Zinikele (Cecilia)

I sat on the other side of the pond watching Comrades on an app this year. Two sub-stories felt very real to me. Kerstin and Simone have both written guest posts for Swart Donkey. They were both running at about the pace I ran last year. Simone was supporting then, and saw me just before the final cut off. She knew exactly the right things to say. Kerstin had to make the same tough call I did, telling her friends to go on ahead. Although these two inspirational ladies don't know each other, their dots on my app were side by side for almost 12 hours. They both just missed the very last cut off, after 80km, by the skin of their chins. Makes me wonder how many other people with similar struggles push on in parallel. Ceci and Kerstin described the day...

Cecilia, Kerstin & Elke

Three Hamburg Ladies

By far: we have fought this one out... it was the hardest race I have done in my life and I don't know if I could have done it on my own... 

Kerstin Dirks & Elke Sommerlade supported me up to the point were Kerstin was feeling weaker and told us to go on. it was a heartbreaking moment but this we had to promise each other before in case one of us was feeling bad. 

The hills on the first 45k plus the heat were so hard on me... 'ZINIKELE' 'it takes all of you' says it all...: it was simply hard and people were fighting their way through... luckily in this race there is so much unity and everybody helps each other - I have never seen that in any other race! It felt like a battle together... on the 60k mark the water supply ran out for about 3 drink stops... that was the most frightening moment in this race... 

Elke & I were worried so much about Kerstin and we didn't know that this girl had soldiered on by herself... this gives me the most goosebumps... you are my true heroine in this Kiki 💛!! 

Elke and I had developed a mantra to get through this race: with every step we would say 'easy' - like a military-mantra... just to tell each other we can and to take us to the finish line... there were many moments to give up, but my head would not allow it, luckily neither did Elke... the km's streched and the last hill 'Little Pollies' wasn't little at all... the last ks were the worst as we new we had to run to make it to the finish line in time... it was the hardest race I have done.. I could not enjoy it as we were battling so hard... but having my vision to cross the finish line stamped in my head I truly more than wanted to finish my challenge... it's incredible how your mind can lead you through... 

I am thankful for so many things... but truly thankful to have had Elke on my side... it wouldn't have worked if we wouldn't have supported each other - she more than once took my hand and this is what this race is about: its about companionship.

Cecilia

Elke and Cecilia

How does it feel to be sent out of a race? At the very last Cut off? After approximately 80K? With just 8K to go. On the highest point of the track? After 1000 m altitude? Because you arrived 2 minutes to late? PUZZLED. On the one hand you are disappointed and angry about yourself, about the sun and 27 degrees, and of course you dislike this hill - Polly Shortts. But on the other hand you are proud! You haven't given up, you were running through the 5th cut off at 62 K just to go on with the race, you overtook others and stayed focused again, after having made the decision to let your friends go after 35 K. You feel it was an honour to come this far. And you smile in the second another participant offers you a cracker ;) And finally you feel loved meeting your friends after the race, getting all the nice messages from everyone who followed (thx) and a lot of hugs. And additionally you are getting a medal from your friend because she managed to do the back2back. ❤️

Kerstin

Last One Through

I always focussed on time management with exams. A mentor once taught me a technique. Most of our exams were 100 marks in three hours. I allocated 1.6 minutes per mark which left 20 minutes at the end to check the paper. It also meant I didn't spend 30 minutes on a three mark question. Three marks gets five minutes. Five minutes up, and you move on. Ruthlessly.

When I got back from the Comrades on Sunday, I got to read through the whatsapp messages from various friends and family who had been tracking my progress. I kept them on the edge of their seat because I hadn't left the '20 minutes for checking'. To be fair, I had tried. Up until 16km to go, I had pushed to keep ahead of the sub-12 hour bus. They aim to finish with that little margin for error. 

I fell behind that bus in Drummond just after the half way point. I then saw a veteran of several races muttering that we were all done. I had been running within myself, managing my energy right from the start. More shuffling than running. I had gone through the half way mark at 5 hours and 58 minutes. That was not the plan. The hill up to the half way mark was longer than expected and everyone was walking. So I walked. I should have done the walky runny thing. I was caught by surprise when people started saying that the cut-off gun was going in just 10 minutes. I heard it fire behind me. I didn't know I had been cutting it that fine. So I picked up the pace and got in front of the Sub-12 bus at around the 48km in/ 41km to go mark. 

