The burial of "Custered"...

Came home today (22 November 2012) and was greeted by two solemn young boys… They led me into a quiet corner of the garden to view a new shrine they had erected… The burial site of a juvenile mouse bird,  who had taken his first leap from the nest, and ended up in the pool…I am not sure why they had decided to christen this unfortunate mouse bird chick “Custered”, Maybe I should have asked this? But I was so touched by the effort, and the initiative, that it didn’t seem necessary at the time…

Careful examination of the stones, and the words on each, is recommended… Notice to the other artefacts… A small square of shiny mosaic, acquired illicitly from the bathroom renovation that was on the go at the time…. And a feather, (source unknown).

Posted via email from Learning to be a Dad

The Running of "The Puffer"

The Peninsula Ultra Fun Run, known for short as Puffer, is a no-frills ultra-trail which has been organised annually in Cape Town, South Africa since 1995, by the Fish Hoek Athletics Club. There is no prize money and no major media coverage. Entries are limited, and participants are expected to be independent, self-sufficient and environmentally aware.

The total distance is about 80 km, which is more or less the shortest possible route from Cape Point to the Waterfront.  The route runs from Cape Point to Red Hill Pass, through the Simon's Town Water Catchment Area to Black Hill, via Ou Kaapse Weg across Fish Hoek Valley to Silvermine Nature Reserve, through Tokai Forest Plantation and the Vlakkenberg footpath to Constantia Nek, over Table Mountain to the summit at Maclear's Beacon (1,086 metres above sea level), then down Platteklip Gorge to Kloofnek, via Signal Hill to the V&A Waterfront.

So, that's the official line off the Puffer website... A number of us have been putting our names down on the application list for years, to no avail, so the amazing organisational abilities of the Tyrone Harriers was brought in to break the stalemate. Bugger it, if we can’t get on the official list, we will organise our own version of it! A date was set for the 17th of March, which we hoped would give us the best of the Cape weather, and fit in amongst all of the Comrades and Iron Man training that all the hard-core freaks had committed to. And we set upon a new name for our interpretation of the event: “The Bluffer”..

When the Tyrone Harriers Committee gets stuck in to something, what results is a not unlike a well-co-ordinated military campaign. All logistical arrangements were planned and executed, and when we all gathered at the airport on Friday afternoon, there was a relaxed but excited buzz in our little group. We piled on to the plane with our Vida Café coffees, and we were off.

We were met at the airport but the designated shuttle driver Clint, (more on this character later), and there was only one delay on the way to the B&B when poor old Paul had to alight from the vehicle and stand on the side of the road to deliver his weekly call to the Money Show on 702… He was too scared to do it from the safer confines of the bus, as he could not be sure that one of us might try to get involved in some un-official capacity… But soon we were off once more, we had found the B&B, thrown our stuff in our rooms, and were able to walk off down the road to a nearby restaurant for some pre-race dinner.

Dinner turned into a bit of a fiasco… The restaurant was clearly stretched by trying to deal with the 17 or 18 of us all at once… Our food came in dribs and drabs, and some of us had eaten and were ready to go before others had received theirs. It appears the effects of the economic crisis in Greece have really started to impact us here in South Africa too, as they ran out of halloumi cheese, (but that didn’t stop them serving “halloumi salads” though)! Poor Sheila ended up eating her dinner in about 30 seconds, whilst we stood around, took photos and videos, and clapped!

On the way back from the dinner on Friday night, we had an amazing experience. We saw a man-hole cover on a man-hole!

Malcolm pays his respects…

Malcolm reverently knelt down to touch this rare and hallowed object, and we all said a few words about how lucky Cape Townians were to have Helen Zille there at the helm. There was some talk about removing it, and bringing it back home as a souvenir…  But we resisted, determined to be satisfied with this more sustainable “touch and release” policy…

Saturday morning saw us having an early start. We all piled into Clint’s F1 Racing Bus,  and he set off, determined to reward us all with another scintillating display of his death defying driving, and his apparent affliction with bouts of crippling colour blindness, which seem to attack periodically at traffic lights.

We emerged unscathed from the bus with some gratitude at Cape Point, just in time it seemed, before he set off in a cloud of dust to some other pressing engagement. It was pretty novel to be the only group in the car park… Last time I was there I had to fight my way through the Japanese tourists, not unlike Admiral Nimitz did at Okinawa back in ’45… Not even the baboons were up to greet us!

We made our way up to the a long line of steps to the lighthouse, and gathered for that traditional pre-race picture… Can you believe it… An Asian gent appeared, (all alone), out of thin air! Good timing, because he was able to be the official race photographer, and to capture the pic of us all below:

Yes. Andre ran the whole way in his Sunday bests…

I am not sure why we were standing on the left, and crouching on the right…???Gavin obviously feels he is much taller than he actually is…  But anyway, There was a general whooping and hoopla, we gave the lighthouse a slap, and set off down the stairs again, back through the car park, and on our long and winding way back towards Cape Town. The weather was as perfect as we could have hoped for… Cool, with a light cloud cover, the gentlest of breezes…  We all fell into our own comfortable pace in little groups, soaking up the views, and the sunrise over False Bay to our right. The Cape put on a show for us, as it always manages to do. The rain over the past day or two had left the air squeaky clean, and had put a shine on the fynbos.

We stopped at one of the amazing viewpoints for our first munchies just before exiting the park, wolfing down some nuts, Gu or biltong. We took in the last of the sunrise over the bay, and headed out through the gates, down the long access road to the main Redhill Road, back up and over the hills to the point over-looking Simon’s Town.

Mid-morning, we took a shortcut through an “informal settlement” at the top of the ridge, and I was heartened to see the number of satellite dishes that had been nailed to trees, or strapped to telephone poles… It appears that even those living far below the poverty datum line find that the drivel served up on state TV far from appealing. Nearly every resident seems to be able to find the means to scrape together the pennies to pay for DStv every month. This warmed the cockles of my heart, as it means my employers are well entrenched on this continent…

We cut off the road again at this point, and were fortunate to be met by Malcolm’s mother and father in law, Peta and Chris Mason, who had turned out in their car, and met us at a picnic spot with a basket of fresh egg-and-mayo sarmies, some bottles of water, and a few other treats. 5 minutes later, all the bottles were empty, the baskets contained only crumbs, and the hoard of scavengers moved on again, over a hill, and down across some open trails towards Sun Valley.

After 28km on any run, it always starts to get quieter… Either we have told all our clever stories, or we start concentrating more on putting one foot in front of the other, than impressing our friends with our stunning wit and alacrity…. The route from here on in got hotter, and tougher. We stopped in at a garage in Sun Valley to fill our water tanks, before setting off for the real running of the day, which involved a whole bunch of climbing up Ou Kaapse Weg.

Malcolm shows us how it’s done…

               

The roads were busy with shoppers making their way to “church” in the malls, so where we could, we kept on the trails, and paused periodically to look back at our impressive progress in conquering the meters of climb up into the hills overlooking Noordhoek, and eventually Constantia.

