Tag Archives: City Bay fun run

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Meet Me at the Malls Balls: Life and Phones

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We talk about it every now and then. How, before mobile phones we’d make an arrangement with somebody and just have to stick to it.

‘Meet me at the Malls Balls at noon.’

Done.

‘See you tonight at the pub.’

Sorted.

Technology now allows us to break these agreements. Some might say mobile phones encourage rudeness. Or maybe they’ve made us more responsive to life’s twitchy demands. Is constant communication healthy? The social landscape has shifted.

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‘I’ll meet you at the finish line,’ I said to Claire.

‘About 9,’ she confirmed.

It was the morning of the City Bay Fun Run. Same as the year before, we’d a plan. Claire would be easy to spot in her pink jacket. I also liked to think that there’d be some mysterious, undeniable connection, a marital telepathy that would bring us together, despite the swarm of 25,000 runners and their innumerable hangers-on.

Exhausted, ruddy of cheek, and hands on hips, I was funnelled along Colley Terrace, peering about, trying to spot the pink jacket.

Where was she? Maybe over by the roundabout. No, she wasn’t.

Continuing to the race village in Wigley Reserve, I hunted among the marquees and food trucks and bibbed joggers. No luck. Back to the finish line. Same. No pink jacket.

What to do? That’s it! I’d borrow a stranger’s phone to ring Claire.

5AA had a MC at the music stage, and away he honked. He was pleased with himself and pleased with his voice. ‘Well done to all the participants. It’s been a great morning. Up soon we’ve got the Flaming Sambuccas who are going to play for you…’

I wondered if he might help me, but he barely drew breath, so I walked off.

A safety of blue-uniformed police officers (nice collective noun) stood at a display, chatting among themselves. Approaching an officer I said, ‘Hello there. Hoping you can help me…’

Now, we don’t usually need to remember phone numbers. Who knows anybody’s number, beyond their own? It’s a redundant skill. How would I call her?

On the friendly officer’s phone, I pressed the buttons. How had I memorised the number?

Claire’s the holder of the Dan Murphy’s membership and if I pop in late Saturday morning (as I sometimes like to do) the cashier will say, ‘Do you have a membership?’ to which I reply, ‘Yes, I do’ and then I recite Claire’s phone number.

I’ve now heard myself say this dozens of times; just like my Grade 5 class learnt by heart, ‘Mulga Bill’s Bicycle.’ There’s an everyday intimacy in it and it’s a little prayer. And what better place for this oration than Dan’s?

Shortly after, heading towards me I saw a pink jacket.

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Later Sunday I was at Adelaide Oval, while Claire attended day two of a conference at the convention centre on North Terrace.

The Tigers and Dogs were in a close one and I moved restlessly around the ground trying inanely to escape the foghorn chant. ‘U Dogs! U Dogs!’

Just after half time Claire called to say that her phone was about to die. What to do? We’d planned to head home together. Ordinarily, we’d sort this much later.

So, again we made an arrangement. Two hours before hand! Then followed two hours during which we had no contact! I watched the footy and Claire did conference things at the conference.

It seemed pioneering and almost dangerous. But there we were in this psychological uncertainty, both adrift, both untethered. Miraculously, we just went about our afternoons. It was thrilling and magical.

We’d decided on a time and place to meet and after a gap of a few hours, we were going to have to honour it. Just like it was 1987 and we were meeting at the Malls Balls before going to Brashs to buy an Uncanny X-Men CD.

Leaving the footy a few minutes early, with Glenelg off to the grand final, I made my way over the sunlit footbridge, up through the majestic railway station, across North Terrace and into the Strathmore Hotel.

Just as planned, Claire was there. Sitting on a stool, smiling, with an espresso martini in hand.

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City Bay fun run: Singapore Sharks, snags and spirituality spruikers

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Support vehicle #2 takes a wide, languid arc and then halts in the Kurralta Park loading bay.

It probably says many grim things about late-capitalism that my six-kilometre leg of Adelaide’s City Bay fun run begins at an unsound cathedral of shallow greed and deep despair, a shopping centre.

Claire takes a photo of me in my safety pinned, microchipped race bib. With a kiss and a wish for good luck, off I trot.

There’s pythonic toilet queues about the car park. ‘Mambo No.5’ booms from the sound system and it’s vague fun although I prefer my breakfast soundtrack with its highlight being the song once described as the most beautiful sung in English, ‘Waterloo Sunset.’

The event announcer, possibly a young baritone derostered from Nova FM, informs us that the first of the 12k runners is approaching so I make my way to Anzac Highway’s median strip. Peering cityward, a cluster of athletes glides past. These are Collingwood six-footers, trim as gazelles, erect of carriage and with eyes set to the middle distance. It’s impressive.

I head to the starting chute and do a few stretches. As a key sponsor the announcer invites the Sunday Mail editor Paul ‘Ralphy’ Ashenden to the mike to say a few words. He’s an old Kimba and Kapunda boy and I strain to hear him but it’s too noisy. I’m sure he was terrific.

A countdown follows before bang! As Bruce often said in his distinctive near growl at the start of an Olympic race, ‘Away.’

As it’s uncluttered, I veer over and slip into the road’s cycling lane and soon we’ve all space to find our rhythms. It’s warm for September and I recall Claire urging me to have fun. But pushing along, I’m convinced this is largely retrospective. Like parenting and eating tofu.

Glenelg seems some distance yet but there’s bunches of brightly yelling spectators. My eye’s taken by a sign. Held by a wide-eyed type, it proclaims with conviction-

King Jesus reigns.

