by Tom Lee
Things settled down again and Lachlan and Nick returned to their phones and occasional comments about the movie we’d all stopped watching. I found a Jamie Oliver cookbook I once owned on one of the nearby shelves and began to look through the pages and reminisce about some of the first meals I cooked from recipes in my adolescence: beef and Guinness pie, pancakes American style, the late-night fry-up, and, most formatively, the sausage bap with melted cheese and brown sauce, which I used to accompany with a can of cola after a heavy workout in the gym. It was a different diet to the lighter, more subtly put together Mediterranean food I tended to eat these days, but had nonetheless been a gateway into the delight and sense of agency associated with preparing and eating food.
As the evening drew on I didn’t quite know how to extract myself from the conversation, perhaps in part because it had been so long since I experienced this kind of after-dinner sociability. Lachlan excused himself and continued to talk to Nick as he walked up the stairs. I took this as an opportunity to make my own exit: Righto, me too then, I’ll see you tomorrow Nick. Nick had pulled out his phone and was scrolling through it on the couch. Righto mate.
I indulged for a while in the spaciousness and security of my new room: this space for me, for what I want, carved out of the great, contested, volatile mass of the world. I got into bed, pulled out my phone, and opened Strava, which I had downloaded after Nick had shown it to me. As I began to follow friends from Facebook who also used the app, I marvelled at the epically scaled and yet in a way spatially impoverished connectivity enabled by my phone, and the contrastingly isolated yet spatially rich cell of comfort where I would now sleep the night. Much to my delight I found Alex was an avid Strava user, regularly uploading runs around urban green spaces in London, places like Hampstead Heath, Clissold Park, Finsbury Park and Wanstead Flats, all of which began to glow with an increased degree of significance in my mind. After being starved of information due to her proud absence from other forms of social media, this new ability to observe her activities immediately reactivated memories: Alex getting ready to leave the London terrace on a morning run, decked out in a visor, hair in a ponytail, pellucid eyes hungry to unlock further reserves of energy.
I scrolled through Alex’s friend list and discovered she was following her brother, Morgan. I tapped through to Morgan’s activities, thinking they might lead me to the location of her family home near Centennial Park. To my delight, Morgan ran regularly in the park. The ten or so runs I scanned through always followed exactly the same track around the inner fence, entering at the Govett Street gates, and completing two loops.
I followed others too: people who had shown glimpses of athletic ability in primary and high school, people I’d bonded with in gym sessions over the years, people who I didn’t expect to show an interest in training. I thought about searching for Coach Fitz, typed half her name, then deleted it.
In addition to augmenting my runs with the virtual audience on Strava, I developed a habit of listening to music while running. I discovered that music could bring almost complete relief from minor pain and top up my energy reserves for between five and ten minutes, after which its influence would fade out.
In the selection of tracks for my playlist I exercised my preference for a particular combination of tone, lyric and instrumentation. Usually this involved an androgynous lead vocalist singing lyrics that related to the unlikely overcoming of a certain challenge through emotional steadfastness or ingenuity. This was often but not always accompanied by synths and a reasonably grubby bassline. The tone was largely uplifting, though shot through with occasional but all-important notes of melancholy. The melancholy aspect of the songs tended to be recessive rather than dominant. The key part of the formula was some suggestion, however allusive, that the singer was overcoming a psychological or physical obstacle through great powers of will or passion.
This lyrical element needed to be accompanied by appropriately uplifting backing, often but not always electronic. Ideally it would seem that the singer was overcoming the obstacle through the act of singing. I would become utterly convinced by their voice as a source of great potency and participate in this potency to the extent that I could feel it or receive it in the right key.
I encountered a perfect example in a song released by Carly Rae Jepsen called ‘Your Type’, which I earmarked as the song I would ideally like to accompany the taxing climb up from the Coxs River on the Six Foot Track. The key lyric of the song was a line spoken from the perspective of a female vocalist expressing that they weren’t the kind of girl ‘you’, the unnamed addressee of the lyric, would call ‘more than a friend’. I interpreted this lyric as an imperative laid down to some imagined other, demanding the subject and singer of the song not be conceived as merely ‘more than a friend’, in other words, as less than a lover.
