This gun's for hire...

Not so much dancing in the dark, as dining in the dark. In the ongoing run of tin-arse proportions, Anna and I recently won a table for four at the 'Dining in the Dark' evening to be held at one of Auckland's best restaurants Clooney - and selling on TradeMe for over $600. Our tickets arrived as the blindfolds we were due to wear for the dinner and we invited Tom & Rae to join us for what was an awesome night.

We arrived on the night in the midst on NZ celebrity - the usual Auckland exhibition of Shortland Street actors, designers, and newsreaders. Alas, our entrance was not as sought after, as the photographer decided to skip asking us to strike a pose (nor did we make it onto the Close Up feature - see chapter four). Picking up champagne on the way through to our table, we were quickly served up a canape of - raw tuna and cured salmon, topped with a wasabi foam and caviar. Suspicion that we had invited only invited Rae so that we could drink her wine and eat her seafood are unfair, though we took full advantage!

We were then briefed that the lights we about to go out and that we were to don our blindfolds. We were also told that we were to be served up five courses, each accompanied by a different wine - to be told what the dish was after we had finished.

Though we all picked that the first dish served up was seafood, it was Anna who first to pick it was scallops. But none of this picked the foie gras. Though Rae - who had a non-seafood dish - out did us all...claiming that she had a potato risotto, only to be told it was a pear souffle! All accompanied by a Riesling.

Second course was a bit easier, ravioli filled with goats cheese. Though none of us picked the anchovy butter sauce - especially Rae, who supposedly doesn't like seafood. We certainly didn't pick the wine - a Pinot Noir...though as a white Pinot Noir, this wasn't surprising.

Next up was the most unusual dish of the night - it had us all stump. Beef was an early call, though I was putting my money on some kind of kidney or liver - which ended up being kind of close. Though I was well off with my dim sum dumpling call. It turned out to be lobster and veal sweetbreads! With artichoke, white asparagus and hazelnuts. The lobsters was obviously somewhat wasted on us, but it was a good way to introduced to sweetbreads. The easiest part of this course to pick was the wine - a Chardonnay.

Fourth course was pretty amazing. Anna showed off - picking early the venison on cauliflower puree, with cherries and cocoa flakes in a licorice sauce. Well, everything but the licorice. Served with a Pinot Noir - a normal one this time - this course was absolutely delicious.

The last course - a chocolate dish - was a bit easier to pick, especially with Tim Tams Classic Dark being a sponsor of the event. Though none of us picked that it was Sherry and not Port that accompanied it.

Our assumption that each dish would be presented in a form easy to eat blindfolded was very wrong, as each dish was set out on a plate and required deft use of both knife and fork. It was hard not to take a peak now and then to watch others chasing their food around the plate. Rae took nearly 5 minutes to stick it to one bit of asparagus. It also took a while to get used to conversation blind-folded, as you kind of projected your voice at a few decibels than what was probably required. Even going to the toilet required sticking your hand up to be led by the staff - though wisely blindfolds were removed once you got there.

The food overall was simply superb, and if we had paid $150 each to attend, I wouldn't have been disappointed. The experience of eating blind was also very cool. Interesting, rather than heightening the rest of your senses, they actually seemed subdued. I guess meaning that seeing your food is important to the overall taste you get from the food.

MaraSam a MaraSham

For the last 12 weeks I have been training towards the Auckland Marathon. It’s not my first (I ran the Edinburgh Marathon back in 2005, and of course there was a marathon at the end of the NZ Ironman last year), so I was specifically targeting to run a quick time – sub 3hr15mins (that's very quick for a short stocky guy).

Of course, this was done with my typically minimalist training plan – with only four training runs a week, and delaying the sacrifice of not drinking until only the week before the event. Training progressed well though, as I got more and more comfortable with running what is a pretty quick pace – 4min30sec K’s. Though signs were there that perhaps I was just a little too relaxed, when only three days (or what turned out to be four days) before the race, I found out that it was on the Sunday and not the Saturday!

Fortunate, as I wouldn’t have been happy getting up at 4am on two mornings in a row. A damn early start, necessary to get the ferry over to Devonport for the 6:10am start. The pre-race routine was disrupted by my inability to get rid of my previous night’s dinner – something that was to cause problems later on.

Nevertheless the race started in the early phases of dawn, with the first 15km rolling up and down the slopes of the North Shore. Things started well, I felt strong and was setting a good pace. Perhaps too good, as I was consistent running K splits under the required pace. But I felt good, so I wasn’t concerned at the time. Conditions were good for the run over the Harbour Bridge as I ran past Anna on the other side, who also thought I looked really good. Arriving at the half way mark, I had run a 1hr34min Half Marathon, still feeling really good and with plenty of time to spare.

However, it was from here that things started to go wrong. The next 10kms involved the run out to the turnaround point at St Helliers. It was over this 10kms that some of my splits just started to creep up and I felt I was losing my ability to manage this. Also, last night’s dinner was also beginning to make me a little uncomfortable. Perhaps I should have stopped earlier, but focusing on the time, I didn’t want a toilet break to cost me. Coming up to the turnaround, I knew something was seriously not right – both my energy and strength levels were plummeting – as I struggled to even keep my pace within 5min K’s and I was increasingly being overtaken by other runners. Even the usual secret weapon - flat Coke - wasn't helping. So this is what hitting the wall means!

The last 10km suddenly became less a run and more a shuffle – as 5min30sec K’s suddenly became the best I could manage. I worked out that going under 3hr15min was quickly disappearing, but was feeling powerless to do anything about it. In fact, I was feeling so bad, just finishing was looking like it was going to be challenge enough. It was also the realisation that I was probably not even going to beat my Edinburgh time of 3hr23mins that I finally took that toilet break with 5km to go – costing me three or four minutes but taking a weight of my shoulders (or more accurately, off my bowels).

A little lighter, but no happier, I slogged out the last 5km to a disappointing time of 3hr27mins. I know, I know – still a very good time, but when you are targeting a sub 3hr15min and your second half of the marathon is nearly half an hour slower than the first – it is somewhat disappointing. So here is me giving it the big thumbs down coming up to the finish.
My demise is pretty evident from the chart of my K split times.
The suddenness from which I went from feeling great to terrible is still what surprises me. Ultimately, I think the time I was targeting required a bit more commitment to training than I was prepared to give. I still had 3 or 4 kg on me than was ideal, and I probably should have been doing at least one more run each week. It wasn’t lost on me that all the runners going past me over the last 10km were a fair bit leaner than I am.

So that might be the end of my marathon career, I think I might just run half marathons from now on. Next up is the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge in four weeks, followed by the Tauranga Half Ironman in January. And then I don’t have to feel bad about drinking and eating my way through the rest of summer…