White's on Rice 14.03.2014

Africanx

This was no bullsh*t facebook photo of you and your mates slotting a tequila at a party stiffer than a cadaver telling the world how rad your life is. This was no cheap selfie of your ‘amazing’ journey to Cambodia where really you had the runs, and were sharing a shower with 300 other inmates. This was no hugging your girlfriend while the sun set in the back ground, you clinking glasses and the waiter is trying for the fifth time to shoot the right shot. This was what we did every day for 3 days. 90 kays, 1000m rise in altitude, the hills the valleys, the mountains of the cape, of grabouw, of apple picking country. This was the African X, this was real, the pain, was real, the heat, was real. The dirt in your nostrils caking like a bat cave, the fyn bos licking your calves to bleed. The sun, it's angle of radiation hell bent on toasting you. That was all real.

The Sherminator and i teamed up for an adventure we’d read about in a Jules Verne novel.
With 6 months of training staring dauntingly at me, the screws needed to be turned, I needed to deviate from the luminous throngs of freshly inspired runners. I needed something new, where the masses weren’t. I needed to mix the bag of nuts up. I needed new adventure.
And as I flipped through the Discovery magazine looking at the pictures. The only article catching my eye read, ‘do something different’. AfricanX.
And so I threw a hook by way of the Sherminator and well he bit. Houwhoek, the Elgin valley, this is apple pie province.  Here the cider house rules. John Deere’s, harvesters, no Tobey McGuire but Batman and Robin.

We geared up, the Sherminator and I. Trail shoes, our ones n twos, hydration packs, gums and gu’s. Rain jackets and reflector packets. But we were Born to Run weren’t we?  So we took two heaped teaspoons of ‘kicka*s’, dumped the lumo crowd, joined the ‘Trail mix’, stirred it up and ran AfricanX.

Leaving Cape Town airport we turned our backs on pouty-lipped sea point, and dropped the stilleto’ed shmodels  hanging around coffee bars and fast cars and guys in toupees  and headed for the Cape van Riebeek could understand. The scented fyn bos, the yellows and the reds of blooming bush, the red dirt and rough rocks. The crystalline lakes, vineyards and apple ‘chards, the guttural Grabouw, it seems to have given itself a name. If it ain’t apple pie its Cape Epic territory, it’s AfricanX territory.

Day one and we sucked up the air we could, for up there there’s more to breathe. Our Transvaal lungs nourished by a high dose of oxygen. We had fast kick backs and switch backs, our toothy grins left dust dirty. The tree covered paths cool to the touch. Over bridges and past trails named Skaapsteke. ‘Have we run to Australia?, I enquired. The crunchy gravel crunching under the treads of our NB’s. No terrain like this exists on the Highveld.  33kays. And the day was done. A plunge pool our respite. as i peeled my nipple tap off squealing an echo off the mountains facade, a chocolate mik calmed me, rebuilt my muscles, for day 2 was up next.

Day 2 and we felt the landscape reach out and touch the sky. The mountainous profile puncturing the blue. The start from the bottom of Sir Lowry’s at Ongegund, a 5 star resort in a 3^rd world settlement. The run gun triggered and we were off mounting ascents, the competitors snaking the hills slowly. Luminous shirts, a safety feature not a fashion trend surely, splattered the terrain as exploded paintballs. The race took us up steep tractor paths and deep into vineyard country. The glutes pulsed and the quads felt it. This day was devastating. 35 kays of arduous trailing. The suns beam blistering.  Snaking  train tracks across the landscape like braces on a pimply teen. The chopper up above, cutting the thick oxygenated air, banking and hovering, capturing real moments, of real time action. Our feet dug in, this aint the beach, but the sand’s the same, engaging diff lock, we gain traction. The dew off the apples reflecting our hard work. Hands on thighs we climbed. Squirting gu’s at the tops of ascents, our lips stuck, no words. This day was gruelling, demanding. Without leg strength you’re running on legs like liquorice rope.  
 

Day 3, 21kays, a blanket of fog tucked us in, at 8am we peeled it away, the sun dried it up. The start gun dissipating. Tracing our fingers along the profile saw us run run, no walking. Ten kays of running. And then more climbing, clambering, then she passed us, nimble as a mountain goat. Hurtling. The rock loose, the decent fast. I sounded, ‘sweet gsus’. The vistas were a beauty, she was too. I chooned the lad. ‘No walking booi’. We took her on the straight.  We could hear the PA system, but the thread, we’d pulled it, stringing stringing we still had mileage to get through. Dropping down into Houwhook was fast like gushing water, crossing the final bridge, your smiles edges flicking the lobes of your ears. This day was like finding a tenner in your pair of jeans. It cemented the AfricanX in orbit. Ground control, we have touch-down. We’ll return.

The journey was dusted. Trail running, it’s a liberation. It’s running cos we can, it’s running to feel the landscape, to get a better understanding of it, it’s running for the sake of our pliable iron muscles, its running for the views and for the travels, its about shedding the threads of competition. It’s running cos We were Born to Run.