Concrete jungle - Richard Butler
(As published in the February 2002 issue of Runner's World)
This morning I went for a run. It wasn’t a long run and by six o’clock I had written in my exercise diary Ran Leagues Club loop. Comfortable run. Legs still a little sore. Not a terribly descriptive entry but very much like most of the notes I’ve written over the last seven years. But what really happened?
I woke up before five this morning, beating my alarm to the punch. I listened to the magpies chortling as I lay in bed for a minute or so trying to decide whether to get up, or take the opportunity to snooze for an extra 15 minutes. Snoozing never really worked for me so I was soon up and into my running gear.
It was a little cool when I stepped outside but the mildest winter on record for Sydney meant that I had little worry about being cold. I don’t know what my thoughts were as I trudged through the first couple of kilometres (probably something like ‘God my calves/thighs/bum cheeks are sore, perhaps I should go home’) but whatever the reverie, I was startled out of it when a fox ran across my path.
A fox darting across a road within 10km of the Sydney CBD! I occasionally see fox bait warnings nearby so I knew foxes were around but such a close encounter had escaped me since I was a six year old going to work with dad.
Having watched the fox disappear across the nearby playing fields I continued my run, with a new level of contemplation. But my brain ticked over not with meaningful ecological considerations but rather in a vain attempt to remember some piece of Dr Seuss verse. Frustratingly, I couldn’t pin the words down: was it ‘a fox in socks cannot wind clocks’ or ‘a fox in socks never knocks’?
The rustling of leaves brought me back to the here and now (and probably saved my sanity). I glanced over expecting to see a possum messing around in the tree only to spy another fox - this one was the flying variety. These guys usually aren’t all that active at this time of the year so the presence of this one surprised me.
I have always enjoyed the silent company of Sydney’s bats as I’m out on my evening or early morning runs. I sometimes pause to watch them drift overhead (their flight is about as disruptive as a piece of black silk floating on the wind). As always, I envied the effortless grace of their flight as I struggled through the last couple of kilometres of my run.
Some forty minutes later I had finished my loop through the neighbourhood and was seated on a step in my front yard. As I sat there, with a fine veil of steam rising from my shoulders, I listened to the sounds of the city. Sure, there was the odd car and the gentle murmur of passing walkers but by far the dominant sounds were those of birds: Magpies continued their warbling song; the odd Kookaburra was letting loose with its raucous laugh; and that piercing "koo-woop" bird that I can never actually spy was trumpeting intermittently.
This urban route of mine isn’t quite an idyllic countryside trot, but certainly on these early morning runs I experience a side of this city that many people wouldn’t credit, let alone see. And today, I realised that next time someone asks me why I run (or why I get up at five to run) I would probably tell them about this morning.
But in the meantime, can you tell me ... is it ‘you cannot box a fox in socks’ or maybe ‘a fox in socks won’t hang out with jocks’?