Tuesday, November 21, 2006
13 and a half hours.
I have been told by my partner, who by the way is otherwise alright, that if I run the next 50km reccie, she will have no sympathy. This needs to be unpacked. Granted she did wait till 11 am on Sunday morning to point out that making dinner arrangements for Saturday night (with my family) and arriving and hour and a half late was a punishable offence, but I had a distinct feeling that she was very happy with the immobile sloth who spent most of Sunday in a horizontal snooze and was not surfing, running, riding or whatever else a normal Sunday programme includes.
Just 'cause I creak, groan and moan every time I walk up the stairs, does not mean I am looking for sympathy. Indeed, explaining to lay people why I spent 13,5 hours running, walking, swimming and caving, is a waste of time- if they dont get it, they dont get it. An epic, ultra trail run like this is a whole life time condensed into 1 day. I waivered from ecstatic elation to nauseous dread. Hidden under the guise of humour we explored the world, its meaning and shared intimate male bonding. Running is ideal for those with communication disabilities (most men?) If you find yourself talked out or talked into a corner, merely slowing down or speeding up allows escape from a conversation you can rejoin later.
The final team to finish included a publisher who lives in a tent, an IT guru on insulin, a drug dealer who would not tell us what he was on, a lift mechanic who would not reveal what was in his pipe and a budhist blogger cum surfer who provided religous teachings.
So, hold back on the sympathy and see you all, in the dark on Table mountain.
I have been told by my partner, who by the way is otherwise alright, that if I run the next 50km reccie, she will have no sympathy. This needs to be unpacked. Granted she did wait till 11 am on Sunday morning to point out that making dinner arrangements for Saturday night (with my family) and arriving and hour and a half late was a punishable offence, but I had a distinct feeling that she was very happy with the immobile sloth who spent most of Sunday in a horizontal snooze and was not surfing, running, riding or whatever else a normal Sunday programme includes.
Just 'cause I creak, groan and moan every time I walk up the stairs, does not mean I am looking for sympathy. Indeed, explaining to lay people why I spent 13,5 hours running, walking, swimming and caving, is a waste of time- if they dont get it, they dont get it. An epic, ultra trail run like this is a whole life time condensed into 1 day. I waivered from ecstatic elation to nauseous dread. Hidden under the guise of humour we explored the world, its meaning and shared intimate male bonding. Running is ideal for those with communication disabilities (most men?) If you find yourself talked out or talked into a corner, merely slowing down or speeding up allows escape from a conversation you can rejoin later.
The final team to finish included a publisher who lives in a tent, an IT guru on insulin, a drug dealer who would not tell us what he was on, a lift mechanic who would not reveal what was in his pipe and a budhist blogger cum surfer who provided religous teachings.
So, hold back on the sympathy and see you all, in the dark on Table mountain.
Elands.
As I supped my double brandy and coke, I thought `Jislaaik, this oke is going to have a heart attack and, I for one, am not doing CPR.' He was a very large, red faced local farmer and he was not taking well to his boys getting thrashed by the IRA. To add injury to insult there were not only some Irish rugby supporters in the heartland but there was even one brown oke in the pub. As the brown oke was on his own we got chatting. He told me that I had missed the wake for PW held in the pub and he assured me, that apartheid was still alive and well in Elands Bay. Though his presence in the pub is emblematic, at least, of some change. I remember back in the old days (when we still broke open gates on the railway road) arriving at the pub and noting a brown oke sitting on the back of the Spoorweg Cortina Bakkie. When I staggered out three hours later, he was sitting in exactly the same place wating for baas to finish dopping.
Elands in November is dubious from a surfing point of view, and indeed our 7am Saturday wake up heralded a flat, on shore, misty morning. Late morning we took a not very optimistic drive up the toll road to Lamberts. FB's was working. I spent a lot of time making very close encounters with the kelp as the take off was fast, but the water was warm, so the odd nose dive was not too painfull. Sunday morning FB's provided a respectable cross shore wave, with a slightly lower tide meaning it was a little off the reef. But, hey, an uncrowded, quality summer wave....
In the 80's access to FB and Lamberts was onerous as it included the long scenic road. So we ended up drinking tassies in the sun and talking k#K when E.Bay was flat. On my last 2 visits to E.Bay, I have been struck, that in all these years I have never met a local (of the more brown variety) surfer. I have wondered why youngsters are not enticed into the water.
Change is in the air. Access to the beach for vehicles has been properly fenced off- which I support- there is talk of a town house complex and the road between Picket Berg and E.Bay is being upgraded. Bessie, the toothless manageress of the farm where we were staying informs me that tik is eroding schooling in the area and she worries about her granchildren's future. E.Bay will remain a mythical mix of wave, culture and hot, dry wind and at least one brandy and coke at the hotel is neccesary to position one self in this world.
