Fun Run

Can someone, anyone, explain to me why those two words appear together with such monotonous regularity when we all know it’s an oxymoron, a contradiction, or as we in the land of advertising like to say, a ‘tension’. Running is not fun. And I know. I run. Well, when I say run, sometimes it could be described as a shuffle, but regardless, it is NOT fun.

Last year was a PB on the Fun Run front. It started with Run For The Kids, one I’ve done for a few years now as it supports the Royal Children’s Hospital, which I’ve unfortunately had far to much to do with, and is quite an amazing course, through the Burnley Tunnel and over the Bolte Bridge for those of you who know Melbourne. It’s roughly 14.7kms with a lot of up-hills, so my sister-in-law and I always arrange a family pub lunch after with lots of sparkling wine just to ensure we make up for any good we might have done!

Last year, I was literally just out of the shower when my friend Pen, who’d also done the run, text me to suggest we sign up for Race Buffing Billy, a steam train that winds its way up to the top of Mt Dandenong. For fucks sake! My calves were still screaming from the morning run, but as it was a mere 13km, I said yes.

Before we started, we ran into some friends, one of who is a fitness guru. She looked surprised to see me (a re-occurring theme when it comes to running and me, for some reason....)

‘Have you trained?’ she asked looking deeply enquiringly. No, I thought, I just woke up this morning and thought heck, I think I’ll go race that train!

‘Not really,’ I answered truthfully, ‘but I do run regularly, so I should be fine. I’m not expecting to beat the train or anything.’

‘Oh everyone beats the train,’ she said as a matter of fact. I think I was smug when proved her wrong?!

Then my client was a sponsor of the Mother’s Day Classic and invited us to participate. Couldn’t say no to that either, so on Mother’s Day when most mums are having a lie-in a getting breakfast in bed, my dorta and I were up at 6am in the cold dark to go and run – go figure...

And finally, while I was in Sydney on a girls’ weekend, my partner was out with friends here and they all decided we needed to do the City To Surf – in Sydney. With over 80,000 runners, it really was unlike any run I’d done before. But I’m still not sure I’d describe it as ‘fun’. Dinner at the extremely lovely Ice Breakers in Bondi on the Friday night – now that was fun!!!

So, Run For The Kids is nearly here again, but we’re off to Africa for the school hols, which I’m quite sure will be the real fun. In my book, the only fun part of running is when you get to stop.