Date: Sunday, 12 December 2010

From: Who is this mysterious correspondent?

A Feral's Brother

This postcard is from the brother of a Feral. Can you guess who the Feral is?

His comment is "Not my best hair day" and the Feral sibling says to us:

These are photos of my brother in the UK’s Mud Man Race. (probably should have been called Ice Man!).

He is wearing 495. Not sure if the heat is as challenging as the cold, actually I am sure.... I think the heat is worse! I trained in Jan and Feb in London for three years for the London Marathon in similar conditions – the bad weather has come early to the UK this year though.

Date: Wednesday, 1 December 2010

From: Jezza

What I've learned about running

I ran in excess of 2000 miles last year, it took me to places I would have never reached normally, I have seen and heard wildlife and stumbled upon beautiful scenery only miles from my door. Traced routes of ancient Roman roads by map and compass, yesterday I watched the moon hovering in cloud and at the same time saw the sun rise over a hard frosted landscape. I have been invited into a church by the vicar and offered a cup of tea and eaten sweet cox's apples straight from the branch as I ran by and other days run waist deep in water to reach the other side to continue, ran in thunder, lightning, sun, rain, snow and have been hailed upon whose size was that of broad beans.

I have run a 30 mile race competitively but sat down at the end to a hearty meal and drank beer with my trail rivals.

In all that time I have never grumbled (well only a little) learnt things I never knew about myself but in all that time I have always had a smile within me.

What is on my MP3 player you ask? Nothing, absolutely nothing there is just too many things to see and do when running.

Date: Sunday, 3 October 2010

From: Johanna

Home from Baw Baw

Four months in the snow passed quickly and I am back on the flat land and looking for a tan. We had a good season this year with snow most of the time and sometimes when we didn't want it!
Tuesday nights were movie nights. In Morwell, about an hour away. Scotish Mike would drive the bus so he and some of the other international ski instructors could also do some grocery shopping. I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about Inception so joined them one night. Snow was forecast, down to 1000 metres. The resort was at 1500m so there was a possibility of an interesting return journey, but we went anyway.
On the return journey we encountered snow on the West Tyer's River Bridge at about 750m, and while we marvelled at the beautiful sight ahead, we also knew that we would need to fit the snow chains to the bus. Most of us sat in the back of the bus to give some weight to the drive wheels ploughing through the 20cm of snow. A 4X4 overtook us, so we followed in their tracks for a while. But they took the inside of the steepest corner, and we shouldn't have followed them there. The bus stopped and started sliding backwards. Mike held his cool and managed to turn the bus so it was facing downhill and reasonably out of the way. We shouldered the shopping, locked the bus and set off to walk the last 2kms.
I had thought that we would all stick together. You know, help each other and make sure that we were all safe. But the guys were having none of that and struck off on their own. And you know what I'm like when I think people are not doing the right thing! The race was on!
We were lucky that there was almost a full moon so we had a bit of light. Walking in the tyre tracks was just as hard as wading through the 20cm of snow. You just had to keep moving. It was COLD and windy and it was still snowing. But moving kept me warm and I passed each of the others in turn to be the first to the carpark at the top. Those ski instructors thought they were fit - they hadn't met a feral before!
Liverpool Mike and his girlfriend Jo struggled under the weight of their cheap softdrinks. So they buried most of them under one of the signs, hoping to get back to them the next day. You had to be up early to beat the Road Crew, so there was nothing to find the next day. It took a while before each side of the story reached the other party, and Mike and Jo had nearly half of their missing 'pop' returned eventually.

ps. If you did send Red Cross packages, they were pilfered along the way.

Date: Monday, 26 July 2010

From: CJ

from the Melbourne Chapter of the Ferals:

Dear Ms Botman, 

I refer to the slanderous comments you have posted on your website under the 2009 postcards section, claiming that the spanna running behind Sarah is Chris O'Neill.

On closer examination (i refer to the first picture in the sequence) it appears that the young gentlemans legs / feet are not pointed inwards, and therefore it is physiologically impossible that this person is me.

Please remove all defamatory remarks from your website.

Gossip - none from the Melbourne Chapter except our favorite Zimbabwean - Hansie is doing the marathon des sables in marocco in 2012. he is living in indonesia now.

speak soon with some good news .... :)

cj

Date: Monday, 21 June 2010

From: Johanna

Bye Bye - for now

Yes, it is true that I am leaving the Ferals - for a short while. I have accpeted the offer of an IT job at the My Baw Baw Alpine Resort for winter 2010. I will keep the website going from my remote location. I will also send postcards back to you all to make you want to be here with me. You can still reach me on my usual email addresses and if you need a snail mail address for me you can send red cross parcels and other mail paraphenalia to

Johanna Botman
c/- Mt Baw Baw Alpine Resort
PO Box 117
Rawson 3825

Just a quick g'day to say that I am alive and well and training at altitude. Well, sort of. Being in the office 6 days a week doesn't lend itself to getting out much. There's a gym with one treadmill but the competition for it is surprisingly steep. One of my lodgemates is training for a half marathon on Melbourne in July and regularly does 15km sessions on it. So on my day off, I have been walking and exploring the resort and the trails around it. We had 15cm of snow for the opening weekend and it was magic. No ski lifts running yet, though. Lots of people tobogganing. And since then it has rained all the snow away and returned the mountain to its green state.
The noise that woke me this morning was the sound of the snow making machines so there are white patches again.