Greetings from Noosa! Unfortunately this year didn’t go to plan in the He Runs, I Cook family. Not only did we miss out on a Melbourne Cup booking at our favourite Bistro C but The Runner had an awful race- and by awful I mean didn’t finish. In fact, for the first time ever, I never even saw him race!

I somehow missed him coming out of the water by a matter of seconds- literally I must have blinked and missed him. I was waiting with Mrs H and her daughter because we had a few friends competing this year and we saw nearly all of them come out of the water in varying states of exhaustion. While we were waiting I had a missed call from a number I didn’t know but didn’t think twice and kept watching the race. We moved to watch the bike leg in my usual Noosa spot- by the roundabout at first! We even had our photo snapped in the process by the local paper! As time went on and on and on, I started to get a bit worried. The Runner’s progress wasn’t updating on the Subaru Athlete Tracker and we were starting to calculate that based on his swim he definitely should have come past by then. And then I remembered the call and froze.

I’m his emergency contact of course and slowly it all fell into place. I checked my voicemail and yes, you guessed it. It was The Runner calling from the medical tent. He had a crash about 50 meters into the bike leg and had to pull out of the race. I raced to the medical tent fearing the worst. There he was lying on a cot with blood pouring out of his face, thankfully nothing broken but pretty bruised nonetheless. Being a pillar of strength that I am, I immediately burst into tears when I saw him. Partly out of relief, partly out of fear of what had happened. He was more pissed off that he couldn’t compete because after falling off the bike and onto his face, he had wanted to keep racing. Ummmm, yeah you read that right. With blood pouring from his cheek, his first impulse was to get back on the bike and finish. Thankfully, the race officials said no- he had cracked his helmet in the fall so couldn’t continue. He also managed to destroy his sunglasses and twist his bike.

Although disappointed, he also realises how lucky he was not to break anything or have a more serious injury. I’m also relieved that the wedding is still 9 months away. He looks like he’s been in a bar fight at the moment but the doctor said there shouldn’t be any scarring. Personally, I would like to ban him from cycling but I know that probably won’t happen– he’s already talking about ordering a new helmet.

So that was our race this year- eventful but not in a good way. At least we’ve been enjoying the rest of the best of Noosa and having a great time with friends.