Julian Karp Archives - The Running Mann

9th November 202410th November 2024

MadMac Marathon (a cure for coulrophobia)

[MARATHON #274 / UNIQUE MARATHON #168 / 6 October 2024]

Between Comrades and Two Oceans, I have spent a lot of time this year writing about clowns. You could say I was acquiring a severe case of coulrophobia – which is of course the fear of clowns. However, I seem to have developed a unique strain called antici-coulrophobia – which is a fear about what the aforementioned clowns will do or say next (and then I have to spend a great deal of time writing about it).

Fortunately, I was confident that I could find a 100% successful cure for extreme antici-coulrophobia by facing my fears head on and self-medicating at the clown-themed MadMac Marathon. The theme was chosen as the race venue is the site of the old Boswell Wilkie Circus in Randvaal and there is still plenty of circus apparatus and remnants of the now defunct circus around.

Fitting right in: Julian Karp has promised to dye his hair for next year’s race.

14th October 202414th October 2024

Musina Marathon (Borderline crazy)

[MARATHON #272 / UNIQUE MARATHON #165 / 7 September 2024]

The inaugural Musina Marathon held in the northern extremities of Limpopo was the only marathon in the whole of South Africa over the entire weekend of 7-8 September. Musina is a stone’s throw from the Zimbabwean border and the last town on the N1 before hitting the Beit Bridge border post and crossing the Limpopo River.

Musina is where the devil spends his winters when he wants to warm up. It’s a place where your entry level sunblock is Factor 50. Legend has it that a Scotsman visiting Musina made the fatal mistake of sitting down on the pavement and ended up with hard boiled eggs in under three minutes. In other words, this is a fantastic place for a connoisseur to run a marathon.

29th September 202429th September 2024

Coastal Marathon (When you start to go postal…)

[MARATHON #270 / UNIQUE MARATHON #164 / 4 August 2024]

Most people have their Comrades dreams (or more commonly nightmares) in the build up to the event but for the last two years mine have occurred after the race. In late July and early August I was neck deep in the post-Comrades quagmire. I wasn’t sure whether I was mentally in the right space to run a marathon but I figured that if you start to go postal, then it’s time to go coastal…

27th August 202431st August 2024

Highveld Marathon (An unreserved apology to Ermelo)

[MARATHON #265 / UNIQUE MARATHON #161 / 6 April 2024]

Unlike the Boards of major ultra marathons in South Africa, I will readily admit when I am wrong. My memories of running marathons in Ermelo were clouded by the coal smoke from this industrial town when I ran the Gert Sibande Marathon in 2016.

There is even beauty amongst the squalor if you know where to look for it.

19th August 202419th August 2024

Festival of Running Marathon (Earning your Easter eggs)

[MARATHON #264 / UNIQUE MARATHON #160 / 29 March 2024]

After Two Oceans moved away from their traditional Easter timeslot, a vacuum appeared on the marathon running calendar. Fortunately, this year two races stepped in to ensure that the Easter weekend is not ‘all eggs and no legs’. You could either run the City to City (back after a long absence) in Gauteng on Easter Sunday or the inaugural Festival of Running (FoR) Marathon in Gqeberha (PE) on Good Friday (or if you are Julian Karp you could run both).

With Two Oceans moving away from their traditional timeslot, you could choose between the Festival of Running or City to City Marathon (or if you are Julian Karp you can run both).

I decided to turn Good Friday into a great Friday with a trip to the Eastern Cape. I was particularly interested in the FoR Marathon as it was billed as the first 100% plastic free marathon in South Africa and also had the novelty of an afternoon start (the only other non-morning marathon in South Africa is the Ottosdal Nite Marathon). This allowed for a same day marathon sandwich with an 8:00am flight out of Joburg and an 8:00pm flight back home.

I originally thought that I would be flying solo as Julian sent me a “Pity to miss this but the flights are too expensive” message. A few days later he sent me, “I am getting FOMO on the Friday marathon – please forward your flight details and I will see what I can do.” This communication saga was concluded shortly thereafter with, “I’ve booked my flights. You are a bad influence on me Mr. Mann”.

