City to Surf

Metro runners after the City to Surf

Leanne Lee, Joseph Ting, Alison Chua

A beautiful sunny day in Canberra today; but the sun didn't quite make it to Sydney for the 84,000 strong field in the annual Sydney City to Surf. Nice looking conditions all the same. Many friends ran and I shall dig out their times in due course.

Jogalong 7 August
A few speedygeese ran in this month's women's 6k jogalong
Michelle Wells     25:08
Nadine Morrison 28:02
Cathy Montalto     33:57

Letter 2 from Maria and Peter.

Hi all

Since we last emailed we have flown from SF to Toronto and are now in NY.  We both really enjoyed SF and stayed in a very good location away from the hustle and bustle of Union Sq but within walking distance of lots of interesting places provided you don't mind hills! Before we left SF we went to a jazz bar to catch some live music with a very good singer.  He introduced us to his wife who was from Oz, she had a sister that lived in Cook in Canberra near where I lived and whose family had immigrated to Oz on the same boat as my family. Small world! In Sf our regular run was down towards Fisherman's Wharf, along the water front past Alcatraz and up and over the Golden Gate bridge and back.  A distance of about 18K in total. We also did a bike ride out over the bridge to Sausalito and Tiburon then caught the ferry back across the bay.  Before we left SF we met up with Kathy (now the 4x400m W60 world masters record holder) and Geoff (an exceptional athlete himself and now spouse of the 4x400m W60 world record holder) and enjoyable dinner. 

In Toronto we stayed with my cousin Eugene and his wife Rosanna and daughter Rosin, pronounced Rochine- Gaelic for Rose!  It was good to catch up with them and to move out of the tourist zone and into suburbia in a new town.  The first thing that surprised us was Toronto was hot and humid.  Not what we were expecting.  Secondly, Eugene was kind enough to drive us down to see Niagara Falls before taking us to a BBQ put on by Rosanna's cousin and we were entertained with good food, wine and company. Toronto was also a time to adjust to yet another earlier time zone (3 hours ahead of SF) and running in the heat (30 degrees +) and humidity.  Still it was very nice running down to and along lake Ontario. 

Monday we arriver in NY and immediately commenced getting familiar with Manhattan.  For those google map inclined we are staying on 58 East St between 2nd and 3rd Ave not far from Central Park.  This is in easy walking distance to a number of sights including museums, galleries  and Time Sq.The first few days here we have been exploring the various parts of Manhattan - uptown, down town and took the ferry to Staten island to get a good look at ms liberty.  Yesterday we did our first run – in Central park of course and  last night we went to our first Broadway production - Avenue Q – the first of a few we intend to see.  Neither of us were familiar with it before hand but while lining up to get cancellation tickets to the Book of Mormon (which is sold out months in advance) we got talking to some people from NY who recommended it.  So we bought tickets and thoroughly enjoyed it.  

Tis hot and sticky here and almost like a sauna especially down in the subway- by far the most efficient way of getting around this dense and frenetically busy place. I rang another irish cousin today who we have never met before as my dad's older brother moved to NY  about the same time my family came to Australia. We hope to meet up with Gerard next Wednesday. And of course … I hit the shops for the 1st time today- pretty good for me a many of you know  what I'm like!! Poor Peter! Anyway must be off- we hope all is well with all of you, need to reenergise as peter plans a bike trip for me in the next couple of days to ride around Manhattan Is.

PS – Did you know that Maria can navigate around by remembering the location of where stores and sales are and it is extremely more reliable than her sense of direction! The things you learn.

Maria & Peter