Puffing Billy!

No, that is not a reference to how out of shape I am. Instead, Kersti partook in the annual Puffing Billy race, a daunting race against the Puffing Billy train along a gorgeous course through the magnificent Dandenong Ranges.

The Famous Puffing Billy Train at the start of the race

So the race works that you start with the train, run 13.2 km (that's over 8 miles!) and try to beat the train to end of the course. Kersti has joined the track team here, with the intention of competing during the track season which starts in four months. But right now she is running a grand total of 20 minutes a week, so this was what we call her "long run" of the week. Plus, the course was anything but flat, as demonstrated by the next figure which shows distance on the horizontal axis and elevation on the..., oh sorry, that's my teaching taking over again.
So, did my Kersti just jog this course? Hardly! Instead, she ran the course in 61 minutes, which included a two-minute wait for the train to cross her path in the beginning of the race. She handily beat the train by over thirteen minutes! Congratulations to Kersti!