"The Thunder in Down Under"

It all began as I departed on Saturday, August 7th. I went to Australia with a group called World Sports Exchange. I was invited as an Elite athlete to take part with the group in the City to Surf 14k in Sydney, Australia. Because just getting to Australia is a story in itself, I'd be slack if I didn't at least mention the torturous journey of getting to Sydney. The trip took 24 hours in total. The first leg took me from Charlotte to Chicago, where I had a 5 hour layover. The layover was fairly uneventful. I did run into Tim Hacker, former NCAA and USATF National XC Champion, and sat with him for for a bit while I ate my dinner. The weather was really bad on the East Coast, so there were flights being cancelled and delayed left and right. The second leg took me from Chicago to San Francisco. Our flight was delayed and we were going to be hard pressed to make the flight to Australia. Fortunately though, because about 1/3 of the people on the Sydney flight were in the World Sports Exchange group, the flight was delayed until we arrived. The fight to Australia is the worst I've been on, worse than flying to Vietnam. 14 hours in the air, but fortunately the entertainment on the flight kept me somewhat involved.

We arrived in Sydney on the morning of Monday the 9th. From the Sydney Airport we went directly to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Katoomba is at the edge of a vast canyon, similar to the state's Grand Canyon, only it's heavily covered in bush and rain forest. Being August, Australia is just coming out of their winter. The temperature in the mountains hovered around 60 degrees. On the day we arrived at Katoomba, we checked into our hotel, The Calderon, and after a short rest, we all met for a run. Most of the kids that were along were only running about 3 to 4 miles a day. The plan for the run was to take them on a trail up to the "Three Sisters" rock formation. As we started out some of the kids (I say kids, but they're really between 16 and 17 years old) were doing the typical old "up front, let me show these other runners how good I am, push the pace" sh#t. Stuff like that always makes me a little weary. It leads to racing on an easy day, and much worse, injury. Being that we were running on trails too, I didn't want to get caught up in a spill, so I hung back in the middle. Those kids were nuts and figured they could find their own way back. I knew where I was going and that was all that mattered. Staying in Katoomba was awesome and unbelieveably beautiful. I could have spent the whole trip there. The training runs after the first day were far less structured, and I was able to head out more on my own and investigate the trails more. Katoomba is essentially a town inside a National Forest, and there are miles of trails all over the Canyon rim and down into it. One morning i got up really early and was able to catch the sun rising. I ran for about an hour and it was completely peaceful. The Canyon floor still had clouds down in it, and it gave me the sensation of being in heaven, or at least what I percieve heaven to be like. Toward the end of the run i ran into some of the other kids going out for their run and they took some really good pictures for me.

During the day, we took some tourist excursions to some of the local sites. One day we visted the Jenoah Caves. A vast series of caverns that we spent about an hour and a half touring through. That evening, as we were driving back to Katoomba, we had our first sight of wild Kangaroos. There were tons of them in the open pasture. We'd get an even more closer look in the coming days. The evening generally found the coaches sitting around drinking a bottle of wine and talking. That was a great way to end the day. Al Phillip, the coordinator of the trip is a great guy. He's Austrian, and has spent the better part of his life putting together trips all over Europe and Australia. His claim to fame is that one summer he served as Michael Jackson's tour guide in Austria. He's also got some great stories! All of our meals were taken at the hotel, and were superb. Our host, Bob (the owner of the Calderon), was also a great guy.

We spent 4 days in Katoomba in total. On Thursday morning we departed for Sydney, about a 2 hour drive back to the coast. On the way we stop at a Wildlife Park and got up close and personal with the different kinds of exotic animals that can be found in Australia. I had my picture taken with a Koala, and developed a special relationship with a Kangaroo. We also caught a sheep shearing show and i saw one of the coolest dogs I've ever seen. An Australia Cattle Dog, not to be confused with an Australian Shepard. These dogs are much more stocky and short haired. Very smart!

When we got to Sydney that afternoon, we had a little time to knock around before dinner. We were staying in a somewhat shady but ecclectic part of town called the "Kings Cross". I'd liken it to being in SOHO in New York City or Hollywood Blvd. in California. Lots of XXX shops and bars and the like. It was a great place to people watch. All kinds of freaks were there. On Friday morning after a somewhat "crazy" run to the local park with the kids, they departed for a tour of the city, while Al, Donna Garcia (the female elite runner) and myself went to a press conference for the race. It was a big to do, and all of the Australian press was there. We were seated at a table up front and each of us was introduced and asked a few somewhat stupid questions. After the formal introductions, the was an informal question/answer period, where we were cornered by various reporters to ask us more stupid questions that they were afraid to ask while we were up in front of everyone. Now, to give you a little background on this I have to tell you that last year the race was won on the men's side by Dan Browne. Dan had caught the race organizers and the media completely by surprise the year before, and they weren't going to be embarrassed again. Most of the questions that were directed toward me were about how I felt my chances were, how did I feel about the attention that the "American Runner" was getting this year, and how did I think the race would pan out. Let me say that from the get go, I wasn't too concerned with the race. As a matter of fact, the race was really at this point, the last thing I was thinking about. I had been dealing with a really bad case of bursitis in my heel, and had missed a lot of training in the weeks leading up to the race. Up until a few days before, I wasn't even sure that I was going to run the race at all, but I didn't want to sound like I was making excuse. I really wasn't too sure of where I stood with my fitness level or if the foot would even make it through an 8 mile race. I just tried to be humble and a little vague at the same time.

All things considered, the race went okay. It went out very fast. Faster then i was in shape for. The first mile must have been around 4:30 something, and I was back in about 4:50. I just didn't have the wheels at that point. I managed about 5:03 pace for the race, but pretty much quit racing after about 4 miles and just was along for the ride. My foot wasn't killing me, but it was letting me know it was there. I ended up somewhere in the top 30 or so. After the race we hung out at Bondi Beach. Got something to eat and a few beers.

I spent a lot of my time in Sydney shopping. Sydney's cool in that there are a lot of cool little "burrows", where you can find different things. I've always dug trendy clothing, so I was able to pick some stuff up that you can't get in the states. I also got to sample some of the social life in Sydney. I've always been one to get up for a night on the town, and one night the coaches headed out to one of the local discoteques. The first one we went to, a place called "Home", we were turned away. Unfortunately, not all of us (me excluded of course) were dress trendy enough. It was also having some gay event, and although I thought they would have let us in, Al seemed obviously nervous about that, and I think that ruined our chances. The next place we went too we got in. It was called "The Cave", and was alright. Not as good of music as I heard coming from "Home".