The last cut-off was with 7km to go, but I had a little wobble with 16km to go. A wobble in my head rather than in my body. Cowies Hill got the better of me and I felt shattered. When the bus caught me, I didn't have the wits to push on. This also meant that I had to manage my time on my own. The problem is I have laughed off wearing a watch. I don't like the stress of being so military about time management any more. I had a rough sense, but had stopped giving any margin of safety. The last 500 metres before the Sherwood cut-offs was an all out sprint. I was the last one through, and had to do some dancing and shoulder dropping as the gates closed around me.

My family watched my dot grind to a halt on the tracking app. That sprint took a little toll and I walked for a couple hundred metres. I then cracked on. Unfortunately I didn't quite make the next cut off. I was about 300 metres from the end when the final gun went.

Exams aren't just about what you know. How you plan is just as important. Next year, I will have trained a bit more (I ran my first marathon a month ago), and I will be wearing a watch! 

A Start

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. There seems to be a clear path. We can remember the things we got wrong, and wonder how it would have been different. I learnt lots of lessons during my 12 hours of running on Sunday. Well, 12 and a bit. Like a one point sports game, it is tempting to think of all the little tweaks that would have changed the 'and a bit' to 'just less than'. Doing something is very different from reading about it. The learning is intense. I am spending the next two weeks in Langa, Cape Town. I am going to put some of the same intensity of that run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban into getting some Xhosa words to sink in. I will be learning alongside the same friend that tried to get me to Durban on time. Time to listen. That's a good way to start.

Start of the Comrades

Pic: +Em Gatland 

Stubborn Little Donkey

I have a problem with authority. One of the reasons I stopped working in the traditional sense is that I struggle with the hierarchy of work. I am luckily a very self-motivated person. I can push myself hard. For that reason, my parents seldom had to discipline me. I hate(d) my older brothers telling me what to do. I seldom disappointed teachers for lack of effort, bar perhaps in accounting. That is likely related. School accounting tended to be about learning the rules.

Ironically, I like rules. Games work better with a contract that people agree to abide by. Touch rugby, poker, and many other social games work better when the rules aren’t an argument. What I don’t like is a lack of clarity about the rules. Within known constraints you can be very creative. Fuzzy constraints impede creativity because there is too much umming and ahhing. The wet blanket effect slows things down and kills joy.

In the corporate environment, there is a lot of fuzziness. There is hierarchy but more delegation of responsibility than of trust and decision making. There were lots of occasions when I really didn’t like myself. I can perform under pressure, but I am not a nice person. Not the kind of person I want to be. All the softer, social skills go out the window and I get task focused. It becomes a choice between the task and the person. That in my view is not a necessary choice. There is seldom a reason to rush. There is almost never a reason to put a task above a person.

But the world is not black and white. I could have benefited from less of a desire to control my environment when I ran the 89km Comrades on Sunday. I got angry with about 16km to go. I had the sub-12hour bus hounding me from behind. They took up the whole road. If they caught up, you didn’t become part of the bus. You got swallowed. I was angry with the bus. I was angry because of all the plastic on the road despite the bins. I didn’t feel in control.

I had a buddy with me. One who was far stronger than me. Instead of outsourcing my thinking to him and just doing what I was told, I cut him loose. He wanted to help. I told him to carry on. I just needed to be in my bubble. I just needed to focus. He told me my bubble was too slow. I spoke some French asking him to leave me alone. That cost me the race.

I pulled myself together about 4 km later, but I lost about 10 minutes to my anger. I had been running a steadily slow race, and hadn’t left much of a buffer. I got to the stadium just as the gun went. At the pace I was running, I probably would have finished 2 minutes later.

I slowed down and gathered perspective. The task of finishing was not my goal. This was something much bigger. I had started running to be part of the story of Unogwaja. I had started running to try and deconstruct my identity. How can we define ourselves as ‘not’ the things we haven’t properly tried? I was ‘not’ a runner. I had just run 89km and survived. I jogged into the stadium singing Shosholoza. Savouring the love being poured by the crowd into the runners who had fought their way to the stadium a few minutes too late.