This line was one among many of the elements in the song that combined to produce a profound though ephemeral influence on my imagination which involved me taking the position of the singer in the song, feeling the efforts of someone to belittle me, and then transcending this limited conception of my potency simply by channelling the conviction expressed in the melodious voice. In the context of my training runs, it was the physical and psychological challenge of the run and an imagined audience of doubters that were attempting to belittle me: he is less than lover, less than a champion. A steep hill, or gruelling goal for my tempo, would be joined by an anonymous crowd of imagined disbelievers and become an unnamed, unappreciative partner in the song, who didn’t value the capacities of the lover to their fullest extent, or in my case, athletic capacities. I became the vocalist, the protagonist, who sought to prove themselves through a steadfast display of agency, calling on and expressing secret reserves of power.
I resolved to listen to music on the Six Foot Track, in part a gesture motivated by what I genuinely thought would help during the race, in part a signal to myself that I was a runner with a degree of independence from my earlier master, who I imagined would disapprove of the idea entirely.
A Run Through Rosebery and Kensington
The knowledge that my runs were now being documented and shared in the virtual realm of Strava seemed for a short while to have a transformative influence on my running. I was building an assembly of spectators, imagined or otherwise, which included these new recruits made explicit through digital technology as well as the formative but still burdensome presence of Coach, whose expressed interest in the post-industrial landscape of Botany was no doubt in part the reason I chose the nearby Rosebery and Alexandria for one of my more memorable runs of that period.
I had a few specific targets in mind: the green spaces evident on the map at Turruwul Park and Raleigh Park, the looming religious structures on the only significant hills in the region, as well as Kensington Oval and Paine Reserve, which, judging by the online maps, were among the few islands of public green space in these suburbs besides golf courses, and seemed all the more enticing due to this isolation. From here I would head directly towards the coastline at Coogee, perhaps going via Randwick Environment Park, and then on to Bondi, where I would find myself some lunch, have a swim, maybe a beer, and catch public transport back to my starting point.
I began my expedition at Turruwul Park where I left the Odyssey. A couple of informative signs told the history of the park’s name, which is likely an alternative pronunciation of Dharawal, ‘the Aboriginal people whose area spread from Botany Bay south to the Shoalhaven River and inland to Camden’. A road separates Turruwul Park from the surrounding houses, and in this sense it fell short of the internal reserve in its exemplary form, as evidenced in Killara. It was still a pleasure to stride across the grass and inspect some of its trees, including a Port Jackson fig, an American cottonwood, a Washington palm, two English oaks and a Port Lombardy poplar. The amenity of the park was increased through the provision of public barbecues, a children’s playground, tennis courts, and electric lighting at the base of some of the trees, which, as
I imagined, would successfully highlight their magnificence of an evening.
From here I took the most direct route to a curious-looking street formation I’d noted on the map prior to the visit: a road more or less taking the form of a racetrack and looking as though it might enclose a portion of green space or peculiar public amenity. I soon discovered the oval road traced through a large ‘resort-style’ apartment complex at the centre of which was a sunken garden bordered by a few trees. Some incongruously grand sandstone steps led down into the garden which, due to its peculiar form, made me wonder whether it was once a dam of some kind. Warning signs depicting bodies flailing above water and text alerting residents to the dangers of the park in heavy rain seemed to lend further credence to this idea.
I circled the park in the hope I might be able to find an exit on the other side of the complex. A couple of staircases led me to nothing but fences, sheltered barbecues and vague memories of my year twelve trip to the Gold Coast for schoolies. I cut my losses and retreated, back out onto the public road, and took a more circuitous route to Kensington, wondering how all these doodles and dead time would appear to the people I hoped might view the run later on Strava.
