Run Like a Deer
Be Strong like a Lion.
Having missed the flight because COSATU felt it necessary to turn the country further into a jelly state, and having been forced into ‘standby mode’...twice, because no flights to Durban were empty and with Friday turning from day to dusk, I had no choice but to drop a testicle on a tacky business class seat on an SAA flight. Seated, consoling myself, I ordered two cokes to stabilise me and two bottled waters to get my money’s worth. And while I thought things couldn’t get worse, while sat waiting to taxi onto the runway my running partner, my anchor, my Linus blanket and great friend Marty calls to say ‘Danny, I’m not gona make the race, the funeral’s on Sunday’.
There is no Dr Phil book or Oprah episode or Fortune cookie that prepares you for the emotion you’re about to trawl with you on the 45 minute flight to Durbs.
As I bobbed my eyeballs in a pool of salted tears, rubbing my dribble on my sleeve caking it to stiffness, I couldn’t but feel that business class is a waste of money.
The trauma I suffered that day was inexplicable, even receiving a call from the bereaved to consol me.
The SAA staff anything but sensitive to a situation, their arrogance unnerving and my voyager mile status leaving me as wines dregs, I hope never again to fly ‘Africa’s best voted airline’
Be Strong like a Lion.
Having missed the flight because COSATU felt it necessary to turn the country further into a jelly state, and having been forced into ‘standby mode’...twice, because no flights to Durban were empty and with Friday turning from day to dusk, I had no choice but to drop a testicle on a tacky business class seat on an SAA flight. Seated, consoling myself, I ordered two cokes to stabilise me and two bottled waters to get my money’s worth. And while I thought things couldn’t get worse, while sat waiting to taxi onto the runway my running partner, my anchor, my Linus blanket and great friend Marty calls to say ‘Danny, I’m not gona make the race, the funeral’s on Sunday’.
There is no Dr Phil book or Oprah episode or Fortune cookie that prepares you for the emotion you’re about to trawl with you on the 45 minute flight to Durbs.
As I bobbed my eyeballs in a pool of salted tears, rubbing my dribble on my sleeve caking it to stiffness, I couldn’t but feel that business class is a waste of money.
The trauma I suffered that day was inexplicable, even receiving a call from the bereaved to consol me.
The SAA staff anything but sensitive to a situation, their arrogance unnerving and my voyager mile status leaving me as wines dregs, I hope never again to fly ‘Africa’s best voted airline’
Not even Spielberg could write this kinda intro to my eve of the 2013 Comrades Marathon. I shivered in expectation, brr brr.
As I woke at 3:30am on Sunday the 3rd of June with a smile on my face, you slept after a debauched eve of greasy pizza pie and thunderous amounts of alcohol.
While Michael Stipe sang the chorus line to your peaceful sleep, we rubbed our eyeballs to light, applied Vaseline down our nether regions, taped our nipples, sun creamed our necks and pinned our numbers, lassoo-ed our one’s n two’s, ate peanutbutter toasties and hurtled down to Durban Town Hall.
While you dreamed of being the fat kid swimming in a river of syrupy chocolate in Charlie’s Factory, we were vibrating in nervous throngs in our pens, our nostril hairs vaporised by the throbs of Deep Heat, our teary eyes pulsing as a woofer to the echoes of Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire.
While you sipped on water to tenderise those parched lips, and slipped back into peaceful slumber, we strode at the crack of the cannon, over the line for the start of the 2013 Comrades Marathon.
While you breakfasted at Tiffany’s, we shivered for the giants, but we ran. While you flicked on last eve’s episode of Game of Thrones, we ached at the thought of 70kays to go, we were on Cowies and our energy levels didn’t even know it. We ran.
While we felt the dripping sweat make sticky our backs as we chugged up Fields, my memory bank telling me to hold back, you percolated your coffee. And we ran.
While you hit the gym hard, ‘booi’, for an hour clenching your butt at a sweat 1000 class saying ‘gsus that was a tough work out’, Lance, David and I basted the heated tar eclipsing Botha’s. And we continued to run.
When we hit the halfway mark at Drummond and with still 43 km’s to go, you hit the showers and knocked back a fruit shake. We were still running.
While I hugged my brother at the rise of Inchanga, tore at a nougat warming my Gu-filled gut and wondered how the hell I was gona scale this lofty hill with still 5 hours of running to go, you jumped in your car, stuck on the radio and took a drive down the highway. And We still ran.
While Michael Stipe sang the chorus line to your peaceful sleep, we rubbed our eyeballs to light, applied Vaseline down our nether regions, taped our nipples, sun creamed our necks and pinned our numbers, lassoo-ed our one’s n two’s, ate peanutbutter toasties and hurtled down to Durban Town Hall.
While you dreamed of being the fat kid swimming in a river of syrupy chocolate in Charlie’s Factory, we were vibrating in nervous throngs in our pens, our nostril hairs vaporised by the throbs of Deep Heat, our teary eyes pulsing as a woofer to the echoes of Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire.
While you sipped on water to tenderise those parched lips, and slipped back into peaceful slumber, we strode at the crack of the cannon, over the line for the start of the 2013 Comrades Marathon.
While you breakfasted at Tiffany’s, we shivered for the giants, but we ran. While you flicked on last eve’s episode of Game of Thrones, we ached at the thought of 70kays to go, we were on Cowies and our energy levels didn’t even know it. We ran.
While we felt the dripping sweat make sticky our backs as we chugged up Fields, my memory bank telling me to hold back, you percolated your coffee. And we ran.
While you hit the gym hard, ‘booi’, for an hour clenching your butt at a sweat 1000 class saying ‘gsus that was a tough work out’, Lance, David and I basted the heated tar eclipsing Botha’s. And we continued to run.
When we hit the halfway mark at Drummond and with still 43 km’s to go, you hit the showers and knocked back a fruit shake. We were still running.
While I hugged my brother at the rise of Inchanga, tore at a nougat warming my Gu-filled gut and wondered how the hell I was gona scale this lofty hill with still 5 hours of running to go, you jumped in your car, stuck on the radio and took a drive down the highway. And We still ran.
While you lunched with family and friends over a bbq, toasted a marshy and chugged a beer, we hit Camper Down, and still, we ran.
While morning spun into afternoon, we felt temperatures rise and shine, we saw runners around us capitulated in the searing heat, lying flat throbbing for assistance, you took your doggy to a doggy party at the park. And. We still ran.
While morning spun into afternoon, we felt temperatures rise and shine, we saw runners around us capitulated in the searing heat, lying flat throbbing for assistance, you took your doggy to a doggy party at the park. And. We still ran.
As the day saw the sun dissolving, it’s effervescence fading, we mounted Polly’s. You might have gone to a late show. And we still ran.
And as the km boards settled down to single digits, with smile and comfort we rolled on forward, the banner nearing the fresh grass smelling. While you put on that teevee at 4pm after an exhausting 10 hour day to watch 50/50 we raised our arms beneath the banner that heralded 10:33. And Finally, We stopped running.
And as the km boards settled down to single digits, with smile and comfort we rolled on forward, the banner nearing the fresh grass smelling. While you put on that teevee at 4pm after an exhausting 10 hour day to watch 50/50 we raised our arms beneath the banner that heralded 10:33. And Finally, We stopped running.
We don’t choose our days or our conditions. We can only ask why or what. Sometimes the dice rolls for us, and sometimes it doesn’t. Somehow we get back on that saddle and somehow we ride.