I imagine a runner hollering to our Christian converter every minute, ‘Yes, He might but Port needed Him last night!’ So, I don’t bother to also comment.

To my left I spy some uniformed staff at a long table offering free ice blocks, water and encouragement. Ha! A real estate agency! However, their goodwill could be desolate marketing to the foolish. Ignoring their saccharine enticements, I press on.

Just down the highway’s another man with late 90’s Scott Hicks hair- all lank and grey and desperately arty. He has a megaphone and extends broad and amplified inspiration. I’m touched but wait, I then hear him rambling on. He says, ‘Vote No in the referendum. Don’t be deceived. It’s what Jesus wants.’

Oh.

With a kilometre to go I’m running hard as I turn right onto Jetty Road. A fellow runner gets the wobbles and lurches over to the gutter. Swerving to his aid, a mate puts an arm around him. He’s fine.

I stride through the finish line. Meeting Claire, a kindly stranger takes our photo. Spotting my Singapore Sharks shirt another participant comes over and tells us he ran out for Penang. He then asks if I played footy in Asia to which I should’ve replied like this.

After I was maliciously delisted by The Crows I fled to an Indonesian cave and survived on bitter leaves and surprised insects. Then Buddha appeared and told me to voluntarily reincarnate by joining the Singapore Sharks. Accordingly, I became that most enlightened of earthly creatures, a half-back flanker.

But instead, I said, ‘No, I got this shirt because I helped to coach my boys.’

Strolling about the village on Colley Reserve we eat some fruit and those most wicked, yet life-affirming of delicacies: barbequed sausages on white bread. A giant inflatable beer bottle advertises a major race sponsor in the Hahn brewery. Mercifully, none of their (rancid) product is on offer.

We walk to support vehicle #2.

PS- I finished 121st out of 1791 6k runners (top 7%) and was first for my age. However, I was beaten by three older participants, and each was 73 years old!

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10,254 days

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Running is an invitation to think.

Setting off in Kurralta Park, six kilometres from the Colley Reserve rotunda gave me ample opportunity to dwell on my joyous present and varied and wide past.

Ambling towards Glenelg over the following 36 minutes I did just that.

I was paid up for my first City Bay fun run since 1994, and this alone represented a triumph. Although I was only entered in the six-kilometre event and not the full twelve I was keen to participate and prove things to myself. But a week out I suffered an avulsion fracture in my foot which is when a flake of bone attached to a ligament is pulled away from the joint.

Ouch.

I was disappointed and that this happened at our Port Elliot townhouse on my annual writing retreat dampened the celebratory mood. Slipping on the bottom rung of the darkened staircase following three generous glasses of shiraz, I knew I should’ve gone the merlot.

Shiraz can be shameless.

So, ever supportive and kind, Claire suggested I do the City Bay fun run when I’d recovered. Five weeks later, this morning at 11.50 by Anzac Highway, and across from Australia’s best K Mart (no, really) my lovely wife said, ‘3, 2, 1, go!’

Like Forrest Gump, I was RUNNING! It was no leisurely jog to the beach and back. It was my own private event with the attendant excitement and exhilarating occasion.

Heading down the Anzac Highway footpath past the homes and shops and pubs I felt deep gratitude (especially when I didn’t go in the execrable Highway Inn). I wondered about the groups of lads I passed ambling down to the Morphettville racecourse. An Indian man was then easing local council how to vote pamphlets into letterboxes outside a big block of cream units. He cheerfully ignored me.

A biker roared through the traffic, his chopper adorned with ghastly yet tremendous wood-panelling, and with his stereo blasting. Speakers installed on motorbikes is always noteworthy and just a little bit funny. I couldn’t identify the music due to the car noise but the funky, yet laconic bass suggested Talking Heads. Puffing along, I inwardly nodded approval.

I was making pretty good time. In 1994 during my last City Bay, when I was non-grey and non-chubby, I had on the Swatch watch I’d bought duty-free on the way to New Zealand’s Contiki Tour the previous summer. Being on the youthful side of thirty and boosted by adrenalin I ran my first six kilometres in 24 minutes! In 2022, I knew this was beyond me however I remembered to be kind to myself. As the Dalai Lama says, ‘Kindness is my religion.’ He knows a few things, our Dalai.

Today my pace was more leisurely, but I had much more for which to be grateful. There was a cooling breeze and cloudy sky as friendly company. Just by the racecourse I felt a wave of nostalgia for the faded, sometimes vexed previous decades and renewed appreciation for where I was at this exact moment.

Indeed, I have the three ingredients for happiness: something to do, something to look forward to, and most vitally, someone to love. Arriving at the next intersection I again got the run of the lights and scampering across (this might be a generous description) was now in Glenelg East.

It was going well, and my sense of joy was percolating nicely. He’s deeply flawed but as American Beauty‘s Lester Burnham says when he’s on the verge of physical reinvention: ‘But you know what? It’s never too late to get it back.’

With the grass of Colley Terrace beneath my Brooks running shoes I peered anxiously ahead at the rotunda. It appeared deserted and my bespoke City Bay fun run was nearly done.

All about me people were easing into their Saturday afternoons by the beach and for the first time in decades I’d easily run a reasonable distance. I hoped this would be a symbol of capacity, of happy future surprise and of the rich possibilities of life, well-contemplated and favourably executed.

My run complete I effected the rotunda stairs (mercifully this time without incident) and Claire was waving some fizzing sparklers, just for me.