A sign along the way. Three is a crowd… Four is …

So sometime around 14h00, the ragged band of runners arrived at the car park at Silvermine Dam, just over 46km from where we had started that morning. This is where we had arranged to meet our racing driver Clint, so he could further raise our adrenal levels with a drive back to the B&B for a wash and brush up. A few of the hard-core guys were determined to run on further, over the top of the ridge, and down into Constantia, but I am pleased to say that the most of us did not feel compelled. Many blamed this lack of willingness on the critical shortage of halloumi cheese in their salads the night before…  I rather fell prey to the lure of the pool, the shower, a pot of tea, and some rather fine home-made muffins back home. This, along with an extra hour on the cool cotton sheets of my bed, before spending the rest of the afternoon lying about with a beer in hand, watching the Sharks beat the hell out of the Red’s in those pathetic excuses for rugby jerseys…

Dinner on day two was a great improvement, at least from the aspect of the food we were served, but I fear once more we made no friends with the regulars… Let me give you this bit of advice: If you ever walk into a restaurant, and you see a table for 15 – 20 people with a reserved sign on it - Turn around immediately, and beat a hasty retreat. Cut your losses whilst you can – especially if you have your octogenarian mother with you! There is a high probability a loud group of runners (or other sport-tourist types), are about to descend on that space, and destroy your quaint dinner… And if they are already sitting at the table, ask if there are any St Mary’s girls there? If there are, run like hell! ;)

Sunday morning, more of the same... Breakfast, and away in the F1 Ferrari Bus (with the sickening knock and wobble on the back left wheel), for some more running in the hills… We started to run as the sun rose. No slow warm up today though. The climbing started immediately, and was pretty un-relentless until we arrived at Maclear’s beacon at about 1,100m above sea level, an hour or two later.   Once again, the weather was perfect, with nothing more than a gentle breeze, and visibility for miles and miles. I don’t know if us Joburg types really know quite how lucky we were…

We stopped at various look out spots to soak it all up, and had a team-photo opportunity “at the top”. 

I notice Gavin is still bending down…              

Now was the time for the serious downhill stuff. We detoured from the real Puffer route to take in a few of the extra sights, like the view down over Camps Bay.

Yes… Those are houses down there… Expensive ones too!

Andre looking out over Cape Town

But the sight of the tourists pouring out of the cable car station chased us away pretty soon, and we beat a hasty retreat back down the steps, to the entrance of Platteklip Gorge, where we would do the most of the dropping. This little section did a pretty good job of turning our quads to jelly, and demanded lots of attention, as one misplaced footing would see you on your face, and making a fool of yourself (as Frank so willingly demonstrated, much to the amusement of his buddies), in front of the some of the many pretty little German Fraulein that seemed to adorn the mountain that morning… J

Emma descending Platteklip, showing us it’s possible  to keep smiling even when your  legs aren’t

At the bottom, we traversed along the contour lines, back down to the lower cable car station, where we waited for the rest of the team, and regrouped for the final push down to where the beer was waiting for us.

From the top of Table Mountain, Lions Head, and the section of the saddle out towards Signal Hill looks pretty flat… But it’s all about your perspective, because once you get down there, you realise it wasn’t all going to be downhill running…

Signal Hill wasn’t as flat as it looked from the cable car station (at the peak on top left)

Anyway. This “race” had to end sometime. We were all starting to behave like “hotel pony’s”… You know the type that only have one speed when they are turned around and heading for home… We navigated our way through the confusing streets at the base of Signal Hill, and arrived at Ferryman’s just after mid-day, which is an awfully fashionable time to drink beer… And destroy another peaceful mealtime for yet another crowd of perfectly innocent punters.

Recovery meal of Champions… The Doctor swears by a hard boiled egg (or two) and a pint of milk stout. Who was going to be the lucky one to sit next to us for two hours on the flight home tonight?

I managed to get down three pints of Bosun’s Bitter, along with a 300gr steak egg and chips, (bringing my daily egg count for the day up to 5, an possibly positioning me to be able to fly myself back to Joburg later).

After lunch, it was back to the B&B, where we were met with bad news of a power failure. So un-phased, the guys descended on the pool, armed with bars of soap and shampoo, to get the worst of the muck and sweat off us before the flight home, so the ladies could share what was left of the hot water in the geysers. We stuffed our sweaty kit into our bags, and set off to the airport. I said a silent prayer that the sniffer dogs would not be on duty at the airport tonight, as I was sure that if they were set free amongst our bags tonight, they would have to be sent for re-calibration the next day!

We checked in, and grabbed a Vida Café fix to try and keep us all awake. But the exertion and fun of the past two days wore heavily on us. This, along with the “downer” that comes to visit at the end of a long anticipated adventure… It was all too much for many of us… Lu may as well have saved the money on the neck brace for all the good it did her on the plane.

No amount of Vida was going to keep this girl awake…

But as I sat on the plane on the way home that evening, mulling over what had been an amazing weekend, what struck me hardest was just how lucky we were to be able to do this kind of thing… And it occurred to me that I must never take this “for granted”… I sat and pondered on the complexities of all our lives, and how much sacrifice had been made by so many of us, just to pull this off.

There was poor Wynne Kossuth, who had had to pull out after day 1, and fly back to Joburg on Saturday evening, (at short notice), so she could be at mediation for a demanding client on Sunday morning.

There was Sheila who also pulled out of day 2, to save her legs for Two Oceans in a few weeks, but more importantly to take her Mum, (who lives in Cape Town), out for lunch.

Joni, who’s Dad was in the final stages of his battle with cancer at his home in Simon’s Town… Joni ran with us each day, but rushed off immediately after each leg, so she could spend time with him, and with her sister, who was also at his side. He held on bravely, but passed away on Monday, immediately after our run.

Rory Steyn, who had an accident and fell whilst training just the weekend before the event, and broke his collar bone… This meant he couldn’t run, but he came down to Cape Town anyway, and hiked up Skeleton Gorge on Sunday morning with a pack of munchies, so he could share them with us at Breakfast Rock…

These are some of our stories… I am sure there were more, but I think I have made my point.

We live in a frenetic world, where it seems we have to fight tooth and nail to make these things happen. To put in the training so you can even turn up, to make the plans. To create the time and the space, that a group of friends can get out and do something like this.  This is what builds the connection, and creates friendships that can last a lifetime….

So, form “the Northern Chapter”, to our friends and comrades (old and new) of the Tyrone Harriers, a big, big thank you. Thanks for the amazing organisation and planning, and making it all flow so smoothly. And thanks for including us. If I am fortunate to get asked to join again, and if I keep training like hell, well, I look forward to doing it all again soon!

