Leaving no margin for error is a sure way to trigger Murphy's Law.
Elaine was still overseas and I had Sunday free, so I planned a motorbike ride to Lorne with a couple of guys from work. Then during the week, head coach Clint asked me to take a Sunday training session. I chose to make it a run session starting from the Clubrooms, as I could ride there on my motorbike, shower after the run and then join the guys for the ride to Lorne. This would save a lot of time by not having to go back home after the session.
On Sunday morning I needed to leave home around 6:50am to unlock the gate and have the clubrooms open and ready for the session starting at 7:30am. I was pretty organised, breakfast had been cooked and eaten, running gear was packed and I was dressed in my motorbike gear ready to go. It had been an important stage in the Tour de France the night before (which I'd recorded), so I thought I'd have a quick watch. Through a combination of fast forward and jumping I was quickly getting through the 3 hours of recording. Then I came across an exciting part and switched the playback to normal speed so I wouldn't miss anything. Obviously this ate up a fair bit of time, and before I realised, it was already 6:50am and I was still sitting on the couch.
I still had time, I simply wasn't leaving quite as early as intended. I raced downstairs, starting warming up the motorbike and opened the garage door so I could move the bike out into the driveway.
As soon as the garage door started to open, the neighbours cat darted in under the gap and shot through into the house. Our neighbour has two cats and they love to explore our house, but usually aren't wandering around this early. We usually see the cats mid morning or lunchtime on the weekends when they seem quite relaxed. My previous experience has found them to be extra frisky first thing in the morning. I raced in after the cat and as soon as he saw me, he flew up the stairs. Of the two cats, this is the less approachable one. Neither cats are in the slightest way vicious or dangerous, this cat simply likes to avoid human contact.
Taking stock of the situation, I closed all the downstairs doors as this would limit his downstairs hiding options. Once upstairs I found him hiding under the kitchen table. As I moved around he sped past and into the bedroom - Damn ! I should have closed the door when I had the chance. I found him hiding under the bed, after a little coaxing I got him back into the Family Room. But this just led to a Benny Hill like chase around the couch.
It took a while, and a lot of frustation on my behalf, but I finally maneovered him downstairs. Of course a cat flies downstairs much quicker than me, so by the time I got there he was out of sight. I had left the front door wide open in the hope he would run straight out, but I when I looked outside I couldn't see him. This meant I needed to do another thorough search of the house to make sure he hadn't found a new hiding spot.
By the time I finally headed off it was 7:05am (15 minutes late). Luckily I experienced a good run to Sandringham and arrived at the Clubrooms at 7:28am, not a disaster, but still meant I was very rushed - far from an ideal situation.
I ran 10.5km along the Bayside coastal track and then did a 380km motorbike ride to Lorne and back. The Weather was good for the run, but cold, windy and wet for the ride. Below is the Strava details for the run, although I suspect a map of the cat chase would have been more interesting.
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