Some way after crossing South Dowling Street I came upon an entry to another sunken garden, a more elaborate, less haphazard version of the one in Rosebery, employing formal design principles, such as prominent symmetry along rectilinear and radial lines, and a replica of some ancient ruins, in this instance sandstone columns, entablature and a stepped retaining wall, all set on a slightly raised lawn platform encircled by a sandstone border. The columns marked a stairway that led right up to the other end of the apartment complex, and as I sprinted up each flight of stairs I noticed water features running down the centre of the path and sandstone benches set in small avenues of trees by the wayside.
The path led fortuitously to an exit on the garden’s eastern perimeter and I continued on through the streets of Kensington to the convent and monastery that overlooked the suburb. I made the most of the hill leading up to the buildings, attacking it with gusto and pushing through until I reached the impressive entrance of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Convent, where I removed my shirt and stuffed it down the back of my underpants. The convent was a brick building built in the Federation Gothic style with a large terracotta-roofed central tower and two smaller towers capped in zinc-clad steel. The five front-facing gables featured elegant bargeboards painted white, gothic features that along with the palm tree created a heady, vaguely exotic atmosphere.
I circled the building, sticking to the soft lawns. The strong feelings I’d been hoping for stirred within me as I soaked up the mental entities afforded by this expansive patch of open, elevated, lush green ground. I was content to settle for what in reality might have been a deluded interpretation of the place as some kind of utopia, high above the sandy flats below.
As I jogged along, the rhythm of my breathing began to form a loose image in my mind and without consciousness of the decision I found myself once again chanting hick-a-chee, hick-a-chee, ha-ha-ha. I let a certain inclination towards this being develop as I ran along: it was different to the previous hick-a-chee, more aggressive, yet humorous, hyper-stimulated, outgoing, a protagonist. I felt a force in my neck, as though it were swollen due to some venom. I began to involve my arms in a peculiar punching-dancing routine, pounding the air and raising my knees high. I passed a group of young boys in uniform crossing the turf. One yelled an obligatory ‘Run Forrest!’ and without giving it a thought I pivoted, circled back, and ran on the spot before the three of them, exposing each to the full brunt of my sweaty, hair-covered pectorals and the peculiar movement I’d adopted. The more rodentlike of the three began to cringe and shield himself from view, another seemingly started to whimper, grabbing the arm of one of his friends and scurrying off towards the safety of the suburban streets.
After running around the oval at a steadily building pace I broke off and ran towards the monastery at the very top of the hill: the final crescendo in this collection of impressive structures. It was the grandest of the three, built in the gothic style from Pyrmont sandstone. A commanding sense of symmetry was evoked by its steepled tower, flanked by three dormer windows embedded in the glazed terracotta roofing on either side. I paused Strava and felt a rush to perform a more archaic variety of telecommunication. I knelt, then let my head fall to the ground, and for a while became totally immersed in a world of breathing, sweat and darkness, a peculiar force circulating through me which manifested in visions of gift-giving, unlikely victory, great feats of bravery and improvised yet successful meals for large groups of friends, paired perfectly with beer or wine. Crowds gathered around me to enjoy the produce and the performance of my athletic ability. I breathed deeply, rewarding my body, radiating generosity like some precious stone uncovered by desperate travellers on a journey to salvation.
After this episode I assessed the vantage to the east, across Kensington: the terracotta rooftops interspersed with figs, eucalypts and palms. Here I am, I thought, on this peak, clustered with grand buildings, enjoying the security and levity offered by such an aspect, and with these thoughts still reverberating, began my descent down the slope, for a far more subdued run around the suburban streets, now and again noting the sandy soil which, as Coach had insisted, indicated a cohesive, invisible landscape that recent human settlement had obscured.
