meeting a streaker

I have my brother to thank for my meeting a streaker. A few years ago Darren alerted me to Janathon, an online not-competion that I competed in. Or rather didn't. Because it isn't a competition. The idea, quite simply, was to run every day of the month, log miles and blog about it, a community-stroke-fitness-and-fun thing. Whoever did run/log/blog and ran the greatest number of miles in the month was not the winner. Because, as previously stated, it wasn't a competition. I didn't win, and neither did Gary, but he did run further than me by quite some distance. I'm not sure what word I should use, instead of "won", to describe how Gary came by his GPS or how I came to be the proud owner of a Wiggle shopping voucher; I logged the second highest mileage. I went on to not win the following Juneathon (Gary was MIA, and his blog looks a little unloved these days...) and Janathon (I stubbornly ran the same commuter miles over and over again) before my wife Sally banned me from taking part in any more. With 2 small kids (now aged 2 and 4) she thought it more important that I do some more parenting stuff in January and June whereas I thought spending my evenings in a catatonic stupor was the way to go. in hindsight I think she was probably right. Probably. And besides, Ben arrived on the scene, kid free and unencumbered by employment to push the "course record" way beyond what I'd consider doing. Not that that is important. Did I mention it isn't a competition?

Jan/Juneathon is the brainchild of Cathy, to whom, along with the other named folks in this post (and more besides) I owe a debt of gratitude for helping me become the runner I am today (a very sore one, desperate to stop - haha.)

Gary is not the streaker and neither is Ben or Cathy. Andrew is (his blog looks a bit neglected too.) For Andrew the -athon challenge is the blogging as he runs every day. His runstreak is about to break 800 days in a row. I tagged along with him, or him with me, on his first run (he ran twice) of day 791.

The -athons are mostly a UK thing with a few randoms such as me taking part from afar. Andrew lives in the UK and I live in Australia. Our friendship has been entirely online and communication overwhelmingly via Twitter, with the occasional comment on blogs and mileage-logging sites (Strava seems to be where a lot of the cool kids now hangout.) Once an -athon blog was complete the (not)competitors tweet a link to their news. Around and during my my -athons I would check Twitter. I was also using Twitter to keep tabs on my brother who was, back then, a mad keen tweeter. Darren has left Twitter - cold turkey - and I retired from -athons.

I drifted away from Twitter and have rarely returned. The app sat unopened and unloved on my PC and phone. I get emails saying such-and-such is following me, others saying people I don't know have tweets for me. It was just luck that a Twitter software update arrived at the same time as Andrew's post about his upcoming visit to Sydney. It was even luckier that I didn't ignore the update, as I usually do. We exchanged a few messages and setup last night's run.

Tuesday's promised showers had not materialised. Until about 20 minutes before our meeting, when I got a light wetting as I mooched around Hyde Park taking photos.

Quick aside; I had some time on my hands, hence the photgraphy, and at around 5pm found an open door at the back of St Mary's Cathedral. I wandered in and stood to one side as a priest and single choir boy started to sing to the mostly empty cathedral. A few people came in, crossed themselves with holy water and took a seat. There is something undeniably and beautifully moving about choral music. And that is coming from an atheist. I remember wandering around the City of London in 2010 and chancing upon a church with music drifting out. I stood for several minutes enjoying the sound and the feeling, if not the lyrics...

Anyway, I got changed into my runing gear and met Andrew at his hotel at 18:00. We bid farewell to Geoff, Andrew's suited colleague and head off into the now dry evening. Having left my GPS at home I was entrusting my mileage logging to my Blackberry. Despite being my least favorite device it showed me no ill will; GPSLogger started, discovered the device GPS and told me where I was.

I'll not dwell on the details of the run. Reading about two middle aged blokes running 16km and chatting is hardly the stuff of best-sellers. So briefly, we ran from Hyde Park to the Bridge and then took most of my usual commute route. It was a little quicker than I'd usually run, but I usually run alone and allow myself a lazy plod. At Spit Bridge, and en-route to our destination of Manly Wharf I presented Andrew the option of a lift back to the City. He chose, as I would have, to keep going to Manly. The ferry offers a far nicer trip through Sydney than my car. And besides, from Seaforth to Manly is almost all downhill, easy miles.

We arrived at the wharf in just under 10miles. To avoid a (friendly, online) flaming Andrew needed to get over 10miles. We ran around the block to the ocean-side and then back to the wharf. Andrew offered me a beer, but needing to get home (I'd ben lucky to get an evening pass on a Tuesday!) and as I am having a dry July I declined. (For the record I'm not "doing" Dry July, just having a dry July after a wetter-than-strictly-necessary June.) It was a close call; I'd have loved a beer and chat. We said our farewells and I headed back up the hill home.

I'd not got far before it occurred to me that I hadn't taken a picture of the two of us. I was carrying 4 cameras in my backpack. Yes, FOUR. Ah well, that will have to wait until next time. For now, it was a thoroughly enjoyable run with a damn fine bloke. I'll have to get back into Twitter to keep tabs on my now real, flesh-and-blood friend.