Posted via email from andrewrunswild's posterous

The Running of "The Puffer"

The Peninsula Ultra Fun Run, known for short as Puffer, is a no-frills ultra-trail which has been organised annually in Cape Town, South Africa since 1995, by the Fish Hoek Athletics Club. There is no prize money and no major media coverage. Entries are limited, and participants are expected to be independent, self-sufficient and environmentally aware.

The total distance is about 80 km, which is more or less the shortest possible route from Cape Point to the Waterfront.  The route runs from Cape Point to Red Hill Pass, through the Simon's Town Water Catchment Area to Black Hill, via Ou Kaapse Weg across Fish Hoek Valley to Silvermine Nature Reserve, through Tokai Forest Plantation and the Vlakkenberg footpath to Constantia Nek, over Table Mountain to the summit at Maclear's Beacon (1,086 metres above sea level), then down Platteklip Gorge to Kloofnek, via Signal Hill to the V&A Waterfront.

So, that's the official party line off the Puffer website... A number of us have been putting our names down on the application list for years, to no avail, so the amazing organisational abilities of the Tyrone Harriers was brought in to break the stalemate. Bugger it, if we can’t get on the official list, we will organise our own version of it! A date was set for the 17th of March, which we hoped would give us the best of the Cape weather, and fit in amongst all of the Comrades and Iron Man training that all the hard-core freaks had committed to. And we set upon a new name for our interpretation of the event: “The Bluffer”..

When the Tyrone Harriers Committee gets stuck in to something, what results is a not unlike a well-co-ordinated military campaign. All logistical arrangements were planned and executed, and when we all gathered at the airport on Friday afternoon, there was a relaxed but excited buzz in our little group. We piled on to the plane with our Vida Café coffees, and we were off.

We were met at the airport but the designated shuttle driver Clint, (more on this character later), and there was only one delay on the way to the B&B when poor old Paul had to alight from the vehicle and stand on the side of the road to deliver his weekly call to the Money Show on 702… He was too scared to do it from the safer confines of the bus, as he could not be sure that one of us might try to get involved in some un-official capacity… But soon we were off once more, we had found the B&B, thrown our stuff in our rooms, and were able to walk off down the road to a nearby restaurant for some pre-race dinner.

Dinner turned into a bit of a fiasco… The restaurant was clearly stretched by trying to deal with the 17 or 18 of us all at once… Our food came in dribs and drabs, and some of us had eaten and were ready to go before others had received theirs. It appears the effects of the economic crisis in Greece have really started to impact us here in South Africa too, as they ran out of halloumi cheese, (but that didn’t stop them serving “halloumi salads” though)! Poor Sheila ended up eating her dinner in about 30 seconds, whilst we stood around, took photos and videos, and clapped!

On the way back from the dinner on Friday night, we had an amazing experience. We saw a man-hole cover on a man-hole!

Malcolm pays his respects…

Malcolm reverently knelt down to touch this rare and hallowed object, and we all said a few words about how lucky Cape Townians were to have Helen Zille there at the helm. There was some talk about removing it, and bringing it back home as a souvenir…  But we resisted, determined to be satisfied with this more sustainable “touch and release” policy…

Saturday morning saw us having an early start. We all piled into Clint’s F1 Racing Bus,  and he set off, determined to reward us all with another scintillating display of his death defying driving, and his apparent affliction with bouts of crippling colour blindness, which seem to attack periodically at traffic lights.

We emerged unscathed from the bus with some gratitude at Cape Point, just in time it seemed, before he set off in a cloud of dust to some other pressing engagement. It was pretty novel to be the only group in the car park… Last time I was there I had to fight my way through the Japanese tourists, not unlike Admiral Nimitz did at Okinawa back in ’45… Not even the baboons were up to greet us!

We made our way up to the a long line of steps to the lighthouse, and gathered for that traditional pre-race picture… Can you believe it… An Asian gent appeared, (all alone), out of thin air! Good timing, because he was able to be the official race photographer, and to capture the pic of us all below:

Yes. Andre ran the whole way in his Sunday bests…

I am not sure why we were standing on the left, and crouching on the right…???Gavin obviously feels he is much taller than he actually is…  But anyway, There was a general whooping and hoopla, we gave the lighthouse a slap, and set off down the stairs again, back through the car park, and on our long and winding way back towards Cape Town. The weather was as perfect as we could have hoped for… Cool, with a light cloud cover, the gentlest of breezes… The rain over the past day or two had left the air squeaky clean, and had put a shine on the fynbos. We all fell into our own comfortable pace in little groups, soaking up the views, and the sunrise over False Bay to our right.

We stopped at one of the amazing viewpoints for our first munchies just before exiting the park, wolfing down some nuts, Gu or biltong. We took in the last of the sunrise over the bay, and headed out through the gates, down the long access road to the main Redhill Road, back up and over the hills to the point over-looking Simon’s Town.

Mid-morning, we took a shortcut through an “informal settlement” at the top of the ridge, and I was heartened to see the number of satellite dishes that had been nailed to trees, or strapped to telephone poles… It appears that even those living far below the poverty datum line find that the drivel served up on state TV far from appealing. Nearly every resident seems to be able to find the means to scrape together the pennies to pay for DStv every month. This warmed the cockles of my heart, as it means my employers are well entrenched on this continent…

We cut off the road again at this point, and were fortunate to be met by Malcolm’s mother and father in law, Peta and Chris Mason, who had turned out in their car, and met us at a picnic spot with a basket of fresh egg-and-mayo sarmies, some bottles of water, and a few other treats. 5 minutes later, all the bottles were empty, the baskets contained only crumbs, and the hoard of scavengers moved on again, over a hill, and down across some open trails towards Sun Valley.

After 28km on any run, it always starts to get quieter… Either we have told all our clever stories, or we start concentrating more on putting one foot in front of the other, than impressing our friends with our stunning wit and alacrity…. The route from here on in got hotter, and tougher. We stopped in at a garage in Sun Valley to fill our water tanks, before setting off for the real running of the day, which involved a whole bunch of climbing up Ou Kaapse Weg.

Malcolm shows us how it’s done…

               

The roads were busy with shoppers making their way to “church” in the malls, so where we could, we kept on the trails, and paused periodically to look back at our impressive progress in conquering the meters of climb up into the hills overlooking Noordhoek, and eventually Constantia.

