Hello Painiacs,
 
Fairly sizable update this week so pay attention
 
Extended early-bird date - til this Sunday Jun 27th
You have til midnight Sun June 27th to take advantage of the cheaper entry (if you haven't already).  After promising online entry for a few weeks we know quite a few of you have been waiting for that to materialise before going ahead.  Well, the online form is finally here but it's past June 21st already, hence the extension.  After sunday i'll change the Paypal setup over to the standard entry prices for all you regular and late enterers!
 
Online registration
Yes, after huge help from IT guru Dr Marius, Painathlon has taken another nice step to make entry slightly simpler.
On the top menu you'll see 'REGISTER' (www.painathlon.com/register).  If you pick your event and enter your details, you'll get an email confirmation and we get a nice database ready to go.  If you're in a team, each member (up to 3) must fill out a separate form.
 
Payment
Naturally for full confirmation the payment must be made, so you'll find paypal options and bank transfer details on www.painathlon.com/payment
Once i've received confirmation of your payment from our end (the MSAND treasurer), you'll get a further email to clarify that.
The Paypal link was not working for a little while but we've ironed that update out so you should have no problem now.
 
Note* - If you're organised and already sent/emailed your signed entry form you don't need to register again (unless you really want to try it out!).  You're sorted.

Sunday familiariser - June 27th
The best way to conquer this course is to rep it.  7am on an icy sunday morning at City Beach, carpark north of the surf club, i'll be there to run 1-4 with whoever wants to toughen up!   Shoot an email to painathlon@hotmail.com if you plan to attend.  Will finish at Jacobs ~9am.
 

Current entries update
Good steady flow of entries in.  Half-Painathletes are currently level-pegging with Solo-ists for 2010 entries with an additional 2 teams.  With more than a month to go before close of entries, i'm intrigued to see if the event will grow again this year.
Thanks to those 2009 entrants who've let me know their intention to re-enter, use their bought racetop and save $10.  I've now re-ordered the remaining tops to make up the 200 (100 of solo, 100 of half/team).

Roadwork alert
Thanks to Pete Gill, who has alerted me to extensive roadworks on Great Northern Hwy (en route from challenge 5 to challenge 6 on the full course) that make the 4kms between Barrett and Haddrill a little hairy (if travelling the West Swan Road route on the course description). 
 
There are a number of options around this.  The easiest is to take the first right off Great Northern at Argyle St and then left onto Railway Cres (which joins Haddrill further north). 
Alternatively, you can ignore the West Swan road turnoff and continue up Great Eastern to Toodjay road (via Morrison and the start of great northern hwy)  From Toodjay you can turn directly onto Campersic Road.
 

Perth marathon Painathlete sightings
Some familiar faces in the mix last sunday at the Perth marathon.  Colin Francis scored a 10th placed finish in 2hr 53min, Rhys James 18th in 2hr 18.  Jenni Tibbits came 10th female (102nd overall in 3hrs 25).  Well done the lot of you, it was perfect running weather out there!
 

Poll-athlon
What would be tougher as a Painathlon finish, 10 laps of Jacobs (even steps, slightly longer) or 10 laps of Kokoda trail (uneven steps, slightly shorter)?  Let us know on the front page 'Poll-athlon'
 

Jacobs Ladder
Regardless of the poll results, it will be a dose of Jacobs Ladder again for all you Painiacs.  Kings Park have turned down our request to use Kokoda Trail steps for a number of reasons but as Jacobs has re-opened as of this week, our finish challenge for all categories remains the classic leg-cramper.
 

Familiariser requests
While we'll run pretty standard practice runs through first half (1-5) and second half (5-10), we're absolutely open to requests.
Perhaps you really want a Quadcruncher training session or a guide to the route from Causeway to Kokoka in case Jacobs doesn't come through in time (for the Half-Painathlon).  Given that there is usually limited attendance at familiarisers, it makes sense to cater to those that can make it.
If new to the event I would highly encourage you to either attend a familiariser or do your own run through.  As people have found in previous years, rocking up on the day with no prior course knowledge can cost you big 'time' in back tracking.  Plus you might discover a few handy shortcuts.  Painathlon is open-course between challenges so the better plan you have the more time you'll save. 
 

Volunteers
We are always looking for helpful souls to assist on race-day, so do contact us if you'd like to assist.  Need 40-50 people to make the event the best if can be and we're at 15 so far.
 
Well, hope you're all warming to the task ahead on August 1st.  We're looking forward to it already!

 
Pain'd regards

Jono Hague, Team Pain