy and not being very good at hurdling, I just started the race and sopped after 5 metres, so a good start for me last with 0 points. The field looked good and I must admit that I was really out of my depth with the quality here.

Next the long jump, this was the event that I hurt my hammy originally about 5 weeks ago, so I was very weak, I did 3.25 metres and it started to feel a bit sore, after 2 events Randy from the USA lead Martin from Germany, next was the Shot put, this is where the big German took control, he was giving the 14 metres line a big scare in practise and I think his first and best throw was around 13.84metres, he was great, Gary from the USA had the 2nd best throw with about 11.8 metres, so Martin had moved into the lead, Peter from Slovakia and Kenne from the USA were battling for 3rd.

We then went into the High Jump, we started that at about 1.05pm and it took us over 2 hours to finish, I managed to jump 1.32 metres with is a M50 PB, I was really rapped, on my last attempt at 1.35 I really hurt the hammy this time, I put ice on it but I was going to struggle in the last event of the 1km.

Even though I was very weak compared to everybody else, when I jumped everybody clapped my successful jumps, I felt I was part of a team, I felt welcome, everybody encouraged each other, it was a privilege to be a part of this group, we had made friendships for life. The jumping took to around 3.20pm, Martin again finished best on 1.68, Randy had hurt his ankle which stopped him from getting to Martins height.

Going into the 1km Martin lead Randy by over 250 points, Kenne only lead Peter by 33 points about 5 secs in the 1km race, Dimitri smashed us all in the race clocking just over 3 mins, I only knew that because he lapped me, the 1km was 5 laps of the 200m track, I managed to beat Gary home (sorry Gary) but I was really hurting in my race, I didn't even see my time, I am guessing it was around 4.05-4.10, the only place that changed I think Peter got up for 3rd spot, he looked really happy after the race, happy for somebody to correct me on that. We took some group photos afterwards, it was a great bunch of guys - Peter, Martin, Randy, Dimitri, Gary, Perl, Noel, Jeff, Kevin & Kenne, even though I have hurt myself, spending 5-6 hours with these guys was worth the pain, as I said earlier it is Friendships for life, I am really thinking about going to Finland in 2012 I have unfinished business.

The Pentathlon Group

I also want to thank Jake one of the volunteers who looked after us all day, he did a fantastic job, had to take us to & from the washroom (loo), he listened to all our issues and he never complained once, he was a scholar and a gentlemen, he is typical of the great service that the volunteers are doing for us here in Kamloops, it is a thankless job, I think some poeple need to take a chill out pill.

First Day of Competition

Today was the 8km xcountry run, Rad had his race at 11.30am, I dropped him off at about 10.30am, the course was on the northern side of the city in a big park that lies on the northern shore of the Thompson river which flows thru Kamloops, because I wasn't running until 1pm, I went back to the motel and did a few things before heading back and watch Rad run the last lap of his run, he finished in just over an hour, he ran most of the race with a Russian who was a M75, Rad finished 2nd in M80.

I then ran my race, it was 4 laps of 2kms, it was a fairly flat but undulating and fairly technical with a few turns. I did about 8.30 for the first lap, then was 9.20 for each of the next 3 laps, finishing in 36 mins 33secs, I had been fairly conservative because I was running the 800metre heats back at the Indoor track at 3.20pm, so I only about 1 hour 40 mins between races, not the best but I decided to do both.

I went back to the Motel, dropped off a few things and changed into my racing shoes, when I got to the Indoor Track I went to the checkin area, there was confusion about the running of the

M50 800m heats, normally if there are only 9 in the race, it goes straight to a final, but for some reason it was decided that we would only have a final, and it looks like that will have 11 in the final, so I didn't run the 800 today, I will run the 800 final on Wednesday, just when I thought I had it free, a lot of the heats & semis for the 60 metres were on today with about 6-8 Aussies making it thru to the finals including Ken Telfer from Canberra.

I am now going to do the Pentathlon tomorrow, but i won't run the hurdles, I will start it but not jump any hurdles, I don't want the risk of hurting myself, I will do the other parts - high jump, long jump, shot put & 1000 metres.

Sunday in Kamloops

Yesterday was the first full day in Kamloops, Rad & I are staying in the Ramada, very nice Hotel/Motel, we had a bit of a sleep in, we went to the outdoor track at about 10.30, i did about 3-4 kms running around the track, i did a bit of a tempo run, putting a quick 50-60metres every lap or so, just to try and get a bit of speed back into my legs, I am feeling well, the legs weren't bothering me at all, today i have the xcountry at 1pm and then I have to backup for the 800 at 3.20pm, not an ideal situation, I think I will just use the xcountry as a training run.

After the track session we went back to the Motel and had a late breakfast, had some cereal that I had bought, coffee and a banana, i am finding here that I don't seem as hungry as at home. I then watched the Mens Ice Hockey Gold medal game between Canada and the USA, what a big grudge match, the USA levelled the game 2 all with 25 secs left in the game, the Canadian won in extra time golden goal, they were excited, I think it will lift the whole country.

Then last night we had the opening ceremony, we had about 25 of the 40 Australians march in, I have a picture here of the girl that led us in with Rad & myself (Rad bought her a Kit Kat), also there is a pic of Rad with Bob & Jan Banens. There were quite a few speeches, Stan Perkins who is an Australian and World Masters Athletics president spoke very well, most of the speeches did mention that Canada had beaten USA, there are about 1400 athletes here, over 400 from Canada and 350 from USA make up a big share. They also had some dancing, singing & plays about the history of the setting up of Kamloops in the 1800', it was very well done.

After the Ceremony Rad and I went back to the Ramada for late Dinner, we found out that they are giving us 25% off all meals, which makes it quite cheap to eat out there, I think we will use it again, even might try the breakfast & lunch there as well. i will give you a report on the running tonite.