Sunday, August 18, 2013

Cairns - Great Barrier Reef Masters Games

It was not a great start to the day.  My boarding pass was misprinted and I ended up missing my flight, cost me $100 to change my flight to the later night flight.  Arriving into Cairns at 8pm - Robyn and I rented a car and headed off to find our accommodation.

Our first race was at 9am on Saturday - 5000m.  It was so humid and this was going to make it a challenging walk.  There was only two women and 5 men.  We all lined up and headed out.  It took me a couple of laps to get into the swing of it but I kept my pace steady for the whole 5000m to finish in 28:04  After we had finished the CH9 news guy arrived and we joked with him that he had missed the best race.....so he got me out on the track and filmed me walking and then interviewed me.  It was to play on the local TV this week so I wont get to see it.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the track and then we headed out for dinner that night.  We were all tired so didnt stay out late, just headed back home.

Sunday was a morning at the track for Robyn and I went and hung out at the car show in the grounds next to us.  We then spent an hour walking around the markets around the lagoon.  It is really pretty there.  We headed back to the track for our last race which was at 3pm and was the 3000m.  I was feeling fantastic for this race.  We all lined up and I set off at a great pace and kept it up the whole 7.5 laps.  Finishing in 16:26 which is my best Australian time for 3000m.

While my trip didnt pan out the way I had hoped, I have come away a stronger person.  I have closed the door to a part of my life that needed to be closed.

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