Saturday Night Antics

Last Saturday night I trekked (read: we pre-booked parking) out to Homebush to do the Electric Run.

Summed up, it’s a 5km run around the outside of ANZ stadium to really loud music that belongs to a generation not of my own, with lots of lights and neon and lots and lots and lots of other people (about 100,000 of them). Most of whom were probably closer in age to my kids than to me.

All in the pissing rain.

I went along with two of my friends from school who I hadn’t seen in years and years. That was the best bit. So cool spending time with people I haven’t seen since before we moved to London. Nothing beats old friends that are still around from school days.

Now there aren’t many things I will venture out on a saturday night for in the pouring rain. Most saturday nights I have a date with a chamomile teabag and my slippers, but last saturday night I was standing in western Sydney wearing a $1.99 plastic raincoat and my running shoes .. but it was in the name of running so HELL YES, I was there.

It was fun. Standing at the start line with all these people, most of whom didn’t look old enough to buy a pack of ciggies but they all seemed happy and everyone was dancing around to the music waiting for the run to start.

About ten minutes before the countdown, I had a very strange flashback. Here I was, with a hundred thousand other people, dressed in skimpy gear, draped in neon and flashing stuff, dancing around to some tunes and hugging my friends I hadn’t seen in ages.

IT WAS 1992 AND I WAS AT A RAVE, SURELY !!!

Or was it 1993? Or 1994? Hmmm .. hard to narrow down really. My memory from that era is sketchy.

But oh how times have changed.

Instead of cocktails, I was sucking on a GU Energy Gel. And rather than having a secret UV stamp on my arm to get me into a club, I had a racing bib pinned to my t-shirt. And I’m 40. And responsible. Ish. And I was about to run 5km, not dance in a dark room for the next seven hours telling someone I’d never met before that I loved them forever and ever and ever.

Memories.

Anyway I was snapped back from memory lane. The countdown started .. I set my Garmin … GO.

I started running and then at about 400m … I hit a traffic jam. Nobody running, groups of people arms linked stopping to check out all the fluorescent crap they had lining the road, and the neon umbrellas hanging from the trees, and the bright lit up chinese lanterns hanging from strings. All happy and peachy and strolling along like it was a lazy sunday afternoon by the river. WTF.

I started to think that maybe we’d got it wrong. Maybe we weren’t supposed to be running because when I looked around nobody else was except me. I actually felt weird running because everyone else was walking. Some weren’t even doing that, they were just milling around in little groups.

Anyway because it was raining and I’d been standing in the cold for so long I decided to keep running. By the time I got to the finish line I’d reached the start of the pack because I’d overtaken all the lovey dovey walkers who were cuddling each other the whole way. Most of whom weren’t even wearing trainers and looked like they were heading out for a night of partying.

The finish line was in the basketball arena at Homebush and once they’d given you a bottle of water we were greeted by a stage with some DJ’s and a light show and heaps of people dancing. So the reward for getting along the 5k course was a dance party at the end.

Then it dawned on me, this was no bloody race. It was more like a dance party organisers way around the red tape. Say it’s a run, get people along a 5k course and then .. ta da .. dance party at the end.

No wonder nobody was running. They were all off their heads. I don’t actually know that but for the sake of my blog let’s pretend they were.

I did wonder about the sign at the start line saying “THIS IS A DRUG FREE EVENT BUT ALCOHOL CAN BE PURCHASED FOR 18+”.

And this is how it happens, people. Even if you were extremely wild in your youth (tick), you get older and the wool slowly gets pulled over your eyes. Its how generation after generation manage to con their parents into believing they are at a friend’s house studying, meanwhile they’re in Kings Cross at a seedy night club.

Alas, a dance party was not for me. I had a rendezvous with some herbal tea and a lie down planned, so the three of us bid adieu to Homebush and drove home in the torrential rain. I was in bed by 11pm.

Only two and a half hours past my bedtime. NOT BAD.