Interesting weekend

I had a very strange weekend.  Highs, lows, pain and fun...

But for now I'll concentrate on the good side, with a little pain thrown in for good measure.

I managed to complete my 5km run in a respectable 23:58 minutes, placing me in the top 10% at 53rd out of 625.  But still not the fastest of my team, bah.  It was really hard running with blazing sun and high temperatures (it was the first decent day of the year over here) and in Hilversum there are...  Hills.  That's not how it got it's name though - that's just coincidence.  In Holland that's a little of a rarity, and where I train there is nothing like the hills that are here.  Aiming for a BPM of 170(ish), I actually managed 177 average overall.

About 200m from the end someone from my team came past me, I got a little competitive and decided that I wasn't going to come second without a fight and put on a spurt to keep up.  Then with 150m left I decided to finish on a sprint (198bpm), got a mention from the comentator that I looked like I could do a second lap (no I couldn't), and crossed the line just as I was getting dizzy and nauseous.  For the next 5 mins I could hardly control my movements or stand and just wanted to vommit.  Now I am just in muscle pain :)

But it was a nice run (until the end), I did finish before my team mate, but as he crossed the start line 30 secondsbefore me he beat my.  Never mind, next year :)

A special mention to a couple of colleagues though.  We have someone in the office who is quite blind (he walks with a white stick).  And another who is a fitness freak.  The second gave up his chance of a good time in the 10km (he would be top 10 easily), and the first trained hard and managed an extremely respectable 29:53 for the 5km.  Well done to them both!

And finally...  Another call with my folks, another reason for me to smile.  They have been for a weekend away, and wanted to know how my run went so I gave them a call last night.  Dressed, Mrs Stace had done my eyes so for once I didn't look like a freak - and got good pointers for next time!  We had a good chat and at the end I asked what they were planning to spend on my birthday.  And would they mind buying me an epilator.  And the good news is that they have no issues with it at all, and I ended up have a chat with my mum about the annoyance of shaving legs.  And it felt natural, unforced, and much more like a mother / daughter conversation than a mother son conversation, esp with me dressed at the time (though my mum didn't know that).  It was really great and the first time for a while that I have felt like 'me' for the whole evening.