As I supped my double brandy and coke, I thought `Jislaaik, this oke is going to have a heart attack and, I for one, am not doing CPR.' He was a very large, red faced local farmer and he was not taking well to his boys getting thrashed by the IRA. To add injury to insult there were not only some Irish rugby supporters in the heartland but there was even one brown oke in the pub. As the brown oke was on his own we got chatting. He told me that I had missed the wake for PW held in the pub and he assured me, that apartheid was still alive and well in Elands Bay. Though his presence in the pub is emblematic, at least, of some change. I remember back in the old days (when we still broke open gates on the railway road) arriving at the pub and noting a brown oke sitting on the back of the Spoorweg Cortina Bakkie. When I staggered out three hours later, he was sitting in exactly the same place wating for baas to finish dopping.
Elands in November is dubious from a surfing point of view, and indeed our 7am Saturday wake up heralded a flat, on shore, misty morning. Late morning we took a not very optimistic drive up the toll road to Lamberts. FB's was working. I spent a lot of time making very close encounters with the kelp as the take off was fast, but the water was warm, so the odd nose dive was not too painfull. Sunday morning FB's provided a respectable cross shore wave, with a slightly lower tide meaning it was a little off the reef. But, hey, an uncrowded, quality summer wave....
In the 80's access to FB and Lamberts was onerous as it included the long scenic road. So we ended up drinking tassies in the sun and talking k#K when E.Bay was flat. On my last 2 visits to E.Bay, I have been struck, that in all these years I have never met a local (of the more brown variety) surfer. I have wondered why youngsters are not enticed into the water.
Change is in the air. Access to the beach for vehicles has been properly fenced off- which I support- there is talk of a town house complex and the road between Picket Berg and E.Bay is being upgraded. Bessie, the toothless manageress of the farm where we were staying informs me that tik is eroding schooling in the area and she worries about her granchildren's future. E.Bay will remain a mythical mix of wave, culture and hot, dry wind and at least one brandy and coke at the hotel is neccesary to position one self in this world.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Came very close to nominating myself for the Darwin Awards ( for the un-literate these are awards for people who voluntarily remove themselves from the gene pool). Its a Tuesday night and I am in the old world-Afrikaner/African enclave of Empangeni and decide an evening jog down the beach at Richards Bay is sufficient reward for surviving the day in the the Empangeni Protea Hotel with 30 government employees. So after wending through the industrial emblems of South Africa's biggest 2 aluminium smelters I get to Alkantstrand (huh) The sun sets early in KZN- an outcome of global warming in the province and Alkantstand is a tad shady and abandoning my hired car, I head with some concern to the beach. Its a befokked side shore and a huge dirty brown water swell. Needless, there is one muscled KZN surfer ripping, but no beach-the tide is FULL on 2-days off full moon. So I step out with tired legs down the tar. Its sort of tropical and the lactic acid in my calves is dissolving, so I step out a bit. But now I am on a bust road, heading north, lots of buses etc, so I decide this is not very PC and lets head back toward the beach. Having cut a swathe through the tropical entangle there is still very little beach- but being a stubborn gemini- I am going south.
There still is no beach-patches of itinerant sand. To the left a tumultuous, crashing ocean. To the right dunes and cliffs. After brief sprints down the beach- I encounter rocky outcrops which I need to circumvent by heading up the cliffs-which turn out to be clay (and sand) As I head up. the sand dunes crumble into the ocean swirl. I grasp on `rocks' which are slippery clay. A few times I contempate those embarassing ends to life- ` lost cape town runner/surfer found buried in quick sand on abandoned beach.'
I survived, some what sandy and wet, and ate curried prawns for supper.
On the radio, while driving to Durban airport the next day, national news carried a story about a builder In RICHARDS BAY who had got killed by a 3m wall collapsing on him. I really had a few moments on the crumbling, clay, sand dune... but well I am at Durban airport heading home...
There still is no beach-patches of itinerant sand. To the left a tumultuous, crashing ocean. To the right dunes and cliffs. After brief sprints down the beach- I encounter rocky outcrops which I need to circumvent by heading up the cliffs-which turn out to be clay (and sand) As I head up. the sand dunes crumble into the ocean swirl. I grasp on `rocks' which are slippery clay. A few times I contempate those embarassing ends to life- ` lost cape town runner/surfer found buried in quick sand on abandoned beach.'
I survived, some what sandy and wet, and ate curried prawns for supper.
On the radio, while driving to Durban airport the next day, national news carried a story about a builder In RICHARDS BAY who had got killed by a 3m wall collapsing on him. I really had a few moments on the crumbling, clay, sand dune... but well I am at Durban airport heading home...
