I had to wake up early for the long walk and leave the warmth of my three-star room in Queenstown, Eastern Cape. Getting up this early on a Saturday morning wasn’t helped by a little hangover left from the welcoming of athletes in a guest house for the Chris Hani Freedom Marathon the previous night. This was where I met the town’s flamboyant politicians who spoke proudly and loudly of their hero, Hani, and Lungile Gongqa, the champion of the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town.
The early start gave me just enough time to rinse my face. The five-kilometer race was set for 6.30AM, in rural Cofimvaba, an hour’s drive from Queenstown. We went up and down the hills before dawn, before joining a convoy of about 15 buses.
We hoped the buses would lead the way – they didn’t, the convoy got lost and we had to make a turn and follow Google Maps which landed us about three kilometers off the tar road in Sabalele, Cofimvaba. Fortunately, a speeding taxi arrived behind us and told us the race was nearby. We sped off thinking we must be late.
By the time we found parking at 6.45AM, the race hasn’t started. People were still collecting their race numbers and some were even registering at the Chris Hani Community Centre for the race. People had stayed the night there; mattresses and food parcels were everywhere and a foul smell was in the air.
We received our numbers and walked to the starting point, stretched and waited for the race to start. There were 1,000 of us.
It was now 8:30AM. “African time is an issue,” I thought to myself. Despite this, the participants were patient and relaxed.
Finally, at 9:30AM, the first whistle went for the 25-kilometer race; at 9:45AM, the second one blasted for the 10-kilometer race and finally the five-kilometer walk – my walk – started at 10AM.
I walked with the councillor from the local Chris Hani municipality and the chief whip. Both ladies couldn’t wait to turn back after two kilometers.
I asked what the walk was about while walking uphill. The councillor, breathing heavily, answered, “the walk is for their fallen hero, Chris Hani, who walked that route daily to school.” It wasn’t easy walking on gravel. But I believe I spurred them on because I was photographing them all the way.
Once we finally finished the race, got our medals, mingled and hugged, it was time to drive back to the cosy rooms in a small town. It was a long drive. Cows, sheep and goats were all over the road. Children were also playing on the newly tarred road which meant we had to slow down even more. To make the arduous drive worse, my room didn’t have electricity. With no hot water, I couldn’t shower nor bathe; but almost two hours later the electricians sorted my wiring and I could refresh myself for the first time since arriving from Johannesburg.
Although my feet were sore, I was happy I had walked in the footsteps of one of the great South African struggle heroes. I slept knowing that Hani walked 25 kilometers to school; became leader of the South African Communist Party; Chief of Staff for uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) opposing the apartheid government; but sadly got gunned down in his driveway in 1993.
This is a journey that would have never happened without the struggle of the hero, Chris Hani.

Chris-Hani-057

Dusty Walk For A Hero

Caroline Wöstmann is like an energizer bunny, always on the go. She barely breaks a sweat as she jets up the unending flight of steps to her office kitted in running gear. The 32-year-old mother of two won the women’s race earlier this year at the 56 kilometer Two Oceans ultra-marathon in Cape Town. She ran the distance in three hours, 41 minutes and 23 seconds, becoming the first South African woman  to win in 14 years.
A lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Wöstmann only started running six years ago, to alter her lifestyle after giving birth to her first child. She’s not a professional marathoner.
At first, she began by running around her neighborhood in Pretoria, South Africa, where she lives. The first day was a challenge but she soon found a rhythm to the routine.
“Running allows you to relate to everyone. You can understand the dream to win just as you understand the dream to just finish a race. It’s so individual. Everyone can experience the same amount of joy or devastation,” she says.
Her first attempt at the ultra-marathon in 2013 was a harrowing experience. The weeks of intense training gave her a stress fracture. Not knowing the extent of her injuries, she ignored the pain and ran the marathon.
“During the race, the pain got so bad, I couldn’t walk anymore. Eventually I managed to hobble to the end and finish but I found out that week that my fibula was actually broken.”
Wöstmann was hesitant to do the race again, the memory of her fracture still fresh. She began a rehabilitation program, working on her muscle imbalances.
“Maybe naturally I wasn’t built strong enough but by doing strength work and training and fixing those imbalances, I was able to train harder,” she says.
Although her focus is on the Comrades Marathon (at the end of May), the world&#8217;s largest and oldest ultra-marathon run annually in KwaZulu-Natal, a province in South Africa, she is using local marathons as training platforms.
“Two Oceans was just meant to be training for my Comrades build-up. I had one of those days where everything fell into place. If you get an opportunity like that, you can’t bypass it. I was having the best run of my life.”
The Two Oceans route includes a breathtaking view of the sea to Chapman’s Peak, Hout Bay and Constantia Nek. With the recent fires in Cape Town, which began in Muizenberg fanned by strong winds that soon spread to Ou Kaapse Weg, Chapman’s Peak, Hout Bay and Tokai, the Two Oceans route had to be changed to include a steeper incline.
“It was a much easier route for me because my bone wasn’t broken,” she laughs now.
Recharged after her recent win, she is working towards her next goal – coming in the top three at the Comrades. Juggling lectures, a family and her sport, every day is a marathon for her and she’s in it to win.

