People of the world! Lend me your... eyes, here is a new post for the millions of you that have been waiting anxiously to hear from me. The theme for this past week was undoubtedly a week jam packed with first time experiences. For those of you that followed the link in my status on Facebook, continue reading to see if I have both my arms, for the rest of you, that last comment should seem bizarre enough that I trust you will continue reading as well.
My first first (ha, see what I did there) took place on Wednesday with the super intense warriors that make up the intramural Attawhai volleyball team. We had our first win (a round of applause, possibly a toast at your next big party would be greatly appreciated), thank you.
Stay with me here, I know a volleyball win doesn't seem like that big of a deal (but you should see what we're working with), so we'll go through and look at what I do for school since my parents are curious as to what I actually do here for classes. This link is a pretty good representation of what my Creative Processes class is like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_qh3urEOK8. I think thats entertaining enough for school, now moving on...
There are a few things to be said about the lingo here and in particular there are two expressions that are used on a minutely basis. The first is "chur" which was so accurately translated for me by another Canadian here in the form of an equation churr is greater than or equal to, cool + sweet + awesome + cheers, this is quite similar to chill for those of you back home but they insist that it is different enough to have its own word. The other expression is the title of this post, "sweet as". I am still trying to figure out how to use this properly, but essentially you can say "sweet as" whenever you want to say "sweet" as in cool. But that's not all, they throw the "as" on the end things like "these deals are mean as" and apparently there is a movie or short clip about a whale titled "beached as". I am not quite comfortable with it just yet because I find myself waiting for Kiwi's to finish their sentence or expression,
"man that trip was sweet as!"
"yes... it was sweet as what?"
"nah bro, it was sweet as!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said there at the end"
"dude, it was sweet as..."
"as sugar???"
you get the point. Just a heads up for those of you that may not understand what I am saying for the first couple weeks when I get home.
One more little observation that I forgot to mention last week that made me love this country even more... no commercial breaks on TV during sports. They played the All Blacks game straight through, just like every major sporting event should be broadcast. It was beautiful. Those of you that don't want to miss any of the game due to bathroom breaks, keep a radio on in the bathroom like they do at the pubs here.
My second first was a NZ cell phone. It was a beautiful month that I just had without a phone but with the spring break coming up and everyone getting busier with school it is harder and harder to get in touch with people using only Facebook and direct contact.
Ah yes, something a little more exciting now, my third first... thermals. This may not sound exciting considering they are essentially the same thing as long underwear designed to keep you warm and dry but I assure that once you see a picture of these bad boys, you will understand where the excitement comes from....
At last, it is time for another one of my mildly entertaining adventure stories. Facebook status followers, this is the moment you have all been waiting for, my trip to the Piripiri Caves on Saturday. The caves were about an hour away from school so we (Graeme - Scotland, Gizo - Germany, Benedicte - France, Danni - New Zealand) borrowed a car from a friend and headed for the hills. On our way into the mountains we realized we had a little under a quarter tank of gas and with all the towns now behind us we got a little nervous as the needle on the gauge dipped down about a half centimeter when went up the hill and up a half centimeter when we went down hill. After a missed turn and a half hour accidental scenic detour down a single lane dirt road through farmers fields we arrived to a crowd of other people waiting on us to go caving...oops. This is where the fun started because there I was looking semi cool with my North Face sweater, caving helmet, headlamp, climbing harness etc. and my striped red thermal leggings straight off Pippi Longstockings. After explaining to the group that I had bought them off the clearance rack they were a little more understanding, but I had still not shown them the matching shirt at this point... Anyways the first part of the trip involved abseiling (rappelling) off of a bridge along a cliff wall, through a tiny crack that opened up into a big cave about eight stories below. Naturally I went first... this had nothing to do with other members of the group volunteering me... The abseiling was really amazing, I had never done it before so this makes it my fourth first of the week. Once we all reached the bottom, we walked along this underground river and climbed up a small waterfall into a small little cave where we had to crouch and shuffle along in ankle to hip deep, freezing cold water. Once we were deep inside the tunnel we turned off all of our lights and let our eyes adjust to the darkness. Then, one by one these little green specs started to appear all over the roof of the cave! These were glow worms, which were described later as "maggots with glowing shit"but that doesn't quite sound as pretty as it looks haha. We also found a couple of crayfish and a small eel which brought back memories of watching an episode of River Monsters at college. All in all the trip through the caves was a blast and a great success, but the trip does not end here. After we throw some dry clothes on and I reveal my many layers of striped, obnoxiously coloured thermals we pile into the car and plug in the home address into a GPS. Now folks this isn't your average run of the mill GPS, this thing had plans for us. After re routing us several times to roads that didn't exist we ended up at the bottom of a massive hill on the edge of a farmers field, wondering where the road on the GPS screen was. Lucky for us we had a full tank of gas to get out of there... oh wait. As we drive back up the hill the gas meter dips down a little bit and the gas light comes on... good thing were a solid forty minutes from town. After countless turn arounds, a scolding from following members of the caving group and a beautiful observation of the moon we were looking forward to sleeping under, we made it to a gas station. Sorry folks, still have both my arms and never even had to open my swiss army knife.
