Just back from my last WildRun experience. This time in the Maluti Mountains of central Lesotho. Or as Dayle and I were joking on the drive down in the car to the event, “our first international multi-day trail event”! ;) Five hours drive from Johannesburg saw us at the border post on a Wednesday afternoon. All went smoothly, and a short drive later, we were parking at the rendezvous point that had been arranged, for the transfer up into the mountains, where we were to start running from at first light on Thursday morning. It was good to see a few familiar faces on the bus with us: Jo Mackenzie was her usual bubbly self, Kelvin Trautman was there to work his magic with his camera, as was Andrew King on the video side. But mostly it was bunch of new faces, in the small group that met for the race briefing before dinner that evening. We had dinner, and everyone drifted off to their rooms to pack, plan and prepare for an early start.

DAY 1 – RAMABANTA TO SEMONKONG

Distance: 45km
Vertical Gain: 1879m

05h45 Thursday morning, and 26 twitchy runners gathered on the lawn outside Ramabanta Lodge for the start. No one was taking the “compulsory kit” check nearly as seriously as the organisers were... It looked like a beautiful day, and I was rather baffled, and just a little annoyed I was expected to have a headlamp, rain jacket, beanie, spare batteries for the GPS, fully charged phone, space blanket, whistle, etc, etc, all stuffed into my pack. I was happy to be carrying some water and a few snacks, (the 45km route had me guessing I would be out there for somewhere around five to five and a half hours perhaps)?  And there were no water tables or seconding stations, so water and snacks, they were good. And my camera.... But all this other junk?

Maritz getting ready for the start of Day One. These maps were for real, not just for show. I should have spent more time doing this....

Anyway, so the crack of dawn arrived, And Owen the Race Director felt there was enough light for us to start, so off we went. Down the lawns towards the river, across a footbridge, and into the foothills of some reasonably impressive mountain thingies that loomed ever larger in front of us. Dayle and I kept it real... We set ourselves up in the middle of the field somewhere, and watched Jo go haring off with some of the racing snakes, and five of the development runners from Lesotho, up front.

It took us about 2km to realise we were already lost. Dayle was paying more attention to his GPS than I was. Truth be told I was still trying to work out how this thing worked... So for the moment I was content to sit back and let the front runners do the hard yards in finding us a route. But after a minute or two in a huddle together, scratching our heads, staring at the map we had been given, and comparing GPS tracks together, we were in agreement that the front runners were way off course already. This was rather perplexing... Did the local runners up front know something we didn’t know, or were they just caught up in the excitement of the start, and were not even looking at their GPS’s? We couldn’t decide, but committed to following the correct route as laid out on the map. We hoped this would pay us dividends later, so we set off up a mountain to our right.

This wasn’t easy. These mountains are riddled with paths, made by goats or sheep. These paths are like spider webs. They criss-cross. Each looks like the real thing, so you run with it. But in 50 meters it disappears into nothing.  The side of the mountain is covered in a tough, sticky shrub that began to reduce our legs to a bloody, itchy mess. It was rocky and unpredictable under foot. One hour in, and whilst we were sure we were on the right track now, we had only covered 5km...

And as the light came, the scale of the challenge began to bite. Each time we crested a hill or saddle ahead, we were greeted by an energy sapping drop down into another valley, followed by an even more impressive climb on the other side. And there was water everywhere. My feet were already soaked.  I should have been prepared for this, but I wasn’t.

With the thickness of the bush, the water and stone under foot, and the severity of the gradients we were covering, (aaahh, and the altitude), our pace was reduced to little more than a fast hike. We would run when we could, but often this was no more than a hundred meters.  And every time you focused on your feet and path selection for too long, and didn’t pay attention to the map and GPS... Well then you would find you had to track back to find the route. The fact we could see no one else ahead, or even behind us, well, this might be good, but it could also be pretty bad. If you weren’t there, it’s probably hard to understand, but maybe the picture below will help give you a sense...

Briggie following on “the route”... You can see other runners, as long as you are within about 20m of each other....

Perhaps two hours into the race, and we caught another small group just outside a tiny village. We held court with Will Duk, Briggie Kirchman, and Lissa Parsons, and agreed that whilst the pace was far below our expectation, we were on the right track, and an unspoken alliance was formed.

The meeting in the village...”Dr. Livingstone, I presume” might have been appropriate.

We arrived at CP 1 after about 5 hours. This was the time I thought we might be looking for the finish..... And we weren’t half way yet. And the fact that CP1 comprised only a marshal on a motorbike, no water, drinks, nothing to eat or provide some happiness to our tired bodies, well this just made it even worse. We spent a few minutes gaining any “intel” we could from the marshal on the route, our position in the field etc, while he gouged holes in our maps to prove we had been there. We ate sparingly from our meagre food cache, realising that unless things got very much better, we would be out in the field all day.