I will be back stronger and more focussed on the things that matter. 

If We Can See

Just 12km from the Pietermaritzburg City Hall, many of the children from Umsilinga Primary School had not seen it. It was a very special moment when hundreds of little people in red socks stormed the fields to form a tunnel on Saturday to welcome the Unogwaja team who had cycled 1700km from Cape Town over the previous 10 days. A young girl passionately recited Rudyard Kipling's 'If'. One day, she wants to be a Doctor. As I ran the 89km Comrades yesterday as part of the Red Love Train alongside the 12 team members, I kept thinking about those kids. If we truly believe in a world without unnecessary obstacles. If we can see and support the resilience and perseverance that already exists, the light of these children will shine.

Click here to contribute to the fundraising for Umsilinga Primary School

Red Sock Friday

Phil Masterton-Smith

Youngest ever winner of the Comrades at age 19

Friday. I am putting on my Red Socks and going to meet the Unogwaja team as they ride in to Richmond. In 1933, the original Unogwaja couldn't afford the trip from Cape Town to the Comrades. So he cycled 1700km. To run 89km. Masterton-Smith lost his life at the siege of Tobruk in World War II. Three veterans who had fought at that battle promised to wear red socks if they made it out of the POW concentration camp alive. The Red Socks are a story of lasting friendships. Unogwaja is a story of putting aside obstacles. The Comrades is a story of rising to the challenge of life together. On Sunday we run together.

#RedLoveTrain

#34328

Click Here if you would like to contribute

Umsilinga Primary School

Red Love Train

Unogwaja and The Red Love Train coming together from all over the world

You have 12 hours to finish the 89km Comrades Marathon. I would like to finish somewhere around 11 hours 45 minutes. Walking as much as I need to. Just keep moving. I will be part of the 'Red Love Train'. A group from Brazil, Germany, Britain, Canada, Portugal and (of course) South Africa will be running alongside the Unogwaja team. That team of 14 (adding Australia and the US) led by Nathaniel Mabetwa will be cycling about 1000 miles from Cape Town to the start of the Comrades over the 10 days before the race. We will then run together. The race is a part of a much wider project to walk together through life. To see each other. To build a community of which we are all a part by coming together, with respect, and seeing how we can release the energy within us. Not charity. Unogwaja is about light. It is about removing obstacles.

Click here if you would like to donate to the effort

In It Together

One of the primary aims of the Comrades Marathon is to "celebrate mankind's spirit over adversity". Well being isn't the absence of difficulty. My Utopia wouldn't be a world without any stress. We struggle because we strive. We struggle because we care. We cope. For me, that has been what the 89km race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban has always symbolised. The Camaraderie of a vast mass of humanity (14,313 finished the race in 2010 - the world's biggest ultra-marathon)  running together and supporting each other. Uncles. Aunts. Grandparents. Family. Teachers. Friends. In two weeks time I will be attempting my first. I will need the shouts of support. It is not something I could do alone. Neither is life.

In It Together

Building Habits

I was a little worried about my next two months of travelling. Historically, I have not been very good at maintaining exercise habits when I travel. Without interruption, I can get into a groove of doing something I want to learn, but bumps send me off. I am a creature of habit. I always think of Jan Ullrich v Lance Armstrong (I need new metaphors). Ullrich built up momentum like a steam train. I don't like the last minute stuff. If there is something that needs doing, I like doing it over a long time. I hate rushing. I don't run for trains if it's my choice. There is always another one. If I am late, it is my problem. If I run, it doesn't hurt enough for me not to be late next time.

Seldom a reason to rush

Armstrong was good at handling it when things didn't go smoothly. The example of him going off-road on Stage 9 of the 2003 race in order to avoid an accident. Life does sometimes throw curve balls at you, but I think there is a difference between being able to handle problems and handling problems becoming a habit. I hate the stress of being in a corner, and while an impending deadline often is an incredible motivator, I way prefer the less stressful version of getting a little bit done over a longer period of time. If something really matters, it deserves time and space. A permanent corner is just a time bomb. Building momentum is a much better option.