Kensington Park was my next stop, and while perhaps not matching its namesake in London in terms of grandness, it did feature a picketed sporting oval fringed by some excellent trees, among which were included conifers and Port Jackson figs. I recalled Coach making specific mention of this combination of informal recreation area, in the form of treed fringes and gardens, and a well-kept sporting field. I made a note to add this typology to my list of kinds of places to be catalogued as I followed the concrete footpath that wound its way through the trees and through a series of circular sandstone garden beds, unfortunately populated in large part by asthma weed, though in some beds grew a soft grey-green plant that was like sheep’s wool to the touch.
On the eastern edge of the park the Kensington Bowling Club was in a state of neglect. Longer grasses and yellow daisies colonised what would have once been a pristine lawn. A fine sandstone birdbath, made from a series of stacked, roughly circular pieces looking vaguely spinal, retained a degree of distinction amid the not altogether displeasing mess of grass. Signs indicated that a community centre, basketball court and, more worryingly, a large car park, were due to be built on the site. As I endured an unresolved internal debate of some intensity about the values of unkempt lawns and low shrubbery versus community services of the kind proposed, I soon found myself running across the old tramway of Anzac Parade, with Daceyville just to my south.
My next island of green was Paine Reserve. While not blessed with the abundance and diversity of trees featured in Kensington Park, it did appeal in some unemphatic but exemplary way. This might have been to do with the rugged quality of the sizeable rock outcrop and its raised aspect over the rest of the park. The exposed sandstone ridge, the single palm tree and the figs on the perimeter of the park converged in a selection of elements that for a vague reason provoked a hypothesis this was classic Sydney.
I took my bearings and headed towards the promisingly named Randwick Environment Park, which I’d singled out due to the presence of a curious circular marking on the map surrounded by remnant and regenerated native bush. The park was all that I could have hoped for. A rare tangle of coastal shrubbery through which a footpath networked, terminating in several viewing platforms from which I watched woodland birds dive and play like low kites, their distinctive sounds animating the atmosphere as though it were a stadium. The peculiar elliptic concrete pathway ringed an area of turf where families picnicked. The bushland formed a thick border around its perimeter, stretching up to the hillside, before gradually becoming populated with sensitively scaled dwellings, roofs partially visible through the branches
of the larger native trees.
I continued on to the increasingly variable elevation of the coastline, running through crowds of beachgoers, first at Coogee, where on the southern side I took note of another rudimentary amphitheatre, in which I imagined I might stage a performance of some kind in the future: a chance to share my recent ecstasies and mundane rituals with a small crowd of valued acquaintances, or perhaps even a crew of devotees in the grip of the training ideas I’d inherited and developed from Coach Fitz.
I stuck as close as possible to the coastline and took the route up the northern headland, down through Gordons Bay, Clovelly Beach, Burrows Park and the majestic Waverley Cemetery, where, so Coach had told me, the namesake of Trumper Park was laid to rest. On the northern side, Coach had told me, was a slope well suited to repetitions of hill sprints, and I felt certain that in days not too far away I would subject myself to the rigours of that steep hillside, rewarded abundantly by the solemnity and grandeur of the setting and afterwards the cool waters of the Bronte Bogey Hole.
The expanse of ocean spread from my right to the horizon in front, culminating in the north headland of Bondi in the distance, where I planned to swim and feed myself at the conclusion of my run.
I headed onwards, past Bronte and Tamarama, both of which had attracted largeish crowds and were full of the sounds of reverie that accompany humans picnicking on the weekend. At Tamarama I couldn’t resist the temptation to grace the little oasis of Fletchers Gully with a series of stair sprints, ensuring that my quads where taxed to the maximum degree, before sailing through my final repetition without stopping to rest, as I had done with Coach Fitz, and continuing to Bondi, where, after uploading my run to Strava and checking whether I had received any kudos from my followers, I spent the afternoon swimming and uttering expressions of deep thanks to the climate and geography, demolishing quantities of deli goods, and finally hobbling to the bus station from where a sequence of buses and trains conveyed me back to Darlington.