After last year’s Choose Your Own Adventure, I figure I’m up for some random course fun and register for The Fed 25 again, and besides, what are the chances of us all going the wrong way again, right? (Spoiler alert… it happens again. But not to this little black duck!)

I also decide it would be a shame to waste all the training I haven’t done, and despite the fact I’ve literally only done three runs in four weeks, running 25kms seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do even if muscle memory isn’t the same thing as having actual muscles.

Using my vast meteorological knowledge I also decide the forecast of potential thunderstorms isn’t worth worrying about, and head up to Murray Bridge the day before to do some birding. I spot a little owlet nightjar in a tree hollow, (yes, it’s a bird, that’s neither an owl, or a jar, and don’t ask me I didn’t name the fucking thing), but I’m not quick enough to get a decent picture. I duck back to the car to take shelter from the rain I was sure wouldn’t happen before heading back in full camo to take up a prime position in case it pops up from the tree hollow again. And that’s assuming it’s still in there and hasn’t actually done a runner. (Also, they don’t actually run, it’s just a phrase.)

I tell myself I’ll give it half an hour, and 90 minutes later I’m still standing there doing my best tree impersonation when finally the fucking thing pops its head up again and bang, got it! And yes, this is what my life has come to. *shrugs*

The Owlet Nightjar I waited all fucking day to take a photo of.

Ironically, 90 minutes and making no ground is not far off my current running race, but whatever. I head down to the finish line the next morning and catch the bus out to Monarto and bugger me, the new visitor’s centre is deluxe.

Apparently they spent $16.8 milion building it and I’m guessing about $15 million of that was on the dunnys because geez louise they are nice. Even better, when I go in and am utterly confused by the options available to me, I spot a gender neutral toilet and I am embarrassingly excited I get to use a toilet that doesn’t require me to buy into binary. May not be a big deal to most people, but I’m so excited I could shit my pants and thankfully, I’m in the right place.

(For those of you who might still be worried a gender neutral dunny poses an existential threat to global peace and humanity, I can assure you it’s just a regular dunny with a very private door on it. You are not required to molest anyone, you don’t get molested, you just go in, do ones or twos, and be on your way.)

I know it probably seems like I’m spending a disproportionate amount of words talking up the toilets but cannot tell you enough how good they were. Would probably pay the $39 park entry fee just to go in there and take a shit again. Seeing some animals – in the park, not the cubicle – would just be a bonus.

But enough about that. I head back out to the start line where there’s a five tonne boab tree they ubered down from the NT, and as someone else commented, after all that effort and expense it better not die like that poor old 100 year old gum tree at Burnside Village that didn’t survive having an entire fucking building built around and over it, and yep, fair call. In fairness, at least this one is outside, and if rhinos from Africa can survive here, maybe a tree from up north can as well.

I’m feeling pretty confident that this year’s race will go smoothly navigationally speaking when two longer course runners run into the courtyard, have an ‘animated’ conversation with the RD, before running back out the way they came and oh ho. Looks like shit’s about to get real… confusing.

The start of the 25km is a bit weird as most of the runners don’t hear the start call and only the front 10 or 15 runners take off. I’m waiting to take a photo of them all running past and when they don’t, I decide to self seed at the front and take off. I know this is both stupid and optimistic but fuck it, you snooze, you lose. For those playing at home, if you start at the front but run slow you also lose.

The first part of the race is a dizzying loop the loop of Monarto where we run past lots of enclosures but mostly all I see are other runners. I do see some white things with big twirly horns, and some other beasts out in a field that may or may not have been cows. Or bushes. Someone else says they saw the meerkats but all I see is the meerkat ‘stick your head through the hole’ photo station and figure I may as well get a pic and in case you’re wondering, doesn’t fucking work as a selfie. Could be any old glory hole with a knob poking through. Oh well.

I hear someone else say something about elephants and fuck it, that’s the last time I wear a grey Tshirt running through Monarto. I also try and do a jump shot while I still have the energy and as I swing my arms in the air am reminded I am currently physically incapable of putting my left arm in the air courtesy of a fucked up rotator cuff and fuck. me. that. hurt.