I am busy training for the Comrades Marathon. My first. So I don't have the option of putting training aside for two months. This has to be a running trip. Fortunately on this first stop, it looks like it won't be a problem. Chicago has a wonderful cycle/run path along the banks of Lake Michigan. So this afternoon will see the start of me changing the bad habit of letting travel get in the way of keeping fit.

Parallel Joy

We run along parallel to many sources of joy, meaning and fulfilment if we define ourselves to narrowly. If we aren't able to overcome some of the barriers built of a lack of awareness or discomfort. If we aren't able to get to experience the other side. 

I tried some Capoeira classes last year. It was a wonderful experience that I definitely want to get more of. The teacher described the place where the beauty of Capoeira lies as a dance between the forces of gravity pushing down, and our strength pushing up. Each movement up goes down first. Each movement down starts by going up. There is a flow. When the forces equal each other, there is a lightness. Music. Poetry. 

I am training for the Comrades Marathon. At 89km long, there are going to be a lot of forces flowing through my body. It is famously difficult and yet famously open to everybody. You qualify by running a Marathon and entering before they hit the limit of 20,000 people. I grew up on the route. We used to cheer the leaders as they flew by. Bruce Fordyce and Frith van der Merwe were childhood heros. Fordyce winning every year for the first decade of my life, bar 1989. In 1989, van der Merwe obliterated the woman's record and finished 15th overall in a time of under 6 hours. Most people aren't uber athletes. Their cheers were a mixture of awe, sympathy, support and a transfer of any will power possible. They are parents, uncles, aunts, friends, colleagues and teachers who are waking up early or going for runs after work. Transforming their bodies. Slowly building up to finishing the race in under 12 hours. On the road almost twice as long as the legends.

Bruce Fordyce and Hosea Tjale (Comrades Marathon)

The Capoeira feels relevant as I slowly build up. I have been doing it very slowly. Following the advice that your breath is your best coach. If you aren't breathing comfortably, you are running to fast. As my muscles strengthen, and my joints get stronger, there are passages of running where that balance of gravity and my force seem to be in sync. When I am comfortably moving along. Breathing easily. Outside. Floating.

Wandering the routes around where I live, it feels like as my body slowly builds resilience, I am also growing into the area. Not quite like hoping on a train under the ground. I run past unusual shops. I recognise side streets. I discover alternative routes. Where I live becomes more a part of who I am, in the same way as I am becoming a runner.

Beyond some discomfort, lies a broader you. A stronger you. A you where the ups and downs of life find lightness of being.

Reserves Matter

When you are at school, you change so much each year that you never believe you can't do anything. Maybe next year. Maybe when I am a little bigger. At least that was my theory. The fact that I couldn't really do it last year wouldn't stop me from attempting it the following year. At one stage I was the lightest in my class - including all the the girls. I was told a growth spurt was due at some stage. I had been a sick little toddler and so my littleness would not last. Apparently you can double your height when you are two and that is close to how tall you will be. The next smallest guy had huge feet. Like a hobbit. I had a particularly large head. Like a dwarf. We became friends. We were told we were going to grow into these. We believed.

So despite the lack of size or speed or jumping ability, I would give it a crack each year. High jump, long jump, rugby, cricket, sprints, hurdles, whatever, I would give it a go. I didn't mind being the reserve of the team either. I would carry on pitching up at practise never knowing when this 'growth spurt' might occur. Then came the hole in my theory. I thought trying was enough. I wasn't as good as the other guys naturally, so when I got tired I told myself that at least I had tried. It was OK if I did slightly less training than the guys in the actual team because they were better than me, they could handle it. You don't actually know how good you are 'naturally' if you haven't trained properly. 

Scott Jurek had a different approach. He figured people eventually gave up. If you wanted to do well, you had to put in more effort than those with natural talent. The thing in your control was when you gave up. He wouldn't. So he just ran further. He wasn't the fastest at shorter distances. So he ran further. He wasn't the fastest at marathons. So he ran further. At some point he started being better than the natural athletes because something else started to kick in. His mental strength allowed him to reach deep into himself and discover reserves.

