The weekend started out alright on Saturday and then sort of hit a flat spot there on Sunday…

Saturday Morning instead of testing products I was the product…or subject of the testing. I took part in a study looking at trained athletes and there arterial response to mental stress compared to the rest of the population. It sounded interesting and I think the result were quite interesting but it consisted of lying down, relaxing, getting stressed out with maths and then more relaxing…so about 2 hours of lying down looking at the ceiling! Strangely enough it was actually not to bad and I felt quite relaxed afterwards!

In the afternoon I headed out to Rawhiti domain to run the cross country race there. 6 laps and 9km of pain around a circuit consisting of about 50% grass and the rest was through some tough sand dunes and forest. The Senior men started along side the Juniors and the Masters so the first lap was anything but cruisy. Still I managed to wriggle my way into the front and lead through most of the first lap. Once we began the second I was quickly passed and left sitting in 3rd place. I played cat and mouse with the first two runners, but eventually they began to pull away on the fourth lap. The next two laps were pure death…but I survived just and finished in 3rd about 10 sec behind 2nd and 30s behind 1st. felt a bit light headed at the finish, and quickly had to sit down. Once I was a bit recovered I focused on warming down properly which I think was successful as on Sunday I felt much better for it.

I had big plans for Sunday, a run in the hills in the morning and then training out at Leithfield in the afternoon….however when I went to get in my car I discovered it was no longer where I had parked it overnight… Luckily I was able to be rescued and we still managed to fit in a run after the Police and Insurance were dealt with. I was really awesome weather for running and really good to be out in the hills away from the crap down on the flat!

Unfortunately not having a car ruined my plans for training in the afternoon…but anyway the Police have now found my Car so I guess that’s a good thing?