So while life might be indeed slower watching the jacarandas bloom and fall and kookaburras mock all who pass, I don’t want to turn grey before my time.
With this in mind I decided to go for my first Gympie local run. No big deal you may say but for the runners out there, it’s daunting. You have a regular beat; a circuit you follow that is familiar as the back of your hand. It has markers where you know you need to push yourself and others where you can go easy if you’ve overdone it lately.
Trying out a new run circuit for size is always dicey. It can affect your pace, momentum and focus and I must admit I was more than a bit nervous to try out the new route I had plotted. A quick little 5km run not far from home. Bordering some bush but not so much so that I’d be fighting snakes or bushrangers for my patch of the path.
I went with mum in the car to check it out beforehand as I plotted it. It seemed easy enough, at the time that is.
I’m an evening runner through and through, but as I didn’t know the area I thought a morning run would be ok for the first start. Not the best of ideas really especially considering animals are most active in the morning.
Did I mention Gympie is in a valley? So it has quite a few hills. Change that it has A LOT of hills.
So I started off on my run, struggling up the hill on our street and then careened down under. Gathering speed and turning up my volume I started to get into the swing of things. I dodged some of the branches on the paths and then crossed over a park where a session of boot camp was getting underway. I surreptitiously decreased the volume on my head set to listen in on the session, to see if the trainer was as hard core as those in Brisbane. I heard him shout out “that woman is running faster than all of you combined, get going you lazy lot”. I must admit it spurred me on. Until I saw the hill ahead.
I’m sure this hill wasn’t in the circuit when I did the pre-run lap with mum. Surely I wouldn’t have signed off on having such a thigh burner in my route? What to do? All eyes from the boot camp were still on me and I felt the obligation to perform, perform, perform. I didn’t want to turn around and just amble in a different direction, I also didn’t want to puff out midway up like the non-energiser bunny and fall flat on my face in front of everyone.
So I kept persevering. But step by step, my run got slower, I’m sure those girls in the park where now going miles faster than my snail pace. I sneaked a glance back at them all. The trainer had his hands on his hips and was staring in my direction. Shit. Double shit.
How do I get myself into these situations? Suddenly I started to feel my spare key start to slip from the spot on my hip down my leg. As I worried about catching the key without stopping and losing momentum I didn’t notice the big red roo to my left on the footpath. In fact I didn’t see him until we were less than a metre a part. Face to Face.
He was stained a dusty red, double my height and standing on his tail and back legs. He had no plans to relinquish his part of the path which was home to a tree with some kind of nut which he was maliciously munching on while eying me up, his next human victim.
He was what many would class as a ‘boxer’ type kangaroo and let out a scream. The roo stood firm and I thought what mum would say when she got a call from an ambulance saying I’d come off second best to a kangaroo who had ripped me from chin to toe. At the same time I fell off the side and onto my knees.
My scream no doubt attracted the attention of the boot campers who would have looked up to see a fully grown woman on her hands and in knees, as if in mock worship in front of a big red kangaroo. The roo looked at me like I had rocks in my head and bounded away.
I recovered my senses and struggled up the hill with a bruised knee and ego. While I’m the first to admit I’m hard of hearing, there was no missing the voice on breeze which reached me; “Silly city girl.”
My country camouflage had officially been blown. Apparently country folk don’t scream at roos on a regular basis especially when they are terrified of being torn a new one.
You’d think after that experience I’d be plotting a new run route or better yet a route to the nearest treadmill, but no I’m off to do the same route today, later this afternoon.
I’m ready to go toe to tail with the roo again, to prove once and for all I can be more country than city, at least for a quick 5km run that is. Watch out Gympie, a new road runner with a Rambo attitude will be out on a street near you soon.
Xx
J
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