Reserves are often thought of as the second best. Not quite good enough. That is true for a lot of things. But not everything. At some point, reserves become the thing that matters. I once ran a 1,500m race, aged 15, and stormed out of the gates matching the chaps at the front much to the amusement of my school buddies. I came round the corner after 300m in the front to wild cheers. I liked this. 400m later much to the amazement of my buddies and the guys who didn't like me very much, I was still in front. The cheers got even louder. The guy just behind me (an uber athlete who normally won very comfortably) told me later he was starting to wonder where I had done all this secret training. He had started getting worried. But... I hadn't.

About 100m later I ran out of reserves. There was nothing to call on and my legs gave in. Enthusiasm only gets you so far. Reserves matter. There had been no secret training from Trev. Scott would have done it differently. Trev came 8th. Out of 10. 

Years later, I started working at a new company on the same(ish) day as a guy who thought completely differently to me. We shared an office and fed off each other's different way of thinking. The firm believed in independent thinking, so we would be given the same project and instructed not to discuss our ideas till after they were presented. We would come at it from completely different angles. One of the things we came at differently outside work was athletics stuff. We was hardcore. Me, not so much. His day would start doing sprint training at the athletics club. Mine would start watching TED clips or lectures on academicearth.org. Like Scott, his theory was that the mind mattered more. He often said, 'Give me someone with balls, and I'll turn him into a champion'.

But you can't stop just before. You have to do a little more. When I moved to London, another mate with a similar philosophy to early bird sprinter convinced me, through example, to get off the chair and start moving. It is tough to be living with someone who is active and not have some sort of positive effect. London was wet, so I opted for Yoga. It was indoors (excuse noted - 'there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong gear'). Ken Robinson says sometimes we treat our bodies as a transportation device for our heads. Yoga started me back on the path to realising how connected mental clarity and physical clarity are.

Almost a year ago (my Independence Day is 9 August), I stopped working and started writing this daily blog on happiness and learning. I wanted to test my definition of myself. I asked close friends to suggest challenges. There were lots of ideas from baby sitting, massage, and coding to domestication and marathon running. I agreed to do a Marathon as one challenge. While raising money for Movember, I asked John McInroy, a crazy chap I had met at a wedding if he would donate. He said he would grow a moustache, but he was focusing his efforts on the Unogwaja Challenge. I checked it out, liked what I saw, and made a donation. A month later I was in Cape Town and John and I had a day of philosophising about the world's problems and how we could help. Then we played Ping Pong.

He recommended 'Born to Run'. It flipped my thinking on running on its head and between John's enthusiasm, my new focus on happiness and learning, and what it stood for, I decided Unogwaja was for me. I now have time. I also know that what I was doing when I was young was congratulating myself for trying. Trying is not enough. As Yoda says, 'Do or Do Not, there is no Try'. Heart is what matters. Heart and time. 

I have both. I am applying for the Unogwaja for next year. My story may be that my first Comrades marathon comes after cycling 170km a day for 10 days. Perhaps I will be in the support crew for the others. One day, I will cross the finish line of the Comrades. The run and the cycle are not however the important part of Unogwaja. Unogwaja is also not a charity.

The important part of Unogwaja is taking the next step. The important part is growing into your feet and into your head. The important part is using your full potential. I now call my friend Testosterone Man. His growth spurt came in his 20s. He used to be confused for a 12 year old when he was 17. He is now 6 foot tall and sees the world with new eyes. Not because of his height or feet, but because of the effort he has put into achieving his dreams.

My friend is a champion. He doesn't just try. He takes the next step.

Wadling into Walking

Most of us are busy. We choose to focus on something and get on with it. We fill in the gaps with a feeling that all the things we aren't looking at are ok. For a lot of people, having to worry about anything more than getting to the end of the week's tasks is simply not on the cards. Job. Family. A bit of exercise. Some food in the gaps. Sleep. And perhaps something to look forward to on the weekend.

What pulls it together is Mojo. A story that makes sense of the world. A story that gives some substance to the parts we don't understand. We don't want this story to be fake and so I think the things that make the news are often the things that cause us to worry that our story is wobbling. That give us doubt. Since we are pretty resilient, I think we are also fond of a good whine. If the gaps between our areas of control feel so huge, we gain comfort in repeatedly saying how huge they are to our buddies. We're all doomed. Another glass. We're all doomed. Another glass.

