Peace, love and running!

Crush the Cargill 24-hour Challenge is back with a Woodstock theme as trail runners get the pleasure of running up and down Mt Cargill as many times as possible in a 24-hour period.

Last year over $4000 was raised to help fund CreekFest, and this is our focus again this year. It’s easy to see the connection between Crush the Cargill and the Valley Project –— both are about getting people together and reconnecting with our wider environment.

This year is also the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking Woodstock music festival that symbolized a communal desire for love, peace and trail running. When Jimi Hendrix sang ‘Purple Haze in My Brain’ he was singing about the delightful fogginess that runners get to experience after running up and down Mt Cargill all night.

Woodstock came during a psychedelic period in music when it has been postulated that many songwriters wrote their music while experiencing the hallucinations caused by ultra-running sleep deprivation.

Compare for instance, the Beatles song, ‘I am a Walrus’, with the experience of a runner two years ago who swore there was a seal and some jellyfish on the track up to Mt Cargill around 3am.

On a less serious, but more important note, Crush the Cargill begins at 10am on Saturday 14 December at Bethunes Gully. All are welcome to come along and join in this festival of love, peace and trail running. You don’t need to be a runner!

Simply walk up once or come watch and dance in the Gully any time of the day or night. As John Lennon once said about Crush the Cargill: “I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be one.”

Please bring a koha for the Valley Project, or you can support the cause and give online at bit.ly/crushgive —Steve Tripp