Sunday, 08 August 2004

No pain, no gain. Today was Sydney's annual "City to Surf" run, a 14-kilometer (8.75-mile) race from Hyde Park to Bondi Beach, and let me just say: Ow. Ow ow ow. I wasn't sure I'd be healthy enough for this, given last week's Adventure of the Throat Infection (below) and my general out-of-shapeness; I did it in 2000, but I was younger and pounds lighter then.

Of course, I didn't run the race — I walked the course in a completely un-respectable time of 3 hours, 15 minutes — but even so it was more exercise than I usually get. My feet and legs are now sending an important message to the brain, along the lines of "thought you could get away with this, eh?" and involving the pain receptors…

…but it was for a good cause. There were about ten of us walking with our Kerry/Edwards T-shirts (you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get campaign gear over here; until today we had a grand total of two Howard Dean buttons between the 180 of us), intimidating the lone Bush/Cheney supporter who wore his shirt (and turned out to be a Young Republican on a summer internship) and handing out flyers to Americans in the 30,000-strong crowd.

Meanwhile, the other runners included everything from samurai warriors to inflatable dinosaurs. There are three starting times for the participants: One for the serious runners, one for the wannabe serious runners, and one for people who are just in it for fun. Even after four years of living in Sydney, it still amazes me they can confidently schedule an outdoor event for August (which is the middle of winter down here) and get shorts and t-shirt weather.

A good time was had by all, except for my legs and feet.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 1:58 pm. comments.