A sign along the way. Three is a crowd… Four is …

So sometime around 14h00, the ragged band of runners arrived at the car park at Silvermine Dam, just over 46km from where we had started that morning. This is where we had arranged to meet our racing driver Clint, so he could further raise our adrenal levels with a drive back to the B&B for a wash and brush up. A few of the hard-core guys were determined to run on further, over the top of the ridge, and down into Constantia, but I am pleased to say that the most of us did not feel compelled. Many blamed this lack of willingness on the critical shortage of halloumi cheese in their salads the night before…  I rather fell prey to the lure of the pool, the shower, a pot of tea, and some rather fine home-made muffins back home. This, along with an extra hour on the cool cotton sheets of my bed, before spending the rest of the afternoon lying about with a beer in hand, watching the Sharks beat the hell out of the Red’s in those pathetic excuses for rugby jerseys…

Dinner on day two was a great improvement, at least from the aspect of the food we were served, but I fear once more we made no friends with the regulars… Let me give you this bit of advice: If you ever walk into a restaurant, and you see a table for 15 – 20 people with a reserved sign on it - Turn around immediately, and beat a hasty retreat. Cut your losses whilst you can – especially if you have your octogenarian mother with you! There is a high probability a loud group of runners (or other sport-tourist types), are about to descend on that space, and destroy your quaint dinner… And if they are already sitting at the table, ask if there are any St Mary’s girls there? If there are, run like hell! ;)

Sunday morning, more of the same... Breakfast, and away in the F1 Ferrari Bus (with the sickening knock and wobble on the back left wheel), for some more running in the hills… We started to run as the sun rose. No slow warm up today though. The climbing started immediately, and was pretty un-relentless until we arrived at Maclear’s beacon at about 1,100m above sea level, an hour or two later.   Once again, the weather was perfect, with nothing more than a gentle breeze, and visibility for miles and miles. I don’t know if us Joburg types really know quite how lucky we were…

We stopped at various look out spots to soak it all up, and had a team-photo opportunity “at the top”. 

I notice Gavin is still bending down…              

Now was the time for the serious downhill stuff. We detoured from the real Puffer route to take in a few of the extra sights, like the view down over Camps Bay.

Yes… Those are houses down there… Expensive ones too!

Andre looking out over Cape Town

But the sight of the tourists pouring out of the cable car station chased us away pretty soon, and we beat a hasty retreat back down the steps, to the entrance of Platteklip Gorge, where we would do the most of the dropping. This little section did a pretty good job of turning our quads to jelly, and demanded lots of attention, as one misplaced footing would see you on your face, and making a fool of yourself (as Frank so willingly demonstrated, much to the amusement of his buddies), in front of the some of the many pretty little German Fraulein that seemed to adorn the mountain that morning… J

Emma descending Platteklip, showing us it’s possible  to keep smiling even when your  legs aren’t

At the bottom, we traversed along the contour lines, back down to the lower cable car station, where we waited for the rest of the team, and regrouped for the final push down to where the beer was waiting for us.

From the top of Table Mountain, Lions Head, and the section of the saddle out towards Signal Hill looks pretty flat… But it’s all about your perspective, because once you get down there, you realise it wasn’t all going to be downhill running…

Signal Hill wasn’t as flat as it looked from the cable car station (at the peak on top left)

Anyway. This “race” had to end sometime. We were all starting to behave like “hotel pony’s”… You know the type that only have one speed when they are turned around and heading for home… We navigated our way through the confusing streets at the base of Signal Hill, and arrived at Ferryman’s just after mid-day, which is an awfully fashionable time to drink beer… And destroy another peaceful mealtime for yet another crowd of perfectly innocent punters.

Recovery meal of Champions… The Doctor swears by a hard boiled egg (or two) and a pint of milk stout. Who was going to be the lucky one to sit next to us for two hours on the flight home tonight?

I managed to get down three pints of Bosun’s Bitter, along with a 300gr steak egg and chips, (bringing my daily egg count for the day up to 5, an possibly positioning me to be able to fly myself back to Joburg later).

After lunch, it was back to the B&B, where we were met with bad news of a power failure. So un-phased, the guys descended on the pool, armed with bars of soap and shampoo, to get the worst of the muck and sweat off us before the flight home, so the ladies could share what was left of the hot water in the geysers. We stuffed our sweaty kit into our bags, and set off to the airport. I said a silent prayer that the sniffer dogs would not be on duty at the airport tonight, as I was sure that if they were set free amongst our bags tonight, they would have to be sent for re-calibration the next day!

We checked in, and grabbed a Vida Café fix to try and keep us all awake. But the exertion and fun of the past two days wore heavily on us. This, along with the “downer” that comes to visit at the end of a long anticipated adventure… It was all too much for many of us… Lu may as well have saved the money on the neck brace for all the good it did her on the plane.

No amount of Vida was going to keep this girl awake…

But as I sat on the plane on the way home that evening, mulling over what had been an amazing weekend, what struck me hardest was just how lucky we were to be able to do this kind of thing… And it occurred to me that I must never take this “for granted”… I sat and pondered on the complexities of all our lives, and how much sacrifice had been made by so many of us, just to pull this off.

There was poor Wynne Kossuth, who had had to pull out after day 1, and fly back to Joburg on Saturday evening, (at short notice), so she could be at mediation for a demanding client on Sunday morning.

There was Sheila who also pulled out of day 2, to save her legs for Two Oceans in a few weeks, but more importantly to take her Mum, (who lives in Cape Town), out for lunch.

Joni, who’s Dad was in the final stages of his battle with cancer at his home in Simon’s Town… Joni ran with us each day, but rushed off immediately after each leg, so she could spend time with him, and with her sister, who was also at his side. He held on bravely, but passed away on Monday, immediately after our run.

Rory Steyn, who had an accident and fell whilst training just the weekend before the event, and broke his collar bone… This meant he couldn’t run, but he came down to Cape Town anyway, and hiked up Skeleton Gorge on Sunday morning with a pack of munchies, so he could share them with us at Breakfast Rock…

These are some of our stories… I am sure there were more, but I think I have made my point.

We live in a frenetic world, where it seems we have to fight tooth and nail to make these things happen. To put in the training so you can even turn up, to make the plans. To create the time and the space, that a group of friends can get out and do something like this.  This is what builds the connection, and creates friendships that can last a lifetime….

So, form “the Northern Chapter”, to our friends and comrades (old and new) of the Tyrone Harriers, a big, big thank you. Thanks for the amazing organisation and planning, and making it all flow so smoothly. And thanks for including us. If I am fortunate to get asked to join again, and if I keep training like hell, well, I look forward to doing it all again soon!

See the full gallery on Posterous

Posted via email from andrewrunswild's posterous

The Running Of "The Bluffer"

The Peninsula Ultra Fun Run, known for short as Puffer, is a no-frills ultra-trail which has been organised annually in Cape Town, South Africa since 1995, by the Fish Hoek Athletics Club. There is no prize money and no major media coverage. Entries are limited, and participants are expected to be independent, self-sufficient and environmentally aware.

The total distance is about 80 km, which is more or less the shortest possible route from Cape Point to the Waterfront.  The route runs from Cape Point to Red Hill Pass, through the Simon's Town Water Catchment Area to Black Hill, via Ou Kaapse Weg across Fish Hoek Valley to Silvermine Nature Reserve, through Tokai Forest Plantation and the Vlakkenberg footpath to Constantia Nek, over Table Mountain to the summit at Maclear's Beacon (1,086 metres above sea level), then down Platteklip Gorge to Kloofnek, via Signal Hill to the V&A Waterfront.

