Rubbing Shoulders...!

Sunday 18/03/07:

Well Friday's planned run never eventuated - by then I was absolutely full of a head cold and decided it was best to rest up, give myself a few more days to recover before running again and conserve my energy for Friday night! My legs were finally feeling normal again, but my nose and throat were just so sore and gross that it really wasn't worth it... However nothing was going to stop me from going out on Friday night! Four of us were off to the 'Pearl of the Pacific' cocktail party and charity dinner at the Hyatt - which was a fundraiser for Breast Cancer Awareness. The main drawcard was Rachel Hunter and she was also launching her new swimwear range at the same time (yes boys, this meant models, yes they were on a catwalk, and yes, the swimsuits were rather skimpy!) There was also both silent and live auctions and raffles, etc throughout the night to raise funds. Not only that, I was looking forward to letting my hair down a little, celebrating the latest HM and going out on the town with the girls afterwards - its been a while!


Have to say, we had a absolute blast. I taxied in with Amber, because we live fairly close together. She has worked for me off and on in varoius admin roles during her 5 years at university and has just recently finished uni and moved back to Auckland permanently. While we waited for the other two girls to arrive, we went downstairs to the cocktail party. We just happened to be in the 'celebrity area' when Rachel Hunter arrived. There were lots of other NZ celebs, TV personalities and sports stars there as well. Now I am far from a celebrity watcher or follower and it took Amber to point alot of them out to me! It also took the youth and exuberance of Amber to convince me to go up and have a chat to some of them, while alot of other people were standing back and taking photos from a distance or talking about going up to them... If it had been left to me, I would have been having a quiet drink in the corner, trying to work out who the hell most of them were..! Instead...

After the geniune photographers had drifted off, we had a nice little chat with Rachel and she was only too happy to pose for a photo with us. Have to say she was very down to earth and she looked absolutely stunning! While I don't necessarily condone the "supermodel" image, she has certainly done very well for herself overseas and that was even before she married Rockin Rod! She is a successful business woman in her own right and it would seem that her two kids live a relatively 'normal' life considering.

We also chatted with Beatrice Faumuina, Olympic and CWG medalist in the discus and just a lovely person. She was there with her Mum, who was also really sweet. Bea was on the NZ version of Dancing with the Stars last year and was everyones favourite!

And after that it was really nice to stand beside someone who I was actually taller than (just)!!This is Lance O'Sullivan (jockey) and his wife Bridgette and they were also just so friendly and nice. We had great fun rubbing shoulders with the celebs, its just something you don't get to do every day and we certainly made the most of it. At the end of the day, they are just 'people' after all...

The other two girls arrived afterwards, a little late, and were rather bummed that they'd missed out on the excitement! However the meal was divine and TV/radio personality, Kerre Woodham, who was the after dinner speaker was absolutely hilarious.

Of course we had to make sure we drank our fair share of the wine!

Kay, Amber and Louise. Everyone was seated at tables of 10 and if you purchased a table of 10 you also had a 'celebrity' at your table! But as work had purchased just the 4 tickets, we had 6 other dinner guests to get to know.

And this was them! Have to say they were all very good fun and evened up the age gap a little! A couple of them were English and a couple were Kiwis that have just returned to NZ after living in England for some time, so that made for good conversation and at least I knew who a few more of the celebs were than they did! So, there you go Ewen - I hope those photos were sufficient!!

We stayed for a little while after the formal part of the evening came to a close at about 11pm, just to see what the band was like. But when 50-60yr old women started dancing on the catwalk stage, we knew it was time to head off! Several pubs and clubs were then visited around the Viaduct, including a couple of my favourites and way too much alcohol was consumed by all, before finally heading home again in a cab at about 2am!

Apart from dragging myself out of bed to get Courtney to her 10.30am swimming lesson, most of Saturday was spent in bed reading or on the couch. Yes, I was a tad hung-over, but it was also windy and rainy out and a good excuse to laze around taking it easy for a change, nursing my cold and not actually worrying about what I should have been doing instead...

Today I was determined to go for a run - cold or no cold. My legs were begging to be taken out for a trot, even if it was a slow easy one and I just really needed to get out there "mentally"... I hadn't run since Wednesday and it wasn't that I was worried about that, I was just really missing it and getting all tetchy... So after Courtney had headed off with her dad for the day, I went for a trot at 10.30am. It was still extremely windy but the rain held off for a while and I was just glad to be out there. My throat and nose felt really yucky, but apart from that I felt fine throughout the run. Today was not about distance or pace at all, just about being out there, turning the legs over and doing what I love...

Brisk walk warmup: 5mins

Steady paced run: 32.05mins, 6.11km, Max 4.30min/km, Ave 5.15min/km.

Brisk walk cooldown: 5mins

I just felt so much better for it afterwards and I think my nose has been much clearer since too. I will continue to take it easy for a while yet, perhaps running every second day this week, provided my cold doesn't get any worse or get stuck into my chest.

Of course today I had to make up for being so slack yesterday, so it has been a full on day of house-work, grocery shopping, ironing, etc and in the middle of it all I also went to a baby shower for a friend who is expecting her second baby in early May. I even won a prize for being able to guess who was who in the greatest number of baby photos!

In other news, I see Mt Ruapehu (central North Island) is up to its old tricks again! The crater lake that filled up after it last erupted 9-10yrs ago, (I was overseas and missed it!) and has continued to do so ever since, burst this morning and sent a lahar streaming down the mountain. Of course they've had plenty of time to prepare for it and no one appears to have been hurt at all, so its all pretty spectacular stuff. Least it wasn't mid ski season like usual!