Tag: fitness

Australia-New Zealand 1

Australia-New Zealand 4

Oct 17, 2025,

Hi Everyone,

The Parade of Nations was great. There are 4000 athletes here from 73 different countries. We all marched along, one after another representing our countries. Australia, the home country marched out last. The Canadian delegation is about 200 strong. When I saw the Israeli Team I introduced myself and asked if I could join them. We talked about my experience volunteering in Israel and they were very happy to meet me.

The house that I am staying in is wonderful. It is very modern, situated in a middle class, very well kept neighbourhood. Being next to the sea, everything grows well here. I have never seen such thick grass. We have a nice terrace overlooking a small garden. We are 15 minutes away from the triathlon.

We were up early this morning to get to the triathlon 1 hour early. We had to check in and have a last minute check up of our tattoos and helmets. We brought our bikes to the transition zone last evening. I will not wash off my tattoo for as long as possible. The weather was just perfect for a race but the water was a little rough. They changed the course several times before the start of the race. In spite of the adjustments to the course there was still a strong current. I was blown off course several times and completed the swim in 26 minutes. Usually I can swim 750m in under 20 minutes. I finished the race in 2:12 hours which is rather long for me as I usually complete a sprint race in under 2 hours. I am not a kid anymore. I was happy to finish the race and get a finishing medal arriving 21/21 in my age group. I was exhausted after the race and sat around for 1 hour to recuperate. I met up with Paul, and we went out for beer and chips.

Luisa lent me her bike for the race. What a nice thing to do. So Canadian… We came home after the race and had wine and cheese with Paul and Katerina. I invited Luisa and her husband for dinner. Luisa and her husband Alex picked me up at 6:00 and we went out to for tacos and nachos. The restaurant was noisy with great atmosphere, obviously catering to the 30 year old age group. I was easily twice as old as the general population. What fun!!

Love,

Brian

Australia-New Zealand

Australia-New zealand 1

Oct. 16, 2025,

Hi Everyone,

Here is a little background for those of you that are new to my blog, on why I do triathlons. 12 years ago while playing hockey, I had 3 heart attacks and a quadruple bypass. I recovered well by doing some serious cardiac retraining. 3 months later, I was racing my sailboat and playing hockey. My friend Glen, who does ironman championships encouraged me to do a triathlon. I really didn’t know what he was talking about as I had never considered myself to be a triathlete. With his help I changed my training pattern and concentrated on triathlon sports. My first triathlon in Montreal was as a sprint triathlon, 750m swim, 20k bike ride and a 5m run. I competed in the age group 65 to 69. I was the only one in the group and of course the only one to finish the race so I won a gold medal.

That gave me a taste for the sport. I play in many different sports but it is very rare that i come first and win a medal. The following years I would do 1 or 2 triathlons a year. Eventually I moved up to the olympic category and continued my winning streak receiving gold or silver medals. If you out live the competition, you have a high likelihood of winning a medal. Once I put a team together to do the half iron man relay where I did the 1.9k swim. We finished in the second quarter. We had a superb runner who dragged us out of the 4th and 3rd quarter to finish the race respectfully.

3 years ago I qualified to become a member of the Canadian National Triathlon Team, Age Group, 70 to 74 and now 75 to 79. The numbers in each group go down considerably as the ages go up. There are only about 20 men in the 75-79 age group that can complete a sprint triathlon. We are 3 in my age group in Australia. 2 years ago, I did the World Championship Triathlon in Hamburg, Germany. and last year I did the same in Torremolinos in Spain. This year the World Championship Triathlon is in Wollongong, Australia. We are about 200 Canadians on our them with 4000 athletes from about 40 different countries.

I train all year for the event. I play 80 games of hockey all year. I race my sail boat in the summer and skied 34 days last winter as a ski instructor and as a ski patroller. On the days that I don’t play, I lift weights for 40 minutes and then bicycle for 60 minutes on my own bike attached to a trainer. I watch netflix or chaiflix to pass the time

I arrived at the airport 3 hours early as I had a stop over in San Francisco and therefore had to go through American customs. This usually a drag and can take 3 hours. This time I was through in 20 minutes. There are virtually no Canadians going through the States. I slept on and off for 6 hours and then had a 1.5 hour lay over in San Francisco. Once on the plane, I took 2 sleeping pills, an appropriate amount of wine to was them down and slept 7 hours. I then watched 3 or 4 dreadful movies.

love

Brian