Humorous Anecdotes, Observations & Accounts of Marathon Running & Agile Adventures.
It is rather perturbing to wake up at the feet of Dawn* for one of your favourite ultra marathons and find that there is a 4am text message saying, “URGENT NOTICE: Due to public violence en-route both race starts will be delayed by AT LEAST an HOUR – Police are evaluating the situation. Next update 5:00”. Continue reading “Loskop Marathon (The one with a late start & a fast finish)”
The Real Gijimas Ultra Marathon traverses 50 kilometres of rural Eastern Cape countryside through countless villages between Zwelitsha and Mdantsane. Every village needs an idiot and the following candidates applied for the vacant VIPs (Village Idiot Positions) on the last weekend of March: Bulela Sidloyi, Ernest de la Querro, Jacques Coetzer, Jeremy Knox, Nkul’leko Ntuli, Richard Birch, Stuart Mann and Zolani Twani.
You see, for each of the above applicants, the Real Gijimas Ultra would be their second 50k of the weekend as all of us had completed the Bruintjieshoogte Ultra Marathon the previous day. Continue reading “Real Gijimas Ultra (Every village needs an idiot)”
There is a unique vibe running in South Africa’s townships, it’s a special experience you won’t find anywhere else in the world. Nowhere is this truer than in the Eastern Cape where the original township running club, The Real Gijimas, make their distinctive maroon mark seen – and their characteristic choruses heard – all across the province.
Continue reading “The Real Gijimas (The original township club)”
It pays to have friends who are more persistent than you are. Last year the Great East Marathon was a new addition to the running calendar – but was cancelled without so much as a race flyer going out. I’ve been writing monthly articles detailing all South African marathons and try to make contact with race directors to confirm details but, after half a dozen emails and phone calls went unanswered, I assumed that the sun had already set on the Great East Marathon in 2019.
I was therefore very surprised when my friend, Julian Karp, gave me a call to ask if I wanted to join him running the Great East Marathon. Julian likes to run two marathons a weekend and, since this was the only marathon listed on Saturday 23 March, he doggedly hunted the organisers down – his tenacity paying off with confirmation that “the marathon is definitely on”. Continue reading “Great East Marathon (The Kruger Park run)”
In cinema there are many ‘trilogies’ but just one set of three is known as ‘The Trilogy’ – a term which is of course reserved for the original three Star Wars movies. ‘The Trilogy’ movies are universally appreciated as timeless classics. They offer an exciting visual extravaganza from the very first scene to the closing credits, are stuffed full of interesting characters and continuously stimulate your ocular nerves with scintillating special effects in spectacular settings – in fact they provide such a riveting ride that you can revisit them once a year and never get bored.
If I was forced to only run marathons in one region of South Africa but allowed to pick the place, it would be an easy choice – the Garden Route. Having run ten Knysna Forest Marathons and completing the Outeniqua Marathon last year, I was really looking forward to concluding the marathon running ‘Trilogy’ with Knysna Heads. With a spring in my step and eager anticipation in my legs, I arrived at OR Tambo airport for the flight to George. Continue reading “Knysna Heads Marathon (The Return of the Jetty)”
When running is in your blood, you can hide – and hike, cycle and swim – but you’ll eventually have to run.
Karen Brough has hiked all over the world. She’s completed the Annapurna Trail in the Himalayas, walked the El Camino from France, trekked across the Pyrenean Mountains to Santiago in Spain (900kms in 20 days) and climbed Kilimanjaro just for the views.
Karen has also cycled thousands of kilometres on her bike – her greatest achievement in this space was raising over a million rand for charity by doing a series of long distance peddles from Johannesburg to Maputo, Johannesburg to Cape Town and Johannesburg to East London.
She’s “always been a very active person” but none of her regular endurance exploits ever broke out into a run – until recently. At the age of 56 Karen set her sights on completing the IronMan – and accidentally fell into running, “I have always wanted to do a full IronMan. I could swim and cycle with ease, but soon realised my dream would never come true if I couldn’t run a marathon.”
Continue reading “In Your Father’s Footsteps (When You Can Hike But You Can’t Run)”
This story was confessed to me by a club mate who made a terrible mistake during her first Two Oceans Marathon in 2004. It still haunts her to this day and she doesn’t want other novices to repeat the same grave error of judgement.
She is still acutely embarrassed by her naïve blunder – so much so that she only agreed to share her story under condition of anonymity. Therefore, I have decided to respect her wishes and will refer to the protagonist of this story under the code name BN4991.
Continue reading “Novice Two Oceans Marathon Mistakes: When you’ve #RunAsOne, don’t finish as two!”
Rikki’s mom had lost contact with her favourite cousin-once-removed, Wesley Tiedt, for over 40 years until Facebook intervened and facilitated a happy family reunion in Johannesburg.
The blood ties were quickly rekindled and Rikki immediately formed a strong bond with her new-found family member. She says, “It was clear we were all cut from the same cloth and had the same wacky sense of humour.”
They spent the Christmas of 2017 together on Wes’ farm in St. Francis Bay. Rikki was paging through a photo album when she stumbled across the picture below of Wes running the 1987 Two Oceans Marathon. Photo finishes are commonplace in athletics but this photo was about initiate a major change in Rikki’s life.
On the 6th of April 1985 two men completed their 10th Two Oceans Marathon voyage in just under four hours to cap their Blue Number run with a silver medal. Louis Massyn, clocking in at 3:57:30, received Blue Number 35 and less than a minute later Tony Abrahamson, 3:58:18, lined up behind him to collect Blue Number 36.
That was 34 years ago – a year in which Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, Michael Jordan was named NBA “Rookie of the Year”, a 17-year old Boris Becker won Wimbledon for the first time and Marty McFly went Back to the Future. It was a long time ago but neither of these proud 1985 Blue Number recipients has missed a Two Oceans Marathon since then.
Together, they have a combined grand total time of 211 hours 25 minutes and 54 seconds on the Two Oceans route (that’s about 17.5 days). Although Louis has a faster PB (3:41:15 to Tony’s 3:52:12) and six silver medals (to Tony’s four), Tony ‘s average time of 4:55:01 betters Louis’ average of 4:59:07.
Continue reading “The Admirals of Two Oceans: Tony Abrahamson & Louis Massyn”
I’ve been gathering Two Oceans advice from a number of different athletes of all abilities. There is one common answer across the spectrum – take the first half of the race easy because you’ll pay significant interest charges over the much tougher second half.
Therefore, I wanted to make sure we got some input from the person best qualified to inform us what happens on race day when “a push comes to shove” – and that person is undoubtedly Hilton Murray.
Hilton will be piloting Anita Engelbrecht in a “wheelchair jogger” that they’ve named ‘Blitsie’ for the fourth year in a row at the Two Oceans Marathon. Team Blitsie have traversed the country but there is one hill they fear more than any other – an “absolute killer” that they dread more than Polly Shortts or any of the ‘big five’ hills at Comrades. According to Hilton, getting to the top of Constantia Nek stands out head and shoulders as the most difficult hill in the country when pushing a wheelchair jogger. Continue reading “When a Push Comes to a Shove, Constantia Nek is the Toughest Hill in South Africa”