Now, a number of us have been putting our names down on the application list for years, to no avail, so the amazing organisational abilities of the Tyrone Harriers was brought in to break the stalemate. Bugger it, if we can’t get on the official list, we will organise our own version of it! A date was set for the 17th of March, which we hoped would give us the best of the Cape weather, and fit in amongst all of the Comrades and Iron Man training that all the hard-core freaks had committed to. A we set upon a new name for our interpretation of the event: “The Bluffer”..

When the Tyrone Harriers Committee gets stuck in to something, what results is a not unlike a well-co-ordinated military campaign. All logistical arrangements were planned and executed, and when we all gathered at the airport on Friday afternoon, there was a relaxed but excited buzz in our little group. We piled on to the plane with our Vida Café coffees, and we were off.

We were met at the airport but the designated shuttle driver Clint, (more on this character later), and there was only one delay on the way to the B&B when poor old Paul had to alight from the vehicle and stand on the side of the road to deliver his weekly call to the Money Show on 702… He was too scared to do it from the safer confines of the bus, as he could not be sure that one of us might try to get involved in some un-official capacity… But soon we were off once more, we had found the B&B, thrown our stuff in our rooms, and were able to walk off down the road to a nearby restaurant for some pre-race dinner.

Dinner turned into a bit of a fiasco… The restaurant was clearly stretched by trying to deal with the 17 or 18 of us all at once… Our food came in dribs and drabs, and some of us had eaten and were ready to go before others had received theirs. It appears the effects of the economic crisis in Greece have really started to impact us here in South Africa too, as they ran out of halloumi cheese, (but that didn’t stop them serving “halloumi salads” though)! Poor Sheila ended up eating her dinner in about 30 seconds, whilst we stood around, took photos and videos, and clapped!

On the way back from the dinner on Friday night, we had an amazing experience. We saw a man-hole cover on a man-hole!

Malcolm pays his respects…

Malcolm reverently knelt down to touch this rare and hallowed object, and we all said a few words about how lucky Cape Townians were to have Helen Zille there at the helm. There was some talk about removing it, and bringing it back home as a souvenir…  But we resisted, determined to be satisfied with this more sustainable “touch and release” policy…

Saturday morning saw us having an early start. We all piled into Clint’s F1 Racing Bus,  and he set off, determined to reward us all with another scintillating display of his death defying driving, and his apparent affliction with bouts of crippling colour blindness, which seem to attack periodically at traffic lights.

We emerged unscathed from the bus with some gratitude at Cape Point, just in time it seemed, before he set off in a cloud of dust to some other pressing engagement. It was pretty novel to be the only group in the car park… Last time I was there I had to fight my way through the Japanese tourists, not unlike Admiral Nimitz did at Okinawa back in ’45… Not even the baboons were up to greet us!

We made our way up to the a long line of steps to the lighthouse, and gathered for that traditional pre-race picture… Can you believe it… An Asian gent appeared, (all alone), out of thin air! Good timing, because he was able to be the official race photographer, and to capture the pic of us all below:

Yes. Andre ran the whole way in his Sunday bests…

I am not sure why we were standing on the left, and crouching on the right…???Gavin obviously feels he is much taller than he actually is…  But anyway, There was a general whooping and hoopla, we gave the lighthouse a slap, and set off down the stairs again, back through the car park, and on our long and winding way back towards Cape Town. The weather was as perfect as we could have hoped for… Cool, with a light cloud cover, the gentlest of breezes… The rain over the past day or two had left the air squeaky clean, and had put a shine on the fynbos. We all fell into our own comfortable pace in little groups, soaking up the views, and the sunrise over False Bay to our right.

We stopped at one of the amazing viewpoints for our first munchies just before exiting the park, wolfing down some nuts, Gu or biltong. We took in the last of the sunrise over the bay, and headed out through the gates, down the long access road to the main Redhill Road, back up and over the hills to the point over-looking Simon’s Town.

Mid-morning, we took a shortcut through an “informal settlement” at the top of the ridge, and I was heartened to see the number of satellite dishes that had been nailed to trees, or strapped to telephone poles… It appears that even those living far below the poverty datum line find that the drivel served up on state TV far from appealing. Nearly every resident seems to be able to find the means to scrape together the pennies to pay for DStv every month. This warmed the cockles of my heart, as it means my employers are well entrenched on this continent…

We cut off the road again at this point, and were fortunate to be met by Malcolm’s mother and father in law, Peta and Chris Mason, who had turned out in their car, and met us at a picnic spot with a basket of fresh egg-and-mayo sarmies, some bottles of water, and a few other treats. 5 minutes later, all the bottles were empty, the baskets contained only crumbs, and the hoard of scavengers moved on again, over a hill, and down across some open trails towards Sun Valley.

After 28km on any run, it always starts to get quieter… Either we have told all our clever stories, or we start concentrating more on putting one foot in front of the other, than impressing our friends with our stunning wit and alacrity…. The route from here on in got hotter, and tougher. We stopped in at a garage in Sun Valley to fill our water tanks, before setting off for the real running of the day, which involved a whole bunch of climbing up Ou Kaapse Weg.

Malcolm shows us how it’s done…

               

The roads were busy with shoppers making their way to “church” in the malls, so where we could, we kept on the trails, and paused periodically to look back at our impressive progress in conquering the meters of climb up into the hills overlooking Noordhoek, and eventually Constantia.

A sign along the way. Three is a crowd… Four is …

So sometime around 14h00, the ragged band of runners arrived at the car park at Silvermine Dam, just over 46km from where we had started that morning. This is where we had arranged to meet our racing driver Clint, so he could further raise our adrenal levels with a drive back to the B&B for a wash and brush up. A few of the hard-core guys were determined to run on further, over the top of the ridge, and down into Constantia, but I am pleased to say that the most of us did not feel compelled. Many blamed this lack of willingness on the critical shortage of halloumi cheese in their salads the night before…  I rather fell prey to the lure of the pool, the shower, a pot of tea, and some rather fine home-made muffins back home. This, along with an extra hour on the cool cotton sheets of my bed, before spending the rest of the afternoon lying about with a beer in hand, watching the Sharks beat the hell out of the Red’s in those pathetic excuses for rugby jerseys…

Dinner on day two was a great improvement, at least from the aspect of the food we were served, but I fear once more we made no friends with the regulars… Let me give you this bit of advice: If you ever walk into a restaurant, and you see a table for 15 – 20 people with a reserved sign on it - Turn around immediately, and beat a hasty retreat. Cut your losses whilst you can – especially if you have your octogenarian mother with you! There is a high probability a loud group of runners (or other sport-tourist types), are about to descend on that space, and destroy your quaint dinner… And if they are already sitting at the table, ask if there are any St Mary’s girls there? If there are, run like hell! ;)

Sunday morning, more of the same... Breakfast, and away in the F1 Ferrari Bus (with the sickening knock and wobble on the back left wheel), for some more running in the hills… We started to run as the sun rose. No slow warm up today though. The climbing started immediately, and was pretty un-relentless until we arrived at Maclear’s beacon at about 1,100m above sea level, an hour or two later.   Once again, the weather was perfect, with nothing more than a gentle breeze, and visibility for miles and miles. I don’t know if us Joburg types really know quite how lucky we were…

We stopped at various look out spots to soak it all up, and had a team-photo opportunity “at the top”. 

