back on the juice

I'll be honest, I did not feel like a beer straight after the race. I was happy to discover I could still walk, albeit with the gait of a geriatric. I staggered around the finishers area, had a couple of drinks of water, a couple of bits of fruit, collected my shirt and medal and toddled off to see if I could find anyone I knew who would either be finishing or maybe waiting to give me a lift back to Jo and Nige's place. This, as it happens, was a bit of a long shot. In a queue of traffic as we approached the race precint earlier, I had suggested to Nige that it would be easiest if I simply hopped out of the car and wander the remianing couple of hundred yards. It made good sense. Planning a spot to meet after the race would also have made good sense. Ah well.

After some waiting and wandering I strolled away from the race precinct chatting to a random family of spactators. I bid them farewall as I walked on ahead of them to...well, I didn't really know where. I wandered aimlessly with the aim of finding a bus stop, which I did eventually after walking alomost all the way back to the race precinct. I convinced myself the walk was doing me good because if I stopped my legs may not start again. Probably true. After a short wait a bus arrived that took me, for free as a runner, to Palm Beach. I nodded off on the bus for a short while and then concentrated on staying awake and not missing my stop. I managed that, disembarked and wandered back to the sis-and-bro-in-laws place. Nige was playing cricket in the street with the boys and Jo was apparently scouring the streets of the Gold Coast looking for me. Oops.

The rest is kinda dull; showered, fed, slept for a while and then headed to North Burleigh Surf Life Saving Club for a couple of medicinal ales as the light faded into a quite incredible sunset.

All in all, not a bad end to a reasonable day.