Running trails, dinner and an accident

Hi everyone,

 

Sorry it's taken me a while to get to writing another post.

 

It's been a good spell since the last post.  After work wrapped up yesterday I went out for a run in the greater metropolitan Tatura.  I was a little pressed for time, so I just headed out for 35 minutes to pre-emptively burn some calories ahead of a farewell dinner for two SES officers who are going non-operational.

 

 

I headed out to the town limits and then doubled back through Cussen Park.  I got a bit lost in the park and eventually needed to get my bearings from Tatura's only multi-story building (the butter factory).  The weather was good - setting sun and cool air - and I felt great.  I had to laugh when, while I was lost in the Park, my iPod started playing Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere".  It may have been set to random, but apparently that setting includes a sense of humour!

 

 

I had a shower at work and put on some civvies, before heading up to the golf club for the dinner.  It was great to see these friends in a non-training context, and the food was great.  I had the beer-battered barramundi and chips, which was done to perfection: not heavy or greasy, and went well with wine.

 

Today got off to a startling beginning with my pager going off for a Category One job - a person trapped in a road accident at Kyabram.  The accident was an hour and twenty minutes from me, and I'm at best half an hour from the LHQ, so I had no chance of being there in enough time to be a help.  I had to message in 'not attending', but I felt pretty bad about that for most of the day.  The accident was a fatality, and I felt like I'd piked it and let the side down.

 

Today at least I had some actual work to do by helping one of my colleagues who's just back from leave.  It was a beautiful day and for lunch I went outside and read and ate a couple of small tins of fish.

 

 

The best bit of the day came after work when I ducked down to Murchison to try out the recently built rail-trail down there, that covers the route of the old Murchison to Rushworth railway.

 

 

I can't speak highly enough of it as a place to run.  It's almost dead flat and very straight.  It's finely gravelled which reduces the impact on your knees and ankles, which lends itself to speed.

 

 

There's some pleasant variation in the way it crosses one road and a couple of irrigation channels.

 

 

I smashed out 12 kms in a little over an hour before heading home.  I think the full route from one town to the other is about 20 kms, which would make a good use of a Saturday afternoon, especially as both towns have some good pubs and coffee shops for post-run refreshment!

 

The weekend will give me a chance to burn off excess energy from today (run notwithstanding, I still had too many calories today): we'll be setting up some temporary cattle yards and drafting in some steers. Just keep working.

 

No more for now.  I hope you're all doing great!