I notice Gavin is still bending down…  

Now was the time for the serious downhill stuff. We detoured from the real Puffer route to take in a few of the extra sights, like the view down over Camps Bay.

Yes… Those are houses down there… Expensive ones too!

Andre looking out over Cape Town

But the sight of the tourists pouring out of the cable car station chased us away pretty soon, and we beat a hasty retreat back down the steps, to the entrance of Platteklip Gorge, where we would do the most of the dropping. This little section did a pretty good job of turning our quads to jelly, and demanded lots of attention, as one misplaced footing would see you on your face, and making a fool of yourself (as Frank so willingly demonstrated, much to the amusement of his buddies), in front of the some of the many pretty little German Fraulein that seemed to adorn the mountain that morning… J

Emma descending Platteklip, showing us it’s possible  to keep smiling even when your  legs aren’t

At the bottom, we traversed along the contour lines, back down to the lower cable car station, where we waited for the rest of the team, and regrouped for the final push down to where the beer was waiting for us.

From the top of Table Mountain, Lions Head, and the section of the saddle out towards Signal Hill looks pretty flat… But it’s all about your perspective, because once you get down there, you realise it wasn’t all going to be downhill running…

Signal Hill wasn’t as flat as it looked from the cable car station (at the peak on top left)

Anyway. This “race” had to end sometime. We were all starting to behave like “hotel pony’s”… You know the type that only have one speed when they are turned around and heading for home… We navigated our way through the confusing streets at the base of Signal Hill, and arrived at Ferryman’s just after mid-day, which is an awfully fashionable time to drink beer… And destroy another peaceful mealtime for yet another crowd of perfectly innocent punters.

Recovery meal of Champions… The Doctor swears by a hard boiled egg (or two) and a pint of milk stout. Who was going to be the lucky one to sit next to us for two hours on the flight home tonight?

I managed to get down three pints of Bosun’s Bitter, along with a 300gr steak egg and chips, (bringing my daily egg count for the day up to 5, an possibly positioning me to be able to fly myself back to Joburg later).

After lunch, it was back to the B&B, where we were met with bad news of a power failure. So un-phased, the guys descended on the pool, armed with bars of soap and shampoo, to get the worst of the muck and sweat off us before the flight home, so the ladies could share what was left of the hot water in the geysers. We stuffed our sweaty kit into our bags, and set off to the airport. I said a silent prayer that the sniffer dogs would not be on duty at the airport tonight, as I was sure that if they were set free amongst our bags tonight, they would have to be sent for re-calibration the next day!

We checked in, and grabbed a Vida Café fix to try and keep us all awake. But the exertion and fun of the past two days wore heavily on us. This, along with the “downer” that comes to visit at the end of a long anticipated adventure… It was all too much for many of us… Lu may as well have saved the money on the neck brace for all the good it did her on the plane.

No amount of Vida was going to keep this girl awake…

But as I sat on the plane on the way home that evening, mulling over what had been an amazing weekend, what struck me hardest was just how lucky we were to be able to do this kind of thing… And it occurred to me that I must never take this “for granted”… I sat and pondered on the complexities of all our lives, and how much sacrifice had been made by so many of us, just to pull this off.

There was poor Wynne Kossuth, who had had to pull out after day 1, and fly back to Joburg on Saturday evening, (at short notice), so she could be at mediation for a demanding client on Sunday morning.

There was Sheila who also pulled out of day 2, to save her legs for Two Oceans in a few weeks, but more importantly to take her Mum, (who lives in Cape Town), out for lunch.

Joni, who’s Dad was in the final stages of his battle with cancer at his home in Simon’s Town… Joni ran with us each day, but rushed off immediately after each leg, so she could spend time with him, and with her sister, who was also at his side. He held on bravely, but passed away on Monday, immediately after our run.

Rory Steyn, who had an accident and fell whilst training just the weekend before the event, and broke his collar bone… This meant he couldn’t run, but he came down to Cape Town anyway, and hiked up Skeleton Gorge on Sunday morning with a pack of munchies, so he could share them with us at Breakfast Rock…

These are some of our stories… I am sure there were more, but I think I have made my point.

We live in a frenetic world, where it seems we have to fight tooth and nail to make these things happen. To put in the training so you can even turn up, to make the plans. To create the time and the space, that a group of friends can get out and do something like this.  This is what builds the connection, and creates friendships that can last a lifetime….

So, form “the Northern Chapter”, to our friends and comrades (old and new) of the Tyrone Harriers, a big, big thank you. Thanks for the amazing organisation and planning, and making it all flow so smoothly. And thanks for including us. If I am fortunate to get asked to join again, and if I keep training like hell, well, I look forward to doing it all again soon!

.

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Lesotho Wildrun, 24 - 26 March 2011

Just back from my last WildRun experience. This time in the Maluti Mountains of central Lesotho. Or as Dayle and I were joking on the drive down in the car to the event, “our first international multi-day trail event”! ;) Five hours drive from Johannesburg saw us at the border post on a Wednesday afternoon. All went smoothly, and a short drive later, we were parking at the rendezvous point that had been arranged, for the transfer up into the mountains, where we were to start running from at first light on Thursday morning. It was good to see a few familiar faces on the bus with us: Jo Mackenzie was her usual bubbly self, Kelvin Trautman was there to work his magic with his camera, as was Andrew King on the video side. But mostly it was bunch of new faces, in the small group that met for the race briefing before dinner that evening. We had dinner, and everyone drifted off to their rooms to pack, plan and prepare for an early start.

DAY 1 – RAMABANTA TO SEMONKONG

Distance: 45km
Vertical Gain: 1879m

05h45 Thursday morning, and 26 twitchy runners gathered on the lawn outside Ramabanta Lodge for the start. No one was taking the “compulsory kit” check nearly as seriously as the organisers were... It looked like a beautiful day, and I was rather baffled, and just a little annoyed I was expected to have a headlamp, rain jacket, beanie, spare batteries for the GPS, fully charged phone, space blanket, whistle, etc, etc, all stuffed into my pack. I was happy to be carrying some water and a few snacks, (the 45km route had me guessing I would be out there for somewhere around five to five and a half hours perhaps)?  And there were no water tables or seconding stations, so water and snacks, they were good. And my camera.... But all this other junk?

Maritz getting ready for the start of Day One. These maps were for real, not just for show. I should have spent more time doing this....

