First Day in Perth

The trip was long.  4 hrs to LA, 15 hrs to Sydney, 5 1/2 hrs to Perth... more than 24 hrs in the air.  In all the flights, surprisingly, I never left my seat, never went to the mens room.  Was fairly comfortable on the long flight except for quite a bit of turbulence that shook the cabin side to side.  I had an empty seat next to me which helped a lot.

Indian Ocean

Perth is beautiful.  Like FL in winter. Palm trees, gold sand beaches, beach view from my hotel.  I took a brief nap and took this photo at the beach just steps from my hotel.  I have a sunset view but tonight, it was obscured by a distant shower.  It's very windy here.  Today's 100m had a tail wind and next week's 200m will likely have a tail wind.

After getting through the initial awkwardness of driving a car with the wheel on the right, on the left side of the road, made even more challenging by many traffic circles and confusing GPS directions, I went right to the stadium.

Facilities looked good, great track, big crowd, nice scoreboard w/ large video screen.   Not quite the gravitas of France last year ... with all the choreographed music introducing the races, the 2 languages, etc...   The announcer here is a bit low key by comparison, and it's all in English.  

I watched Don's medal ceremony for the M55 100m.  He won in 11.82, Aussie silver was also under 12, and the tall Belgian took the bronze in 12.1.  Including the semis, 4 guys who will also run the 200m, ran in the 12.1's or better, 6 under 12.26 ... way faster than the field in France last year.

The 200m is going to tough this year.  I think it will take a near PR - mid 24's for me to get into the medals.   I'm staying up this evening so I'm tired and can go to bed at a normal time for me, which is about 11 or 12.   My foot is sore from walking around today so tomorrow, I'll just stretch and rest.  Tempted to go to the stadium as it is open for off day training, but it's going to a be a long 'tournament' and I'll probably just stretch and rest.  Forecast calls for good but windy weather all week except by Saturday, heat may be a factor in the 400m finals.

Don wins gold in the 100m - M55 100m medal ceremony