We had a relative sleep-in and after Ben had read us out his daily “totally random yet strangely inspirational” text message from Uncle Jim we did a quick radio interview with Marty and Bianca on i98fm. After asking Bianca to run with us and getting shut down, we left Shellharbour around 7am. But we didn’t head straight to our starting point at Albion Park, instead we went to Mark’s office-Albion Park airport. The Edge is a paramedic in the rescue chopper and we got a VIP tour of the hangar. It was like a year 4 excursion again and when the boys got to put our Luke Skywalker style helmets on it made our mornings. Although we didn’t have lightsabers, it was still very cool, Edge showing us the ins and outs of the 6 tonne, $17.5 million beast of a helicopter. After doing our best Arnie “get to the chopper” impressions we reluctantly left the pure awesomeness of the hangar around 8am and got started on what we were meant to be doing-running.
We had a short today (34kms), however we ended up having a busy day. When we got a phone call from Sam (who was driving Ruby) telling us that we had an Illawarra Mercury newspaper interview lined up at Gilmore Park at 10am. There were only two problems with this scenario-It was around 9.10am, and we were over 9kms away, meaning we’d have to run 5 minutes per kilometres. This would be a straight forward task back home but after over 800kms in the legs we’d grown accustomed to a bit of a slower pace. We powered on but not at the required pace-especially after all three of us literally spent about a minute on the ground wrestling all over each other because we thought we’d found a 5c piece and were fighting for it…the money finding game was an intense one today, and tensions were high. When Ben emerged from the rumble with only a silver calculator battery-and not a 5c piece, we dusted ourselves off sheepishly and continued running. The pace got even slower just temporarily when two old fellas starting beeping us and pulled over. It was Glenn Gorick and Mal Butterfield, two champion blokes who had got in contact with us after hearing about our run…they’d both done something very similar a couple of years back. It was nice to “meet” the guys after only having phone conversations with them. The pace then skyrocketed when Mal joined us for the run to Gilmore Park, and we got there just before 10.30am.
The Illawarra Mercury journalist and photographer turned up and one of the first things Lucas (the journo) asked after we introduced ourselves was “so where or who is Ruby?”. He was a bit perplexed when we pointed to our caravan…he obviously hadn’t done his research too well. We proceeded to pose for photos, with the photographer asking for some particularly “boy bandish” poses-leaning against trees, sitting down in staggered positions on the grass…nearly every classic boy band pose other than the “look away from the camera contemplating life” pose.
Straight afterwards we did a piece for WIN television, and did the old “run up and down the street and do fake stretches for 50 takes” trick which was to be played on the 6.30pm news.
After an extended break for the plethora of media (yeah, we’re kind of a big deal) we hit the road again with Mal in tow and followed Ruby up the street. Then Ruby did a U-turn…we’d been taken down the wrong road. We doubled back and followed Ruby down a different street for a few hundred metres, but before long we saw her do another U-turn…she was deadset lost and we were tacking on unnecessary mileage! This would have never happened with the Edge! But the blue skies were glorious and the spirits were high so we didn’t mind-it was just a nice day to be running, even if it was down the wrong streets.
The honks from passing cars continued as we ventured through Fairy Meadow, and throughout the course of the afternoon we caught up with Meagan and Nic and Di (Mrs Edge) who all came for a run with us. With Sam and Jacki taking turns on foot and with Mal and Glen onboard, our Forrest Gump style-followers sometimes numbered up to seven.
The short day, which was actually quite busy finished at Thirroul just before 2pm, where the day-followers left and we headed to Uncle Paul and Auntie Elese’s (and cousins Noah and Jess) for the night. We had a cracker of a meal before tuning into WIN for the news to see our TV piece. It wasn’t the first time on the trip we’d watched ourselves on TV, but it was still a surreal feeling. It was the first time I’d been on TV with a beard though…I’d heard the camera adds ten pounds but what about the changing colour of the beard? It looked like my face was on fire it was so ginger! Ben was a bit disappointed my exquisite explanation about the three of us being “the machines” and our support team were the ones “responsible for fixing, repairing and feeding the machines to make them work” statement didn’t make the cut.
Although we’ve been offered a beautiful home with comfy beds to sleep in tonight, all five of us have chosen to sleep in the Rubinator one last time…we take the old girl back to the caravan place tomorrow afternoon.
Getting ready for another short day tomorrow…we’ve battled through a couple of 50km+ days and several high 40km+ days early on in Victoria so we could take the last couple of days relatively easy. The run up the coast and onto the world-renowned Heathcote shall be a gooden.
Cheers
Nick
P.s. We plan to finish at Dunningham Park at Cronulla at midday on Saturday. If you’d like to say g’day, talk business and celebrate with us we’d love to see you at the finish line.
Maverick, Goose, Iceman and Slider
Nick being really funny, charming and dazzling in an interview-the cameraman is hanging on every word!
Getting directed into poses which clearly have nothing to do with running
What is it with cameramen and fake stretching? We've had to do it every time
Running with our new mate Mal Butterfield
Joel pondering post-run life, Ben pondering about how to grow a beard. Nick watching the pondering
An awesome feed with Paul, Elese, Noah and Jess
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