Anyway, so the crack of dawn arrived, And Owen the Race Director felt there was enough light for us to start, so off we went. Down the lawns towards the river, across a footbridge, and into the foothills of some reasonably impressive mountain thingies that loomed ever larger in front of us. Dayle and I kept it real... We set ourselves up in the middle of the field somewhere, and watched Jo go haring off with some of the racing snakes, and five of the development runners from Lesotho, up front.

It took us about 2km to realise we were already lost. Dayle was paying more attention to his GPS than I was. Truth be told I was still trying to work out how this thing worked... So for the moment I was content to sit back and let the front runners do the hard yards in finding us a route. But after a minute or two in a huddle together, scratching our heads, staring at the map we had been given, and comparing GPS tracks together, we were in agreement that the front runners were way off course already. This was rather perplexing... Did the local runners up front know something we didn’t know, or were they just caught up in the excitement of the start, and were not even looking at their GPS’s? We couldn’t decide, but committed to following the correct route as laid out on the map. We hoped this would pay us dividends later, so we set off up a mountain to our right.

This wasn’t easy. These mountains are riddled with paths, made by goats or sheep. These paths are like spider webs. They criss-cross. Each looks like the real thing, so you run with it. But in 50 meters it disappears into nothing.  The side of the mountain is covered in a tough, sticky shrub that began to reduce our legs to a bloody, itchy mess. It was rocky and unpredictable under foot. One hour in, and whilst we were sure we were on the right track now, we had only covered 5km...

And as the light came, the scale of the challenge began to bite. Each time we crested a hill or saddle ahead, we were greeted by an energy sapping drop down into another valley, followed by an even more impressive climb on the other side. And there was water everywhere. My feet were already soaked.  I should have been prepared for this, but I wasn’t.

With the thickness of the bush, the water and stone under foot, and the severity of the gradients we were covering, (aaahh, and the altitude), our pace was reduced to little more than a fast hike. We would run when we could, but often this was no more than a hundred meters.  And every time you focused on your feet and path selection for too long, and didn’t pay attention to the map and GPS... Well then you would find you had to track back to find the route. The fact we could see no one else ahead, or even behind us, well, this might be good, but it could also be pretty bad. If you weren’t there, it’s probably hard to understand, but maybe the picture below will help give you a sense...

Briggie following on “the route”... You can see other runners, as long as you are within about 20m of each other....

Perhaps two hours into the race, and we caught another small group just outside a tiny village. We held court with Will Duk, Briggie Kirchman, and Lissa Parsons, and agreed that whilst the pace was far below our expectation, we were on the right track, and an unspoken alliance was formed.

The meeting in the village...”Dr. Livingstone, I presume” might have been appropriate.

We arrived at CP 1 after about 5 hours. This was the time I thought we might be looking for the finish..... And we weren’t half way yet. And the fact that CP1 comprised only a marshal on a motorbike, no water, drinks, nothing to eat or provide some happiness to our tired bodies, well this just made it even worse. We spent a few minutes gaining any “intel” we could from the marshal on the route, our position in the field etc, while he gouged holes in our maps to prove we had been there. We ate sparingly from our meagre food cache, realising that unless things got very much better, we would be out in the field all day.

An hour later, and we were at the mercy of finding streams that we could determine would be clean and safe to drink from, in order to stay hydrated. We picked those “above the village line”, avoided pools with animal tracks around them. Fortunately, streams of crystal clear, ice cold water weren’t hard to find, and we stopped regularly to scoop up handfuls of sweet water at any opportunity, or to top up our bottles or packs.

Water table, WildRun style...

That didn’t help the hunger levels that were becoming fairly intense, and it wasn’t long until the members of our little “peloton” were swapping fantasies about what they would pay top dollar for... My personal favourite was steak egg and chips. Dayle wanted salad? Huh? But the stories kept us amused, and the chirps were flowing. And being in a group had its advantages too. It meant we could share the responsibility of navigation. Will Duk seemed accomplished at map reading. Dayle’s GPS was different to ours, and provided some extra distance data. So we fell into a routine of “conferencing” together every 15mins or so... These “conferences” seemed to resemble meetings of the ANC Youth League, with much shouting, waving of arms, pointing and gesticulating....

In the early afternoon, our group gained another member. We found Kevin Balfour higher up on a ridge, wandering around trying to figure out where he should be going. He had been “befriended” by two local shepherds, who looked vaguely amused by their discovery of their new play thing, this strange white man. We held a brief conference, and declared he could join our merry band if we could eat all of his food, and he carried all of our bags for the last kilometre of the run.

I will save you the rest of the detail, but after nine hours, we could see the village of Semonkong, and we eventually crossed the finish line for the day in 11^th place, in 09:50:03. I for one was more than a little surprised to discover we were in joint 11^th place, and that Briggie and Lissa were the second and third ladies to cross the line. That meant more than half the field was still out there somewhere...

We were tired, hungry, and pretty grumpy. We took a much needed shower, had “lunch” (at 17h00?), booked a massage, and vegged out near the bar. Dayle and I discovered an amazing new recovery drink called milk stout... J

It was only later that it began to dawn on us how fortunate we were. Several of the participants were still out in the field, either lost, or struggling with the course. The final guys were brought in out of the darkness, (and in those hills it is properly dark), by motorbike nearly fifteen hours after the start... Suddenly the concept of carrying a headlamp, and some foul weather gear didn’t seem quite so ludicrous.

DAY 2 – SEMONKONG TO SEMONKONG VIA THE MALETSUNYANE FALLS

Distance: 28kms

Vertical Gain: 728m

Day 2 arrived. I had slept like I had been hit with a pole... And because of the late arrival of some of the field on Day 1, the briefing for Day 2 had been held over for the morning. This meant we had a later (07h00) start, which was welcome.

We set off again after breakfast and race briefing, along the banks of the Maletsunyane River. The clouds had descended, and it was threatening to rain today. Dayle and I had a new running partner in the form of one Lissa Parsons. It seemed the three of us had become a team, and we immediately fell into a comfortable routine of map reader, GPS Jockey and Arbitrator.

The team of three, caught early in the day cresting a hill,  by Kelvin and his trusty camera.

We weren’t killing ourselves. The day was billed as the most beautiful or scenic in the race, and we took time to take pictures and drink in the views when they came.

Andrew amusing Kelvin by trying to take a decent picture with a point and shoot...

About 11km into the route, we must have fallen asleep for a few moments, because we lost the track. This simple error cost us valuable time, because in trying to short-cut back onto the correct track, we got ourselves into some pretty sticky areas, trying to descend on some lethal rocky slopes. These slopes were dropping away at a crazy angle, and were comprised of some crumbly granite. We ended up on our butts pretty often, sliding and scrambling down amongst the shrubs and cracks. This went on for what seemed an age, as we dropped 700m into the Maletsunyane River gorge for the crossing.

The crossing was amazing, picture post card perfect, in cool clear water. Owen was there to meet and greet. And then it was 700m up on the other side...

The seven hundred meter ascent out of the Maletsunyane River had the legs burning.

