running as panacaea?

I had a lovely night last night at the Striders awards dinner where there were some excellent awards for some well know coolrunner/striders. Good work to everyone who won and it was nice to see so many familiar faces. It was also really cool to hear Kerryn McCann speak and also to give a commentary on the last kilometre or so the Commonwealth Games 2006 marathon in Melbourne which many of us remember. I remember it as the first time I had watched a running race with the interest of a runner. I had tears in my eyes that day and was jumping around like a lunatic. So it was very cool to hear from kerryn's perspective!

Then I thought that it was a great idea to head out for some drinking and dancing. It definitely was, but when the alarm went off at an obscene hour of the morning, and in fact 2 hrs and 45 mins after I went to bed, it was not very pleasant. I nearly stayed in bed and I could have but something just dragged me out. I think it was catching up with Lulu and the fact that it is always a really enjoyable morning of running. Lulu didn't end up coming but it was still gorgeous out there.

I really surprised myself with my run. I went out at the 32 minute mark as I wasn't sure how I'd hold up or whether I would need a pit stop. In the end I felt pretty comfortable and stuck at 5.20ish pace which bought me home in 26.57. If you'd told me that I could (reasonably) comfortably do 5 k in that time a year ago I would have thought you were nuts. Now it turns out that is simply the case.

A few highlights of the day included seeing Gnome looking so strong in his first hard hit out back from injury, meeting MissZ and having a good chat on the run back, breakfast with the crew and delicious avocado and mushroom on toast. Mmmm.

All up 10k with first 5k in 26.57 and second just under 5k in 30.13.

Any I think that running is now officially a good hangover cure because I feel great now! Although I suspect that it is all a matter of degree...

EDIT - thanks to Lulu the list of performance related fundraising measures is increasing! Like I don't have enough KPI's at work!!!! The latest is a km related donation for Gold Coast with a double-up if I do sub 2hrs....