Driving the Clem7

I along with oh perhaps half of Brisbane drove through the Clem7 tonight.
It's open!!! 241/365

Few things to note about the opening. The radio stations were reporting that all four entrances were open…. No only the northbound entrances opened at 22:00, the southbound entrance is not opening till roughly 00:00. They also closed the ICB south/west bound as it shares the same entrance to the Clem7 southbound, there was no signage that I saw and nothing on the radio about that been closed. This resulted in a build up of cars on Lutwyche Rd mainly wanting to head south on the Clem7. As the build up continued a cop walked amongst the cars and advised us to head to one of the southern entrances … Off to the Shafstone Ave entrance I went πŸ˜€

And I went for a drive!!! My lights and radio were on. I was sort of hoping they would do a broadcast over the radios but no… It was quite dusty and sort of foggy in the tunnel, will be interesting to see if that diminishes in the next few days.

Oh Clem7, I don’t think that I will get much use out of you currently living at Auchenflower to head to the eastern or southern suburbs/Gold Coast as I don’t think the times will be that much different to using the Riverside Expressway. I will however in the next month or so when it is free do some experiments to see the times…

Oh Clem7, I’m so happy you are open. Yay for infrastructure!

Clem7 completed

Well I did it.
Finished and at home, 229/365

10 and a bit km in 1:27:04.9. At the end of the race I wasn’t happy with my time as I did the Bridge to Brisbane in 2008 in 1:24:16. Talking to people after the race and comparing times when they released this afternoon I feel better about my time. Still I want to my next 10km in under 1:20:00.

Leading up to the event, my #1 concern was the humidity in the tunnel. Turns out that concern was very well founded. It was an absolute stinker in the tunnel, the fans are quite spaced out and they were operating at different speeds. It was an absolute relief passing under some of them and no relief passing under others. This is what it says on the Clem7 website.

Will it be humid or uncomfortable in the tunnel?
Conditions inside the tunnel are dependent on conditions outside the tunnel. There are a number of jet fans inside the tunnel which will be operating to keep air flowing through the race.

Yeah the tunnel is designed for motor vehicle traffic typically with aircon not 5000 people completing a 10km!

These are the time comparisons I mentioned before. Quite interesting to see, would be cool to do a bigger comparison but it is a slow task.

Name_______________Clem7 2010_____Bridge to Brisbane 2009
HINTSA MEBRAHTU_____00:32:56.2 _____00:31:25
PATRICK NISPEL________00:37:19.7_____00:32:25
KEITH WILLIAMS_______00:36:49.8_____00:34:50
DENNIS FITZGERALD____00:36:35.2_____00:34:52
MASAYUKI ATSUMI_____00:36:40.0_____00:34:58
ROB GARDNER_________00:39:15.2_____00:35:57
MATTHEW BOURKE_____00:38:30.4_____00:36:04
TONY SHAW__________00:42:45.8_____00:36:13
JOHN TUCKER_________00:40:04.3_____00:36:30

My time also might have been a little quicker if I didn’t take photos (I only took one photo doing the Bridge to Brisbane) but we have to have photos!

Waiting for 6am to come around, isn’t the dawn light glorious?
Waiting

And we are off
and we are off

Halfway point
the turnaround

Ohh shiny!
ohh shiney!

To those who sponsored me a really big thank you!

Till next time πŸ˜€

Clem7 Fun Run

In 9hrs time I will be a few minutes into the Clem7 10km! Excited just slightly but also a little bit nervous!

This is not your ordinary 10km run, it’s in a tunnel! I’m going to be jogging under the Brisbane River! How cool is that?

Whilst the fun run is been held to celebrate the community opening of the Clem7 tunnel, it is also been used as a fund raiser for the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Since it is a fund raiser, I would of course dearly appreciate any donations. If you wish to support the cause, you can head over to my fund raising page.

I’ll be back tomorrow, most likely slightly exhausted!

And because there is always something else, have you seen the Tsunami Warning that is out for SE QLD tomorrow? Far Out Brussel Sprout!