7. Drinking and diving

While Max was away drinking himself to death in Vegas, I decided to spend some money on something useful. So while he was working out gambling bets (debts?), I was calculating bottom times; he was dancing on the tables, I was studying them; he was staring at the bottom of a glass, I was scanning the bottom of the ocean. And I had more than a hangover to show for my money.

I now have a(nother) scuba diving certification! As it was 11 years ago since I first trained - and I can count the number of dives I've done in the meantime on one hand - I thought it might be a good idea to start from scratch and learn to dive in more challenging conditions. It was a pretty intensive course and by the second day we were diving with sea lions at an island 4.5 hours boat-ride away from LA!

The second weekend Max joined me for my certifying dives and we saw a horn shark (don't worry Mum, it was just a little one!) and a lobster and loads of other animals that I know inside out from working at the aquarium but have never seen in the wild!

I'm not sure about diving in waters of 15C though. There is so much equipment needed when diving anyway - the cold water paraphernalia pretty much doubles the amount of kit you have to carry around, and then wear! To counteract the extra buoyancy provided by the 7mm wetsuit, hood, wetsuit top, booties and gloves, you have to wear a substantial percentage of your body weight in lead just to allow you to get underwater!

'Pah' to all that, I say! Warm waters of Honduras, here we come...

6. Las Vegas - 50% frangelica 50% Jägermeister.

Im getting waaay to old for this sh!t.

Look at the colour of that face!!!
Alex Burt - You're a dead man.

5. Emily's awesome 'biathlon'

After 10 hours sleep last night I can finally drum up the energy to tell you how AWESOME (word used for Max's amusement) my 'biathlon' was!

I was dragged into doing it by my friend Kristin. I was supposed to only do the cycle, with my other friend, Sylvie, doing the run and someone else the swim. But after no one volunteered to do the swim, I consented to do it providing we agreed in advance that the time was NOT important and we were just doing it for fun! I'm not the fastest swimmer, I can't even do front crawl! But Kristin assured me it was only about 200m - easy stuff!

Three days before the big day I found out the swim was half a mile. Bit of a shock. Four times the distance I thought, and in open water, which I'd never done before! (I did rush straight to the pool to check I could actually swim that far without drowning - I could, just.)

Far and away the worst part of the day was getting up at 4.45am (Max exaggerating again with the 4.30 ;-) ). I felt sick and dizzy and tired and scared and resentful and... it didn't help that I had already gone through all these emotions in my disturbed sleep throughout the night!

However the atmosphere at the race start was fantastic. In true American style we'd had to practise our mantras ("I am an excellent swimmer/cyclist/runner") and words of encouragement ("You go girlfriend!") in preparation for the race! They also blasted out a recording of the 'Star-spangled banner', everyone standing gazing misty eyed at the flag at the water's edge. We Brits were smirking cynically - miserable ba*tards!

But tackiness aside, it was quite an awe-inspiring race. It is an all-women event, to raise money for breast cancer. These two factors combined make it a lot less competitive and a lot more supportive than a regular triathlon. The athletes are made up of a wide variety of women of vastly differing abilities - cancer survivors, those who have lost people to cancer, pro athletes and women who are just inspired to challenge themselves by taking part. Kristin assured me from the beginning that I wouldn't feel out of place, but it wasn't until I arrived on the day that I saw what she meant! There were some enormous ladies squeezed into wetsuits standing next to ripped, flat-chested pro triathletes in expensive tri-suits. I immediately felt pretty slim and pretty fit!

Most of my early-morning worries faded just imagining what an enormous challenge this event might be for some of the other participants. Some women had only just learned to swim in order to take part, some were so obese that running must have been practically impossible and some were even missing limbs. I realised I didn't need to worry about my lack of training as the race obviously wasn't about speed and high-performance. The 'winners' of this race were the ones who completed it when they didn't think they could, not those who completed it in the fastest time.

That said, I was pretty chuffed with my and Sylvie's results! We came 1st in the 'friends relay' section and our overall position was in the top half. We really didn't 'train' or participate competitively - the results were a bonus! Now I realise that if I'd just increased my swim time by 2 minutes and my cycle by 5 then our position would have been quite a lot higher!! Obviously, my competitive streak is now ignited and next year I'll be doing it by myself and pushing the fatties out of the way!

We've just worked out that if you want to leave a comment you can either check the 'anonymous' box - make sure you leave your name within the comment - or check 'other' and then just put your name (ie emilywalling) in the 'name' box (you don't need to put a web page). We want comments!!!

4. Emily's Triathlon

Max reporting here on the Danskin 2006 Women's Triathlon.

Emily finished her two stages (0.5 mile swim and 13 mile cycle) in great time today, with her team mate Sylvie doing the final stage (3.1 mile run).

Em will be adding a few comments later on, she's currently laid out on the sofa!

It was a great day, even if it did start at 4:30am - ouch!

Out of 619 athletes the girls came 274th, very respectable, especially for that time of the morning!

Here are their times:

Overall Rank = 274 of 619
Class Rank = 1 of 9
Swim = 00:22:51
Swim Rank = 314
Transistion 1 = 00:04:58
Bike = 01:00:55
Bike Rank = 343
Transition 2 = 00:00:53
Run = 00:32:04
Run Rank = 220
Final = 02:01:43

and a few pictures below (sorry if some are a bit blurry - they were taken in a flurry of excitement!):

Em and Sylvie (with Em's bike set up in the background) trying to smile at 5.30am

Em about to get in the water (nice hat!)

...and they're off!

Swim finish - very wobbly legs!


Lance Armstrong, eat yer heart out!


One 6.5 mile lap down, one more to go!






Transition area: "...now where did I leave my bag??" (below left)








Sylvie finishing her run - "you go girlfriend!"

Triathletes unite!