Sunday Run (5)

Endomondo Running Workout: "was out running 21.54 km in 2h:07m:37s using Endomondo."

I had a bit of a bobble in the routine last weekend (as in the last weekend of January) and I ended up trading a 20+ km run fora couple of15 km runs; well, that was the plan. Except, like a bloody idiot, I got lost on the second of those (on the Wednesday AM after the hottest ever night temperature since records have been kept) and managed to go substantially more than 15 km before I found my way back home. I don't usually take out water because it's a pain carrying it but on this occasion I had as a concession to the heat & it turned out to be a good thing. Down around Wolli Creek & along the coast run(s) there are quite a lot of bubblers, but once you head inland and along the roads - and even along the upstream banks of the Cooks River -, public drinking water is hard to find. Wednesday's run wasn't without pleasant aspects; I ran along the Bardwell valley bush track and it was certainly 5 or 6 degrees cooler than the paths. There's a high canopy that keeps 90% of the direct sunlight out. In places there's almost a sub-tropical rainforest feel to the bush. Unfortunately the heavy rains of a couple of weeks ago, and some storms have  damaged parts of the track quite badly & it's a perilous run. It's hard to keep one eye out for snakes, one for sticks, one for rocks, one for overhanging branches, one for the path and one for spiders' webs. Slow progress; still, I understand the attraction of trail running. It's hard work but rewarding.

Anyway, Sunday's run was set for 6:45 to avoid the worst of the heat (Liz went for her's at 6:15!) but Sunday wasn't too bad, as it turned out. We (the CRRC - I met member #5) went on a run through a suburb I hardly knew existed. I've heard of Turrella, but it isn't really anywhere in particular. It appears to have been built from scratch by a team of apartment developers in the last five years - of course the bit we ran through may not be typical of the rest of it. Mind you, developers creating suburbs isn't a new concept; Annandale was designed holus-bolus by a builder/developer as a "mode village" back in the 1870's.

Plonked on a roundabout in Turrella - maybe still in Arnecliff - is a cheerful looking piece of generic sculpture; a bit like motel art, really, inoffensively non-figurative, probably designed by a piece of software that turns out designs to architects' specifications. Need something for a centrepiece to three blocks of angular grey blocks of flats? Here, try this green and curvy thing, guaranteed to distract, at least momentarily. Mind you, it may be easy to mock, but that intersection looks better with it than it would without it. Sadly, I still haven't quite mastered the art of running photography, so no pictures yet.

Eventually, heading west, we arrived in Bexley, Kingsgrove, Beverly Hills, places unvisited by me except as stations on the East Hills line when we lived near Holsworthy (in Wattle Grove) in our first months in Sydney. There are excellent running paths on both sides of the freeway, but it's hard to wax lyrical about a freeway, although, the above ground section is a vivid reminder of how lucky we were that from Bexley seawards they put the M5 in a tunnel, under the remnant bushland, golf courses, creeks & parks.

Running - I guess walking too - connects you to the places you live much more than driving. It also rams home some points about geography (of which Sydney has more noticeable demonstrations than Melbourne), particularly that access, rather than proximity, defines locality. The Cooks River may not be a mighty torrent, but it still has to be crossed and there are only limited places you can do that; those limitations in turn have features to be considered. If you cross at Illawarra Rd (probably the oldest bridge) you are committed to climbing the Bardwell ridge - and it's steep. If you want to avoid the ridge, you have to head to the Princes Highway, but that's starting to take you a few km. east. In a car, those decision points are obscured (certainly to those like me with limited imaginations), but on foot the whole hotchpotch of Sydney (my bit of it) starts to make more sense.

BTW, for some more local history, take a look at http://arncliffesydney.blogspot.com/