A couple of times during the start of the run people say how much they enjoy my blogs and thankyou to everyone who said something. It’s not even an ego thing, but most creative people, even the loud ones like me, are usually desperately insecure about their art, always wondering if it, or they, are good enough. So knowing that people enjoy it actually means a lot to me. A couple of runners even say they signed up for a few events after reading my blogs and not wanting to judge, but do not know what kind of person would do that. Weirdos.

As we run through Lion alley, I happen to be running with another bloke and we throw around theories about why there’s a park ranger at either end of the gauntlet. Is it to protect us, or just shut the gates at either end if the lions decide to join in? Either way, this year the lions have zero fucks to give and do not move an inch when we run past.

As we leave the main area of the park I see a giant fucking hotel on top of a hill and where. the fuck. did that come from? Apparently there’s gonna be a luxury resort and glamping place there at Monarto now and wow. Heard it’s being built by the Jayco Caravan guy and makes sense. When you sell 700,000,000 caravans cause people can do fuck all other travel for two years I guess you have to do something with your money. I wonder what the dunnys will be like?

As we leave the park we run through a couple of big Jurassic Park style gates and fences and I wonder if anyone knows there is no wire in them and they are not keeping anything in or out. Cannot wait for the film about how they spent $40mil on a new resort and then everyone got eaten because the fences were fucked.

I know the course well enough to know I’m approaching the turn around point we all missed last year and this year they have idiot proofed that mother fucker and we get turned around beautifully. I stop to say hi to a couple of dogs, and wonder who has been buried in the bush, when on my way back I run past Fast Grumpy Guy who is absolutely fucking motoring but apparently still has enough breath to tell me he got sent the wrong way and is clearly not happy about it. By contrast, I run past Happy Matty Barter not long after who also says he went the wrong way at some point and is still smiling as usual. And there’s possibly a lesson in that for all of us. I also run past a guy having a chat on the phone and not sure if there’s a lesson in that.

At about the 15km mark my body realises we’ve gone beyond any reasonable expectation and starts to protest at continuing, but on we go. We drop out of the single trail to the spot where I got swooped by my magpie buddies last year and sure enough, there they are sitting in a tree on top of the ridge lining me up. They say magpies can remember you from year to year, but these ones either have Alzheimer’s, are blinded by my pink shorts, or perhaps there’s safety in numbers as I run with Sarah who in a very unsportsmanlike act, I overtook in the dying centimeters of the Melrose run a few weeks earlier.

In the last section there’s a few little gates you need to shimmy through and when I get to one of them it looks like there is no actual wire in the fence, so I decide to just run through it. It turns out the wire was all bundled up on the ground and although I later heard a runner went ass up on that wire, I’ve been binging Seal Team on Stan so am now well trained on spotting trip wires and managed to navigate it safely. Charlie Mike. (That means ‘Continue Mission’ to you civilians.)

Seeyalater Sarah from Melrose, another runner Naomi, and myself all play leap frog – not actual leap frog, none of us have enough energy to even run the last three kms let alone jump – for the last bit and at one point Naomi and I try and calculate the likelihood of us finishing under three hours. I’m pretty sure we’ll piss it in and as usual I am wrong.

I’m behind Naomi on the home stretch when I see her walking so yell at her to get moving again like one of those coaches on SAS. I also tell Seeyalater Sarah I won’t be passing her like I did at the last race and that we can run together. Which I honestly mean, right up until the point where I realise I have fuck all chance of making it under three hours unless I ‘sprint’ the last 500 metres so yet again, I say seeyalater and overtake her right at the end in a desperate attempt to achieve a completely meaningless goal and be a complete fucking asshole. With about 30 seconds to spare it’s mission accomplished on both counts. Sorry (again) Sarah.

After crossing the finish line with poo face, I lay down to catch my breath and look fucking pathetic and one of my many fans comes to give me a big hug. With his foot. In my face.

I finally recover and have a chat with David from ioMerino and sweeper extraordinaire Minnie who is also an official ioMerino Outsider. She is telling us about how she waited with one of the back runners while the runner breast fed a baby at one of the aid stations before someone, not mentioning any names, but it was David, asked if it was her baby and honestly, cannot. stop. laughing. (For the record, apparently it was.)

I bloody love this race, and overall a good time was had by all*. Can’t wait to do it all again next year.

I know I’ve made jokes about people going the wrong way again, but there were ribbons, there were signs, there were volunteers, and there were GPX maps available in line so… *shrugs*

 

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*Most. Some people still went the wrong way.