The Age of Aquarius

I experienced something supreme with my Saturday running group this morning. It was one of those runs you just wanted to bottle, mark 'vintage', and place on your top shelf - rarely if ever to be opened.

Picture this. We all assembled before dawn in the car park of Canberra's Cotter Reserve, alongside the creek by the same name. It was cold, and the temeperature hovered around zero. I think we all felt like race horses. We were standing there in the dark, bouncing around, waiting for the call up for the first at Flemington. It was simply a pumping morning for running.

The task: a roughly 20k, 2 hour jaunt along gravel roads, up and down hills (big ones too!) and gullies, across creeks, around bends, and over fences. To Canberra's west and badly damaged by the 2003 fires, the area is a Canberra Mecca for distance runners. It's huge. From the air (as Google Earth also shows) it is a maze of crossing tracks, paths, and roads. It's the classic out and back course and never once would we have to retrace our steps.

The fresh chill air does wonders for the soul and a few k's into the run - and several of us had never done it before - we realised this was going to be something special. High into the hills, we all experienced a magnificant sun rise. There it was, this fantastic golden disk throwing shadows across the hills and gullies. There were blankets of fog in those gullies and we were above it all, watching nature come alive. It felt like we were at the dawn of creation and I thought of the funky hit song Aquarius from the 1970s muscial "Hair". Who remembers the lyrics?

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!

As our hearts go beating through the night
We dance unto the dawn of day
To be the bearers of the water
Our light will lead the way

We are the spirit of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!

We had started this run virtually in the dark....I felt our hearts did go beating through the night.....we were doing our own special dance unto the dawn of the day....bearers of the way....with our light (the Sun) leading the way. At least this is the way it seemed to me this morning. And I promise, I wasn't smoking anything strange and the only thing I had had to drink was a swig of Gatorade shortly before the run started!

Are we an arrogant lot, we runners? There's a passage from Tom Wolf's book The Right Stuff where he talks about the fighter pilot's massive ego when he/she looks down from high on all those below:

How can all of them down there, those poor souls who will soon be waking up and trudging out of their minute rectangles and inching along their noodle highways toward whatever slots and grooves make up their everyday lives-how could they live like that...if they had the faintest idea of what it was like up here in this righteous zone?

Yes, exactly! How could they?

And yet it's not the fighter pilot saying that, it's me, the runner. How could 'they' - those in their slumber sleeping off last night's indulgences - not know the indescrible joy of being healthy, fit, and free. Being at one with the sights, smells, and texture of nature. Being on her turf, on her terms, seeing day replace night, seeing the same sun replace the same moon that our ancestors first saw when they climbed down from the trees...and yes, say it...started to run...and I think too, started to run for fun.

But back to the future, and us in the early dawn at the Cotter, sharing the spirit. This is what made the morning so special. We were runners and walkers of varying ages and gender, and of different standards. In my little group we had the injured Linda leading the way on her bike. There was Elle with her relaxed and efficient running style, working back into things after the Canberra Marathon. There was Michelle and Natasha, both looking great preparing for the Canberra Half Marathon in a week's time. And there was Leah and Emma, both looking superbly fit, with beautiful relaxed styles. Finally, there was me, simply trying to keep up. We ran, we walked, we talked. We had fun. Later we caught up with the rest of the group for breakfast. Very nice. Maria, thank you so much for bringing us together to experience all this.

Is this the dawning of a New Age? Is this the Age of Aquarius? For runners, does it get any better than this?