A busy few days with a medal for us both!

Thursday - track night

I arrived at track in time for a short warm up before heading for the 800m 4 person walk relay - something a little different!  It was a good warm up for the 10,000m event and actually quite hard work! I ran a couple of km inbetween races and decided, as I needed extra kilometres anyway, to run in the 10,000m race. It was not necessarily a wise decision because I am not really race ready and running 25 laps of a 400m track is not very exciting. However, there were about 26 competitors and Val lap scored for me and Caroline. I was almost last, lucky that Lachie entered and I came in well ahead of him. Caroline took off in the second half and was a minute faster than me. My legs felt a bit tired from yesterday's 18km but I knew I wasn't fresh. I just had to use it as a training run therefore it was a very pleasant surprise to receive a gold medal for my age group (being the only W60 entrant - tee hee) as it was the championship race. Caroline won the W65 age group - yay, how exciting! 

Total distance for night: 12km

Glowing with a gold medal in W60  for 10,000m on track

On Friday Mr B and I drove to Nowra to stay the night as Mr B competed in the sprint triathlon next morning at Huskisson. That evening we shared a lovely meal at a Thai restaurant with our great friends from Goulburn and Canberra who were also competing. That night it rained and rained and we felt a bit dubious about the weather for the event. We need not have worried. Saturday was lovely - no sign of rain, some cloud cover to start and lots of sunshine later. In fact by the time the run had started it was very hot. Mr B had a good race and it was very exciting when he achieved a gold medal for his age group out of 8 finishers. Fortunately Bob was competing the next morning in the long distance tri so he did not have him for competition. 

Mr B wins gold in Huskisson sprint triathlon

After the event I managed to fit in a short run before returning to Canberra. It was already after 1pm and the sun was extremely hot by this stage. I just ran along the run route of the triathlon with some extra kilometres added.

Total distance: 8km

Sunday - long run

This morning I met Richard at the ferry terminal and he cycled beside me as I ran round the West Basin of the lake. We included the museum and Black Mountain peninsula to increase the distance. Margaret met us just after we reached the yacht club and cycled with me for the remainder of my run when Richard had to leave. We then headed for the East basin and through Kingston and round the wetlands before heading back to the ferry terminal. It was a great morning for a run, some cloud cover but very warm as the clouds lifted and the sun shone through.

Total distance: 32km

Time taken: 3hr 30mins

Average pace per km: 6:36

Calories burned: 1774

Total distance for week: 91km

I pulled off my shoes and socks after the run and stood knee deep in the cool lake water - not quite like the sea water yesterday but it felt very refreshing and soothing anyway. Next we walked over the bridge and enjoyed pancakes and great coffee at Urban Foods.

I was just about to back my car out from the carpark later when Marg pointed out that my front tyre looked very flat. Sure enough I had a puncture. I found the appropriate tools and temporary spare in the boot and rang Dave to rescue me. In the meantime we tried to lever those wheel nuts off - good grief, even with extra leverage they would not budge. I even tried jumping on the brace, no movement, and as for the jack, it just would not sit properly where it was supposed to. After some time a lovely grandad came to help. He offered to show me an easy way to loosen those wheel nuts. He jumped on the spanner brace and they moved immediately. Nothing happened when I did that! With his family urging him on the job was nearly done by the time Mr B arrived! Now I have to drive very slowly on a temporary tyre until we buy new front tyres, which are obviously well overdue!

My knight in shining armour has just arrived to show me how it's done!