One of the reasons our wadling [(We're all doomed)ling] works is because we don't take a step back and look at the big picture. In 'The Better Angels of our Nature', Steven Pinker does that. We are conquering our prejudice and becoming better people. The strongest counter-argument to this comes from environmentalists and those who say that things 'seem' better, but the risks are more concentrated. Things could go wrong in a calamitous fashion. Another World War would wipe us all out. Those risks are real and I agree we have to become better custodians of our planet. But us becoming better is the first step towards that. It all starts with little stories.

The trend of the little stories requires Mojo. It requires us to come together and celebrate how awesome it is to be alive. Two guys doing that are John McInroy and Robert Le Brun. They set out yesterday on foot from Cape Town to the start of the Comrades Marathon in Durban. This is not a race. This is not supposed to be some awe inspiring feat. They are going on foot so that they can walk with real people all across the country. So they can hear stuff. Not the stuff that makes the news, but the stuff that makes the people that makes the Mojo that makes us move. Forward.

That is the stuff that matters. The reason people are focusing on their jobs and their families is they want a good life. We all do. A sprinkle of Mojo can turn our Wadling into Walking.

The walk begins

Unogwaja 2016 is On

I am not a runner. My family and I have a history of lower back issues. We have all dealt with it in our own ways, but I have been told that running is just nasty to the body. It seems like people who run regularly also get injured regularly. Nothing messes with my mojo quite like being injured. I become a lazy slob, start eating badly and basically wait for my body to heal before I start doing anything active. Not a great strategy since you start again from square minus one. Over the last 5 years, I have somewhat changed course by doing regular yoga and have slowly started undoing the damage. It is slow but effective and I enjoy the yoga classes. I don't have to motivate myself to go to yoga since I am not beating myself up as I exercise and I come out feeling incredible. As part of this new venture I am on I have been challenged to run a marathon. It is one of the less unusual challenges since long distance running is fairly popular. 

Part of my '100 hours idea' is that you need to be careful about defining who you are. I am not a runner. The truth is I do not know, I have not put the effort in to get to the other side where lots of people seem to get a great deal of pleasure. The pain angle puts me off though. A particular mythical marathon stands tall in the mind of every South African. I have always dreamed of running the Comrades Marathon. But I have healthy respect for this beast. As a kid living along the route, we used to wake up early. If the Dads were organised, there would be a skottel braai and the almost 89km would be full of people. The winners were awesome, but there was always a very long tail. The end of the Comrades is what made it magical. Broken people of all shapes and sizes helping each other, crossing the line arm in arm. You have 12 hours to finish. 12 hours of running. 12. Eish. I don't like the idea of destroying myself, but the Comrades seems a part of who I am. I have always felt like I would have to let the beast nibble at me once. So now that I have capacity to train properly, and a friend had suggested a (normal) marathon as one of my projects, I was primed. Enter crazy man, John McInroy.

Perfect running form includes a big smile

John used to play hockey for South Africa but is now involved in various exciting initiatives. After meeting him at a friend's wedding a few years back and a small incident with a rock (another story for another time), we clicked. At the end of the trip he handed me a pair of red socks to wear on Fridays (another story for another time). I kept my eye on what he was up to and one of these things is the Unogwaja challenge. In this apparent lapse of sanity, the participants cycle from Cape Town to the start of the Comrades (roughly 1600km) and then run the 89km race! Since I am not a runner, and I am not a cyclist - John challenged me to join him in 2016. He also suggested I read to book 'Born to Run'.

Basically this book says I am wrong. Quite the opposite of my belief that running destroys you, its central claim is that the reason we suffer from many of the niggles and diseases we suffer from is because we don't run. In a world where I believe sometimes you can't even trust the experts, I am wary of lavish claims that run counter to what I have experienced. It really seems like common sense that long distance running is in part pleasurable only because you are able to push yourself to places of extreme discomfort and survive. Top athletes don't stop hurting. They typically hurt even more. This books claim is that done right, we are designed to run. Our hairless skin lets us sweat, our upright stance lets us breathe, and our mind lets us strategise and self-control. It is an incredibly motivational book. I am really excited about the idea that I can do the Comrades, not as a once-off self-sacrificial homage to the comradery of South Africans, but as a real source of pleasure and fulfilment.

So I said Yes to John. Unogwaja 2016 is on.