Now... there was one day remaining in the week so I had to fill it with some type of excitement. On Monday I saw an advertisement for a half marathon here in Palmerston North, so I did what anyone else would do, and I signed up for it haha. Considering my grueling summer running and training regiment I assumed I would be alright. I mean a solid six runs in the last month, two of which were 11km and the rest about 6km, makes sense to sign up for a 21km race right? Without any real training at all I had signed up for a race I was not quite sure I would be able to finish but who cares. I have been post poning this type of race for so long due to inadequate training time or commitments to other sports but it was finally time to "man-up" and do it. My friend Graeme, also decided that he too would embark on this foolish adventure. So there we were, the day after our caving trip, walking down the hill towards the registration area when we saw the 20km marker, the last marker in the race, and I thought to myself, "holy shit, twenty one kilometers of running". The night before a few of our friends were asking us where we saw ourselves finishing, what times etc... Jokingly I said that I was going to come across the line at 1hr 17 mins 17 seconds because 17 is my lucky number and I was feeling lucky, even though in reality I was thinking anywhere from 1hr 30mins if I was lucky to 1hr 40mins. Graeme on the other hand was shooting for anything under two hours. He has done a few half marathons and marathons before and judging by the amount of training we had done - none - he, like myself was somewhat morbidly entertained by the thought that we would be heading to the finish line in an ambulance. Getting back to race day... I thought it would be a great idea to show a little Canadian love since I was so far away from home and so I pinned the Canada flag to my shoulders like a cape. Seconds later it began to rain.... and I thought about taking it off so that I would not be weighed down but what the hell, this was gonna be as fun as I wanted to make it and so I left it on. As I walked towards the start line after warmups, Graeme saw me and said "you look like some poor fella who doesn't know he's got a flag pinned to his back" but right then some guy was walking by with what looked like a sleeve on his head with flames on it and stupid shirt to match with a heart rate monitor underneath, and overly tight shorts, and so I said "at least I don't look like that guy". He was then referred to as "The Flash" and like many over accessorized runners before him, he was passed early on in the race.
Gunshot.
Off we went, Graeme and I were at the very back of the pack so it took some time to get across the start line but when we did it was game on, weaving in and out of the people running with strollers etc. until we reached an area of the pack that was proving to be a little more competitive. From there on Graeme and I were separated for the rest of the race. I am quite certain that a huge portion of my motivation to run came from the flag on my back because every time I passed someone or even whenever any pedestrians saw me I got a "Ehhhhh Canada! Keep going!!!" and one of the event volunteers even started singing the national anthem as I ran by which got me all kinds of fired up. At the 8km marker there was someone playing the bagpipes which had the same effect on Graeme as he ran by. Around the halfway point of the race I was still moving along great picking off one runner at a time, and there was a water station coming up. A bunch of little eight and nine year old kids were handing out the cups and so I took one and as I started drinking it, the little girl said, "What are you doing with a baby wrap on your head?" referring to my bandana. I had no idea what that meant at the time and almost choked on my water as I laughed and ran away apologizing for not knowing why I had a "baby wrap" on my head. Things went very smooth aside from this and a quick stop at kilometer thirteen to tie my shoe and so I was nearing the end of the race. At kilometer seventeen it started pouring rain but I am quite certain that I could have been shot during kilometer seventeen and been fine because it was number seventeen... As I hit the twenty kilometer mark I thought back to what I had said earlier in the morning and how I had done it, I was going to finish. Not far up the road a couple of girls, Ema from New Brunswick, Canada and Jen from Utah, USA had made signs for us and were out in the rain cheering me on as I ran by. One of the signs said "1:17:17 Go Faster!". As I rounded the final corner I saw the finish line and the straightaway was lined with spectators so I put down the hammer which was most likely a crawl in reality and began to sprint (at least it seemed I was sprinting in my mind). But as I approached the finish at this blistering speed, the race clock was becoming visible one number at a time from behind the spectators, it started with a 1... thank god, then another 1! No way theres a 7 following that!?!?!? But sure enough there it was, 1hr 17 mins and 12 seconds, so I stopped dead in front of the finish line. NO WAY was I going to let this opportunity pass, I waited there in front of the clock for 5 long seconds to pass by. Meanwhile, the announcer is on the loudspeaker saying "SIR PLEASE CROSS THE LINE TO FINISH THE RACE, SIR, YOU ARE NOT FINISHED YET" So I pointed to the clock expecting him to know what I was doing and as the sixteen turned to a seventeen I jumped across the line to the applause and laughter of the crowd and headed to the rest tent. Exhilarated by the fact that I had predicted the future and achieved something so out of the ordinary I quickly asked one of the race organizers, "Do you know what my time was?!?!" to which she replied "yeah you came in around 1hr 27mins 4 secs unofficially, your race chip will give us a more accurate time". I was crushed, in all of my excitement and exhaustion I had looked at the wrong clock... on the right hand side was the clock for one of the other races while on the left (NZ is so backwards) was my time. Oh well, I was sub 1hr 30mins and so I'll take it. It's no seventeen but hey, not bad for six days of training and having never run twenty one kilometers in my life. Graeme came in a little while later in a little more regular fashion, running like a normal person across the finish line... so mainstream. Anyways this was my fifth first of the week, another great one.
That night it snowed making it the sixth first, the first snow I have seen here. What a week. This week coming up should be quite bland seeing as I have some real school work to complete for midterms but do not worry, I am sure something ridiculous will happen to me somewhere along the way. Until then, I hope you all have a great day, and you should probably go out and do something awesome so that it doesn't seem like I am hogging all the fun, not that a half marathon is fun... but you see my point.
Chur,
Brayden
p.s. - I will continue to add more photos as I get them...
*update - placed 14th overall out of about 165 runners with an official time of 1:27:11
http://benegrodotzki.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/nz-adventures-episode-3/
Where's Waldo?
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