From the top of the gorge, we had amazing views back onto our route. We settled back into running again, keeping it relaxed, and soaking in the views along the ridge. “Kelvin the cameraman” had been a welcome accomplice during the morning, and he had us doing the usual hops, skips and jumps. He was always running off ahead with his rig, looking for the next killer shot... Today was a run to enjoy. The Maletsunyane Waterfall put on a show for us... It seemed absurd to race past these views, so we stopped every now and again, and drank it all in.

The weather looked threatening, but the rain held off for us, and we looked forward to getting back to base at a respectable time, having some well deserved lunch, and relaxing a bit before the dreaded return trip tomorrow. Dayle, Lissa and I crossed the line in 11th place once again in just under five and a half hours. Lissa was maintaining her spot as the number two lady on the course.

We enjoyed the afternoon. Kicked back, got some proper food, and enjoyed a few more of those milk stouts! Dayle and I agreed that this was what makes a multi-day a holiday. We purposely kept our distance from the TV in the pub, as judging by the moans emanating from there, the semi-final between South Africa and New Zealand wasn’t going well. It felt like that game was taking place on another planet....

The medical staff were in demand today... Two days of running on wet feet were starting to take a grim toll. When your feet are wet for so long that they get like prunes, and they are in such demand in those hills, either running up, or trying to stop you going down, things start to go wrong. I had forgotten how important looking after your feet was....

Mary-Lyn, at the end of Day 1. The medics doing running repairs trying to keep her feet free from infection.

The same feet at the end of Day Three. Mary-Lyn displayed some real grit to finish on these...

DAY 3 – SEMONKONG TO RAMABANTA

Distance: 44kms

Vertical Gain: 1124m ascent


Day Three arrived too soon. We packed in a bit of a scramble.... it was tough to be back to the 06h00 start. Everyone started slowly too. The first few hundred meters from the lodge is straight up a rocky drive, and there were no heroics here on tired legs.

The first 6km of the route were the same as the last of Day One... But once that was behind us, we veered off to the right, and dropped into the Makhoalipana valley. It was going to be another beautiful, clear day. The valleys were lush, criss-crossed with cool rivers and streams, reflecting an un-imaginable quality of light up the walls of the green hills all around us.

Within a few hours we arrived at the summit of the infamous ‘Baboon’s Pass’, at 2700m the highest point for the day, and of the event.  We checked in at Check Point 1 in high spirits.

The Team at CP 1, Day Three.

From here on down we had been told, we would be running on the “Baboons Pass”, which was like a road. This would make a cushy change after all the technical single track we had battled with over the last few days...

But then, when on a WildRun, and especially in Lesotho, never assume anything. The Baboons Pass is not a road. Not as I understand it at least... Rather a narrow, winding path, strewn with rocks, from fist size, all the way through things the size on a VW Beatle.

The Baboons Pass... Not quite the cushy running surface we were longing for, but the end of the bundu-bashing.

But as they say in the classics, beggars can’t be choosers... We could see the hills surrounding Ramanbata and the lodge on the horizon now, and we were enjoying this run. There was less emphasis on the navigation, and we could spend more time on looking around, taking in the scenery. We felt relaxed and strong.

By the time we got to Check Point 2, we could smell the finish. We got our maps ticked, and were off. And from about 5km out, we could see the inflatable arch of the finish standing out against the green lawns of the lodge. 

There is something special about the finish on a multi-day run... The finish of day one and two are nice... But in the back of your mind, you know it’s not really the finish. There is still more to do, things you have to hold a little in reserve for. But the finish on the last day is something special. And always seems to come as a surprise, something more than anticipated, or expected....

So once we could see the finish, impatience grew in us. We consulted the map one last time... screw it, we were just going direct now. Dayle set off in the lead, and we crashed down the side of a hill, through some fields and a little wood lot. Through a village, and over the crest of a hill. And then for the first time we saw one of the distinctive Wildrun banners, on the crest on a hill, right down the end of a finger of land, jutting way out into a long smooth bend in the river. We ran the crest of the ridge out to the banner, hills all around us, river either side. It was going to be one of those iconic Wildrun finishes... Like only Owen and Tam seem to know how to build. We could hear the guys at the finish, whistling and cheering. These sounds drifted out effortlessly through the still air, carried easily on the silence and solitude that abound in these hills.  Kelvin was on the ridge too, his camera at his side, and we followed him down the side of the hill, to make our final river crossing of the event.

All Dayle’s efforts to keep his feet dry were to no avail...

With the end in sight, things slowed... We didn’t really want this to end anymore. We took our time. We had a water fight as we crossed the river. Took a brief swim for a last time in the crystal clear water to freshen up. We could have stayed there a lot longer, but the finish was calling, people were waiting, so we put the packs on one last time, and scrambled up the slopes of the hill, past small groups of cheering children from the village at the hotel, up the steps, and through the finish arch. Tamryn gave us one of her special welcomes, jumping up and down and cheering as only Tam can do. Hugs and kisses, medals on, and it was done.

Seven and a half hours today. Twenty two hours, thirty seven minutes and four seconds over the three days. I felt a lot fitter now that when I had started three days ago... ;)

Lunch. A few beers in the shade, swapping war stories. A massage for the legs, under a tree in the warm afternoon air, looking out over the ridges, as more of the field drifted in to hoots and applause...

An emotional final prize giving, dinner, and the usual legendary party... Everyone always seems to have a bit of spare energy left over for one of these...

Wildrun Lesotho was a surprise package. It delivered everything and more in terms of the stunning scenery we were expecting. And a whole bunch more in terms of challenges. But there was something else, some intangible spiritual thing that has left me feeling on a high for the last few days. And I think that comes down to a few special things:

1.       The peace and serenity was not just in the physical beauty of the land, but it was amongst the people that inhabit it too. Never in all my years in Africa have I seen a group of people living so close, and so in tune with nature. There can only be a hundred or so of these villagers left, but the symbiotic way they live amongst nature, and the respect and love which they show their animals, was something that left me feeling pretty humbled.

2.       The privilege of running with such a small group of people, all of whom seemed to be enjoying the adventure as much as each other enjoy the privilege of running in pristine environment, that without an event like this, you could never hope to traverse. No whining, even from those dealing with some pretty nasty physical pain or injuries.

3.       The joy of seeing Owen and Tamryn doing what they seem to truly love so much: Setting up crazy runs in the wildest places, and seeing it all come together, people having experiences and making friends that they will remember for the rest of their lives...

So a number of people have asked me, “how was your run?” I think a bit, and smile. “Amazing” is my standard response....

“Would you do it again?”

Yes!        And No.

Yes! because it would be good to go back, knowing what I had let myself in for. Being properly prepared, and giving it a good klaap this time...

No, because if I am really lucky, Owen and Tam will have thought up another amazing race in some other special corner of this continent that I am yet to visit, and I can re-indulge my love of taking on another inaugural event... So many races, so little time....

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