A week of Late Nights, a Spaceship and a Robbery

This week was a bit of a hectic week as it's Financial year end for our business at the end of June and getting everything done and still trying to trade as usual can be a challenge.

On Monday I heard on the radio that some spaceship will be visible to South Africans between 6:25 and 6:29 during the evening. I arrived back from work just after six and told Kim about it. We stood outside and was looking up in the sky like two people that's not all right up there.

I think the neighbors thought we have taken some narcotics, or maybe they thought we need to look down if we are searching for something, not up in the sky.

Lucky for us it is winter and it was already dark outside. Then just out of nowhere this bright star appeared from the sky and was moving very fast across the sky over our house. It didn't rise from the horizon or disappeared over the horizon. It just appeared out of nowhere and after three or so minutes it just disappeared in front of our eyes.

It was such an amazing thing to see.

Added later: Maybe my description in English wasn't exactly how I wanted to say it. It was actually the International Space Station (ISS) that passed over and not a Spaceship. After reading my post and the comment by Bryan I realized Spaceship sounds a bit ET like.

With all the World Cup soccer I am really losing out on sleep. The games during the evening starts at 8:30pm and finish at about 10:15. That is way past my bed time and I either fall asleep during the post match interviews or I miss a minute or two during the second half.

But it is just so amazing to watch all these games especially now that we are entering the last 16 stage. It is almost time tonight for USA vs Ghana. I am supporting Germany during the world cup but tonight I will support the USA.

I am even wearing my USA triathlon track suit which I swopped during World Duathlon Championship in 2007 when it was held in Hungary with some guy after the event at the post race party. I can't remember the guys name but he left his airline boarding ticket inside one of the pockets. I did put the ticket somewhere, must just have a look.

On Thursday one of my sales guys went to the bank to withdraw some money from his account and it was a big amount. As he came out of the bank some lady distracted him by asking him for the time and before he knew it they shoved him in a car and drove off, just like movies.

The bank is in the same street not far from out dealership. They were three and drove with him to an abandoned area and robbed him of his money and all his personal stuff, even his glasses. After the whole incident he got some help and the people brought him back to the dealership.

I was really shocked at this whole incident as the man is in his 60's and the way they treated and threatened him was really shocking. They threatened him all the time to slit his throat while they were busy robbing him.

I was really shocked and the whole Thursday night I was just thinking about this whole episode. Even during my training I could only think about it.

Friday during the day I went with him and a police inspector to the scene and I must say I would have either collapsed or pissed myself if it was me. The area where they took him was next to a railway track and they walked with him into the veld for more than 200 meters before they tied his hands and feet together and forced him down on the ground before they robbed him.

He also admit that when they forced him so deep into the veld he thought they were going to kill him. After we finished with the inspector at the scene we stopped by the lady at the shop which helped him get back to the dealership and gave her a big bunch of flowers. She is one of our clients and was just as upset as it happened less than a kilometer from her shop.

Training wise I had a recovery week after last weekends race with Friday and Tomorrow being rest days. Since Sunday's race my left Achilles muscle was a bit tight but I have expected some different muscles being sore as I am not used to off road racing, luckily I recovered well during the week.

Today was the first day where I did a longer training session with a 1h30 run. Most of this weeks training was less than a hour per session. Next week it is back to normal with some heavy training sessions waiting for me.

Thursday''s Training:

Bike: 1h20, 46km, 144bpm. (power intervals)

Today's Training:

Run: 1h30, 18.5km, (endurance session)

Bike: 45 minutes, 24km, 124bpm (recovery session)