that was the week that was

OK, a quick bridging post from Burleigh Heads where I am holed up in a very nice AirBnB with a couple of close friends and their youngest daughter. Tomorrow Dave and I will head off to run the Gold Coast marathon, both woefully undertrained and unready for it. Ho hum. For my part the problem has been a lingering cold that robbed me of my last long run before the holiday in Bali and is still, well, lingering. So I didn't do my last long run and I've not run since May.

And that is a bit of a bugger because after an under-par performance in Berlin last year I was hoping to have another crack at a sub-3hr up on here on what is an extremely flat and usually quite fast Gold Coast course. And despite where I am, there is still a bit of me that thinks I may head off on the 3hr bus at 07:20am tomorrow morning, daft though that is.

Then there is the other bit that says nah, fuckit, just get through it. You've not got a PB in you so don't kill yourself out there. That bit go the upper hand at lunchtime when, to wash down my massive spag bol at the Burgleigh Heads Surf Club, I had a Little Creatures Pale Ale. And I may have shared a small sour with Dave just before dinner. Yeah, 2018 is not a PB year.

Anyway, the weather up here in Queensland is quite glorious. I'm not a big fan of the Goldie, but in Winter it can be lovely. The water looks cracking, it is in the low 20s without humidity and not a breath of wind. Last night I stayed with Sal's sis and family in Palm Beach and I slept like a baby, which was nice. I head breakfast by the beach at Avvia with Sal's eldest sister and we were joined by another friend who lent me the book Brain Training for Runners. To make the trade fair I told her about the Barkley Marathons documentary The Race that Eats its Young. Exchange is no robbery.

Anyway, as I continue to work backwards, I flew up to the Goldie yesterday so I'd have today as a nice bimbly chilled day before the race and because I fancied picking up my race number on Friday rather than Saturday when I figured the expo would be chaotic. I'm not a fan of the race expo wiht its Ikea-esque one-way snaking path from bib collection to exit. I don't need to buy any new kit, or magazines, or nutrition, or anything else, just get me outta here!

A post shared by Kevin Foreman (@auswomble) on Jun 28, 2018 at 10:04pm PDT

I hadn't taken the full day off work (though after the week I had I do feel like taking the rest of my life off work, maybe more on that later) and popped into the Manly office for a couple of hours before the ferry, train, plane, bus travel to the Gold Coast Convention Centre then final bus to Palm Beach. Sounds like quite a hike, but was pretty simple. Not much of interest from the trip; of course coming over the Harbour on the Manly Ferry was lovely, I feel the business class (and seat 1A) trip up was a bit of a waste as I had not abandoned all hope of a PB yesterday so didn't have a drink - more fool me. I think if I squint a bit I can see the office in that second instagram picture...

Right, I think that will do for now. If I go back any further this will descend quickly into a rant about how shite work was in I don't feel like recalling that right now.

Maybe later. OK, race eve sleep time.