Old Mutual Two Oceans Ultra Marathon 56km race

The Best Run Of Her Life

It was a cold morning in April, two weeks before the 2014 London Marathon. I was ready to take on the steep slopes of Mount Kenya near the town of Sagana, 210 kilometers from Kenya’s capital Nairobi.
Stretching and warming up, I eagerly waited to join Kenya’s First Lady Margaret Kenyatta at this high-altitude training camp. And when she showed up, what was meant to be a light 13 kilometer jog left me with a wonky knee and a sore back. By the time we reached the finish line, my body had given up.
But the first lady? At least once, I thought she would give up too, but the sprightly 50-year-old was more focused than anyone I had seen.
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Her focus was the streets of London, where she would take part in the 42 kilometer London Marathon, not to become yet another long-distance Kenya runner, but to promote a cause close to her heart. The cause: the ‘Beyond Zero Campaign’, a fund-raising initiative aimed at improving maternal and infant health in Kenya.
According to UNAIDS, in Kenya, as many as 5,500 women die annually due to pregnancy-related complications, and more than 100,000 children die every year by the age of five. Twenty percent of maternal deaths in the country are AIDS-related. The ‘Beyond Zero Campaign’ aims to improve maternal health care by ensuring accessibility to health facilities through mobile clinics, and prevention of mother-to-child disease transmission.
“There is simply no good reason why thousands of women and children in Kenya should die during child-birth today. This is unacceptable,” says Kenyatta.
“These are not just statistics. These are our fellow Kenyan sisters and children who die largely as a result of pregnancy and HIV-related complications that are preventable. It is just not acceptable with such worrying statistics to sit back and watch. This concerns the future of this nation, we had to take action.”
As in many African countries, Kenyan women face challenges in accessing healthcare facilities. Most of them have to travel long distances for them. The funds raised by ‘Beyond Zero’ will assist in the provision of mobile clinics, incubators, diagnostic kits for early infant testing of HIV, and oxygen concentrators.
“As a mother myself, it is worrying, it is heart-breaking. It is unnecessary for children to die through lack of medicine. I will do what I can to help,” says Kenyatta in her campaign message.
The campaign is targeting a total of $5.7 million and the first lady chose a marathon as a means to raise the funds.
“Marathon-running is a very Kenyan thing. As Kenyans, we are the undisputed kings and queens of road running. This is something that pushed my limits and took me out of my comfort zone, and something that has got Kenya and the world paying attention,” she says.
In March, she participated in the inaugural First Lady’s Half Marathon, a 21 kilometer race in Nairobi for the ‘Beyond Zero Campaign’. She then decided to take the cause to the world stage by participating in the
London Marathon.
The first lady finished the race in seven hours. At the finish line was her husband, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, waiting to receive her.
As expected, the Kenyans came tops in both the men’s and women’s elite races, with Wilson Kipsang (2hr 4min 29sec) and Edna Kiplagat (2hr 20min 21sec) taking first positions respectively.
No wonder the first lady completed the race with no qualms. She had trained with some of the world’s finest athletes, including Kipsang who is also the World Marathon holder and Florence Kiplagat, the World Half Marathon holder.
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Her team trainer is also one of the world’s champions, Douglas Wakiihuri. He won the 1987 World Championships in Athletics, the London Marathon in 1989 and the New York Marathon in 1990.
Wakiihuri was returning to London 25 years later at the age of 50, but this time for the course that he shared with the Kenyan first lady. He prepared her mentally and physically.
“We trained in a camp, same as the Olympic one. Her mental preparedness is basically that of an elite athlete which is very special,” said Wakiihuri of the first lady’s preparedness.
What made it even more commendable was that she was running and training for the first time.
“It has not been easy because none of my team members has run before. It’s very new for us and we are not that young,” says the first lady.
The team started training in November, walking at first, then jogging slowly before picking up pace. The challenges were waking up in the wee hours for intensive training and being away from their families. In the end, it all paid off.