14th March 202414th March 2024

Bhekizizwe Joseph Shabalala Marathon (The show aint over…)

[MARATHON #259 / UNIQUE MARATHON #155 / 4 February 2024]

My mission to run every marathon in South Africa took me to Ladysmith on the first weekend of February for the Dr. Bhekizizwe Joseph Shabalala Marathon. Most of the KwaZulu Natal marathons are run on a Sunday so my frequent travel companion, Julian Karp, and I took a relaxed Saturday afternoon drive down the N3.

I had booked us accommodation at Farquar Lodge since the ratings were good, the price was affordable and I knew that there was a good “Farquar”-ing chance that I’d be able to make a joke or two about the venue name in the race report.

20th February 202421st February 2024

Elias Resort Marathon (Don’t they know it’s Christmas time at all?)

[MARATHON #256 / UNIQUE MARATHON #153 / 27 December 2023]

One would have to be a complete sadist to organise a marathon in Limpopo at the end of December – on the other hand, one would have to be a complete idiot to run it. It just takes one sadist to organise a marathon in Limpopo’s northern extremities in December but there were 76 idiots who ran it. Naturally I was one of them.

7th February 20247th February 2024

1City Marathon (Benoni by the beach)

[MARATHON #255 / UNIQUE MARATHON #152 / 2 December 2023]

Irene van Eeden from Eastern Province Athletics heard that Julian and I would be coming through for the 1City marathon and asked what marathon number we’d be running, promising to give us the corresponding numbers. There was a slight hitch though because the printed race number sequence issued for the race did not include either of our marathon counts (927 for Julian and 255 for me). However, Irene made a plan with some handy “cut and paste” decoupage skills to ensure that we both ran with a memorable personal touch.

A lovely personal touch from the organisers – Julian and I received customised race numbers featuring our marathon count.

19th December 202327th December 2023

Cheetahs Marathon (rocking Mththa’s rolling hills)

[MARATHON #254 / UNIQUE MARATHON #151 / 12 November 2023]

I ran my first marathon in 2002 and ended the year with 7 marathons completed (4 standards and 3 ultras). Until now, Covid years excluded, that was my worst year of running. Unfortunately, I will definitely slump to a new low score in 2023 but there was one silver lining – the lack of marathon travel meant that I still had one 75% Vitality discount return flight that needed to be used before the year was done. This justified an otherwise unaffordable flight to Mthatha for the Cheetahs Marathon by knocking R4,000 off the airfare.

The alternate way to get to Mthatha from Joburg at a reasonable cost is to fly to East London, hire a car and do the three-hour drive along the N2. This was the routing Julian Karp had chosen (after running the Jacaranda Marathon on Saturday morning) so I collected his race number for him. Cheetahs would be Julian’s 923^rd marathon and 8^th in 4 weekends. Based on his diet of ‘two marathons a weekend’, I noted that it was highly appropriate that Julian has been allocated race number 4242.

Julian race number was 4242 – highly appropriate since he was running his fourth consecutive weekend of back-to-back marathons. The race entry fee of R300 includes a high quality t-shirt.

19th October 202320th October 2023

Shikhumba Marathon (Back in the saddle up Dead Donkey Hill)

[MARATHON #252 / UNIQUE MARATHON #149 / 7 October 2023]

I had not run a marathon for over 16 months courtesy of sloth and a boring neural issue in my knee. Having received a complimentary entry to Cape Town Marathon, I’ve spent the last few months getting marathon fit (or as close as possible to it) again. Then came the inconvenient realisation that my daughter’s birthday was the day before Cape Town Marathon.

I have a newfound respect for government negotiators and their dealings with the trade unions. After a short but intense round of negotiations, I realised that there would be no compromise. Either I flew my daughter and her friends to Cape Town (and convinced the body corporate at my mom’s retirement village in Noordhoek to host her birthday party) or I would have to find another plan.

Another plan was found. The plan involved a 500-kilometre drive to the northern extremities of the Limpopo Province and was one week earlier (meaning one week less to train) but it would have to do. Luckily, a few old running compatriots had the same plan and I was able to tag along with Julian Karp, Don Rukando and Farai Razano (names listed in order of marathons completed – 915, 161 and 101 respectively) on their marathon adventures to the Shikhumba* Marathon.