Run The Bridge

When playing tennis, we talked about Run The Bridge. I said: I love Run The Bridge. It is magic moment running the bridge without cars. Surrounded by other runners. Great view. There is room for you. Do it.

It proves that I live in a healthy community. Healthy physically, socially and emotionally. A fun run with nearly 5000 people proves Hobart is a good place to live. To run across the bridge with other people is exhilarating. It’s special.  I do the 10 kays.

I have absolutely no idea how many times I have Run The Bridge. I know my first fun run was over 45 years ago around the time that fun runs began. In the last 45 years I have entered every fun run easily accessible.

Society and funruns have changed in the last 45 years. Somethings have remained the same. Fun runs are open to all. Easy to enter. Simple rules. You wear a number. You start together. You follow the person in front of you. The course is straightforward. Finish time is recorded. Prize to fastest. Tables for water. Roads littered with plastic cups.

Fun runs today:

On-line entry and on-line display of results.  

Photos are common.

Sign a waiver absolving organisers of anything.

Runners more accurately reflect society. More females, old people and disabled people. 

Teams more common. People running together with their mate is more common.

Today more people are fussy about what they drink. Only drink their particular drink.

Raising money for a charity. A shirt and a team to promote their charity.

Clothes have changed. More special running clothes. More materials which are designed for sweating bodies. Less people throw on their garden shorts. Shoes have improved. Which is good not only sartorially but helps prevent injuries.

Multiple events around the main event. Shorter runs for kids.

Before the start

Standing in a crowd of people waiting to start running.  Some are stretching. Some are jogging. Some are standing on one leg and stretching the other leg. Some are talking or greeting friends. We are standing outside the massive stadium that houses cricket and football.

There is no uniform. There are some similar shirts or tops. Advertising, promoting something or commemorating some past run.  Some of the shirts tell people what team they are in.

I search the crowd of runners for someone I know and somewhere to stand. I head towards the back for safety.

The Race

The race starts and I don’t. I walk and eventually cross the line and start dodging, swerving and avoiding others. I spend my time working out where to run. Should I go around them or not. If I follow this person they may drag me. The other runners slow me down and speed me up. They slow me as I avoid them. They carry me along in their slipstream.  I am stunned by the number of people. And I know virtually none of them. Where have they all come from. Most of them must live in Hobart and yet I have never seen them before. They have appeared and they are running. With me. We are all in this together. All heading in the same direction.  Weekly News

Feels good to help make this crowd. I push hard. A view of the bridge. Running over the bridge. The bridge is covered by a blanket of living, moving runners and walkers. They are all concentrating, focused and pounding the bitumen. I admire the view of The Mountain and feel guilty. I must focus on running.

 

Previous races tell me the finish is a tease. Run past the finish line tour Battery Point and then come back to cross the finish line.

 

At the finish line is a clock and a bump in the road which gives me the race time

After the Race

Over the years every fun run I have entered I have never come first or last. Is that glass half full or empty? Have I beaten the guy who came last or been beaten by the winner. Neither. It is a personal challenge. A personal test. An activity that brings enjoyment.  It does more than that. It has helped increase my self-awareness. It has helped keep me fit for work. It has help me make friends. It has improved my social life. It has improved me emotional. It is 45 years of positives.

 

I glance around. Thousands of happy sweaty people. We are all wearing identical medals. The medals are telling me  everybody is a winner. 

 

My medal tells me I learnt something about myself.

 

I found out that my  physical ability (how fast I ran) is related to my emotional, mental and social health. I found out that my physical health affects my emotional, mental and social health. The physically fitter I get the better I feel.

 

Us winners stand around talking; drinking; taking photos. We are a very happy crowd. The organisers are invisible. They have created a delicious, wonderful crowd full of proud, exhausted chatty people. 

Special thanks to the person who helped me contact my wife so that she could find me in the crowd.

The organisers have made many of us Hobartians a tiny bit healthier. Physically, socially and emotionally.

 

 

The Bridge

 

Hobart was settled when ships controlled the movement of humans around the globe. Hobart is on a deep-water port. Hobart is divided by the River Derwent.

 

The bridge unites and connects Hobart. Famous for being damaged by a ship in 1975. Today cars are banned from travelling the bridge when a ship sails under it. This continually reminds us of the day the bridge was hit by a wayward ship.

 

The ship still lies at the bottom of the river with a concrete slab from the bridge on top of it. Ships regularly pass over the sunken ship without a thought. When I run the bridge, I think of the ship under the bridge.