The First Lady of the road

It is dawn on a Thursday, the sun is barely over the horizon. A mist swirls between the 25 canoes packed on the banks of the Msunduzi River at the Natal Canoe Club in Pietermaritzburg. Jane Swarbreck and former Olympian Jen Theron are already sweating. They are paddlers in Group C, among the top women in African river racing.
The Dusi Canoe Marathon is a journey across 119 kilometers of wild and treacherous waters in the searing heat of KwaZulu-Natal, tackled only by the toughest competitors. This race draws tens of thousands, only a thousand qualify, and fewer make it to the finish line. Even fewer are women.
This is how Africa’s toughest river race has run since 1951. It was conceived by South African soldier Ian Player around a campfire in Italy, during World War II.  Six years after the war, Player was the only one to finish it. It took him six days, eight hours and 15 minutes. He survived two days of low rivers, a flash flood and a night adder bite.
For Swarbreck and Theron, who finished fifth in the women’s category, the challenges on the white waters would make Player tremble in his soaked boots.
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“There is a massive difference between navigating with an 18kg and a 22kg canoe. It is slower in a heavier one, but your lines in the water with a lighter canoe have to be clean. If not, you will sink and that can cost you four to five minutes a time. When you are racing, every minute counts,” says Theron.
It is a race won on the road as much as the river. The weight makes a huge difference when portaging – that is getting out of the water and carrying the canoe rather than risking it split in half on the rocks.
“The Dusi is unlike any race in South Africa. If you cannot run you do not stand a chance of winning… sometimes I just wish a man could race in a woman’s body to see how difficult it is,” she says.
Theron knows a thing or two about the limits of the female body. She competed in the 500 meter K2 and K1 sprints at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, finishing 8th and 7th respectively. For years, she trained alongside men and says there is a big difference in physicality between genders.
“Men have a faster recovery time because of their testosterone. It does not mean women train less than men, they train equally, it is just they are physically unable to,” says Theron.
Along with carrying heavy canoes, barring the first day when they set out in a women-only group, women racers face off canoe-to-canoe with men.
“On the water you have guys constantly tailing you in your wake, like the peloton in the Tour de France, it can take off 30% of their resistance in the water and you cannot get them off your back,” says Swarbreck.
An electrical engineer by day, Swarbreck is a South African adventure racer, who has at times ‘dabbled’ on the water. A year ago you would not have caught her near the Dusi race. She learned to paddle in a few months and was surprised when Theron approached her to team up.
“Even getting around the dam once and not falling in the water was an accomplishment for me. Now, I came fifth in the Dusi. Who knows what can happen next year,” says Swarbreck.
Despite having equal footing on the water, women that win prize money have a different story to tell.
“I think it is really unfair that the race organizers can give male winners R115,000 ($10,500) and the females half of that. It is the only race in South Africa where the top prizes are unequal,” says Theron.
The organizing committee cited that the prize pool was smaller due to a lack of depth of field in the women’s category. In the 2013 Fish River Canoe Marathon, also held in South Africa, the prize money sat at R30,000 ($2,750) for both genders.
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“What is more upsetting was the female winners were 23rd overall. A couple of years ago, coming in 64th would have meant you came first. You can see how women have improved and their race was much more exciting than the men’s,” says Theron.
Abbey Ulansky, known as the Dusi Queen, clinched her ninth pole position when she crossed the line with partner Robyn Kime, called the Dusi Princess, making it their third victory in a row as a pair.  They won with a slim lead of two minutes and eight seconds.
Along with Theron and Swarbreck was an unlikely pair made up of a Czech, Ana Adamova, who trained in the sub-zero temperatures of a European winter, and South African Abby Adie. From day one, they were nipping at the leaders’ heels.
It was an eventful final day for Adamova and Adie. The two started 90 seconds behind the leaders. What they did not see coming were children pelting them with stones 20 kilometers from the end. Adamova finished the race with blood pouring down her face.
Of the 817 canoes that took to the misty waters of the Msunduzi River in Pietermaritzburg, 715 made it to Durban three days later. It is a tough race for anyone, for these women it is just another day on the water.

Tag: Marathon

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Dusty Walk For A Hero

The Best Run Of Her Life

The First Lady of the road

‘I Wish A Man Could Race In A Woman’s Body’