Humorous Anecdotes, Observations & Accounts of Marathon Running & Agile Adventures.
A good way to avoid the Black Friday madness that has engulfed our country over the last few years is to head into the countryside. As luck would have it, a new marathon had popped onto the calendar which provided a reliable means of escape: The Josiah Gumede Marathon (42.2 point-to-point kilometres nestled into the northern Drakensburg). Continue reading “Josiah Gumede Marathon (Escaping Black Friday in the Drakensberg)”
I’ve been trying to get more proactive about running marathons in neighbouring countries. One of the countries I have been scouting is the small, landlocked, mountain kingdom of Eswatini (Swaziland) and my investigations uncovered the Imbube Marathon. Run on the first Sunday in October, this proved the perfect opportunity to notch one more country onto the marathon list.
In Eswatini, everything revolves around the king – and the marathon is no different. The word ‘Imbube’ means ‘King’ in the local siSwati tongue and the event is personally signed off by King Mswati III himself.
Continue reading “Imbube Marathon, Eswatini (Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only A Marathon Runner)”
There are marathons that are tough to get to and marathons that are tough to run. The Two Countries Marathons is both. The race starts 10km inside Zimbabwe near Beitbridge Town and ends back across the South African border in the sweltering furnace that is Musina.
Pay no heed to what they say about kitchens, if you can’t take the heat stay out of the Musina hotpot: The marathon ingredients are a gruelling drive to the far northern boundaries of South Africa, an early morning border crossing on one of the busiest roads in Africa and precisely 42.2km over vast expanses of heinous hills. Throw them together and cook for several hours in 35°C heat – and you have the recipe for a fantastic and unique marathon experience!
To tick this race off the bucket list, you must successfully conquer three arduous challenges… Continue reading “Two Countries Marathon (Musina in Action)”
For those who weren’t stockpiling candles and canned food, the early 1990s was a period of unbridled optimism in South Africa: The times they were a changin’ and democracy was a comin’. It was in this spirit that a small group of 11 matric students from Amajuba High School and three of their teachers sat around a camp fire discussing the future.
The conversation meandered around innumerable topics until one student wondered whether it was possible to walk between the local towns of Memel (in the Free State) and Newcastle (in Kwazulu Natal). This proved an interesting topic, one thing led to another, the gauntlet was thrown down and a dare was unleashed. Continue reading “Blood Buddy Ultra (The Legacy of a Schoolboy Dare)”
With the South African marathon running scene on Comrades hiatus from 1 May until the end of July, I had to look further afield to find a marathon to keep my “marathon-a-week” training program going. Luckily one of our sub-Saharan neighbours obliged with the Diacore Gaborone Marathon on 13 May.
Continue reading “Gaborone Marathon (The Most Expensive Run I’ve Ever Done)”
Running with a buddy is fun and saves costs when travelling. I’ve been running a marathon a weekend and my travelling running buddy, Julian Karp, has been doing two a weekend – but it was only on week four of the South African marathon calendar that our plans aligned for the Potties Marathon.
We caught up on marathon adventures on the drive to Mokopane (formerly Potgietersrus). Although the town name was officially changed in 2003, there are no plans to change the race name to Mokkies in the near future. Continue reading “Potties Marathon Photies (A Pictorial Report from the South African Bushveld)”