Last weekend’s highlight should have been the Highlanders game at Carisbrook. But it wasn’t.

It could have been Gary Muir’s quivering-voiced, late-night impersonation of Bee Gee Barry Gibb (albeit a rather portly one) in the corporate box karaoke that followed the game. But it wasn’t.

Last weekend’s highlight was going to Fleurs (she refuses to use a possessive apostrophe) Place in Moeraki. I digress, but if you’re looking for a great out-of-province eating experience then Moeraki is a magic place. And the mythical spherical boulders are well worth a look too! It’s yet another reminder to not leave town until you’ve seen the country.

Tonight I hope the gutsy, yet hapless, Highlanders (minus Jimmy and Jamie) get home against the Canes (minus the All Black midfield) because fair-weather fans love winners and quickly desert losers.

Dunedin is abuzz this week, not with the Highlanders, but with the Otago Volts Twenty/20 cricketers. The only Highlander getting a mention is Fetu’u Vainikola and that’s for all the wrong reasons. The names being bandied about over the office water coolers are not Cowan, McIntosh and Thomson. Rather it’s Redmond, Broom, Butler, Cumming, McCullum and Mascarenhas.

And therein lies the problem for the Highlanders franchise. I hope it’s as simple as the end of Dunedin’s very limited summer seeing the torch passed to the winter code, but I’m not holding my breath.

This weekend should also hold its breathless moments, especially for the 600 hardy souls tackling the MLT Moonshine Trail. Some of us are running, most are mountain-biking a course of their choosing between 15 and 40 kms.

For me, as much as I’m dreading it, a 30km run up and down the Hokonui Hills is an ideal build-up to the (equally dreaded - I haven’t done enough training) Boston Marathon which is now only two months away.

I am, however, taking some solace from my running bible, Marathon Training – The Proven 100 Day Program for Success by Joe Henderson, especially the following tips:

- Aim to run at least two-thirds of the marathon distance (28kms) before race day. Three-quarters (32kms) is an even better goal, since each extra kilometre beyond the minimum adds assurance of finishing.

- Where do the extra miles come from if your longest training run stops short of the full marathon length? Trust the magic of race day excitement to carry you the extra distance.

I pray he’s right!