An hour later, and we were at the mercy of finding streams that we could determine would be clean and safe to drink from, in order to stay hydrated. We picked those “above the village line”, avoided pools with animal tracks around them. Fortunately, streams of crystal clear, ice cold water weren’t hard to find, and we stopped regularly to scoop up handfuls of sweet water at any opportunity, or to top up our bottles or packs.

Water table, WildRun style...

That didn’t help the hunger levels that were becoming fairly intense, and it wasn’t long until the members of our little “peloton” were swapping fantasies about what they would pay top dollar for... My personal favourite was steak egg and chips. Dayle wanted salad? Huh? But the stories kept us amused, and the chirps were flowing. And being in a group had its advantages too. It meant we could share the responsibility of navigation. Will Duk seemed accomplished at map reading. Dayle’s GPS was different to ours, and provided some extra distance data. So we fell into a routine of “conferencing” together every 15mins or so... These “conferences” seemed to resemble meetings of the ANC Youth League, with much shouting, waving of arms, pointing and gesticulating....

In the early afternoon, our group gained another member. We found Kevin Balfour higher up on a ridge, wandering around trying to figure out where he should be going. He had been “befriended” by two local shepherds, who looked vaguely amused by their discovery of their new play thing, this strange white man. We held a brief conference, and declared he could join our merry band if we could eat all of his food, and he carried all of our bags for the last kilometre of the run.

I will save you the rest of the detail, but after nine hours, we could see the village of Semonkong, and we eventually crossed the finish line for the day in 11^th place, in 09:50:03. I for one was more than a little surprised to discover we were in joint 11^th place, and that Briggie and Lissa were the second and third ladies to cross the line. That meant more than half the field was still out there somewhere...

We were tired, hungry, and pretty grumpy. We took a much needed shower, had “lunch” (at 17h00?), booked a massage, and vegged out near the bar. Dayle and I discovered an amazing new recovery drink called milk stout... J

It was only later that it began to dawn on us how fortunate we were. Several of the participants were still out in the field, either lost, or struggling with the course. The final guys were brought in out of the darkness, (and in those hills it is properly dark), by motorbike nearly fifteen hours after the start... Suddenly the concept of carrying a headlamp, and some foul weather gear didn’t seem quite so ludicrous.

DAY 2 – SEMONKONG TO SEMONKONG VIA THE MALETSUNYANE FALLS

Distance: 28kms

Vertical Gain: 728m

Day 2 arrived. I had slept like I had been hit with a pole... And because of the late arrival of some of the field on Day 1, the briefing for Day 2 had been held over for the morning. This meant we had a later (07h00) start, which was welcome.

We set off again after breakfast and race briefing, along the banks of the Maletsunyane River. The clouds had descended, and it was threatening to rain today. Dayle and I had a new running partner in the form of one Lissa Parsons. It seemed the three of us had become a team, and we immediately fell into a comfortable routine of map reader, GPS Jockey and Arbitrator.

The team of three, caught early in the day cresting a hill,  by Kelvin and his trusty camera.

We weren’t killing ourselves. The day was billed as the most beautiful or scenic in the race, and we took time to take pictures and drink in the views when they came.

Andrew amusing Kelvin by trying to take a decent picture with a point and shoot...

About 11km into the route, we must have fallen asleep for a few moments, because we lost the track. This simple error cost us valuable time, because in trying to short-cut back onto the correct track, we got ourselves into some pretty sticky areas, trying to descend on some lethal rocky slopes. These slopes were dropping away at a crazy angle, and were comprised of some crumbly granite. We ended up on our butts pretty often, sliding and scrambling down amongst the shrubs and cracks. This went on for what seemed an age, as we dropped 700m into the Maletsunyane River gorge for the crossing.

The crossing was amazing, picture post card perfect, in cool clear water. Owen was there to meet and greet. And then it was 700m up on the other side...

The seven hundred meter ascent out of the Maletsunyane River had the legs burning.

From the top of the gorge, we had amazing views back onto our route. We settled back into running again, keeping it relaxed, and soaking in the views along the ridge. “Kelvin the cameraman” had been a welcome accomplice during the morning, and he had us doing the usual hops, skips and jumps. He was always running off ahead with his rig, looking for the next killer shot... Today was a run to enjoy. The Maletsunyane Waterfall put on a show for us... It seemed absurd to race past these views, so we stopped every now and again, and drank it all in.

The weather looked threatening, but the rain held off for us, and we looked forward to getting back to base at a respectable time, having some well deserved lunch, and relaxing a bit before the dreaded return trip tomorrow. Dayle, Lissa and I crossed the line in 11th place once again in just under five and a half hours. Lissa was maintaining her spot as the number two lady on the course.

We enjoyed the afternoon. Kicked back, got some proper food, and enjoyed a few more of those milk stouts! Dayle and I agreed that this was what makes a multi-day a holiday. We purposely kept our distance from the TV in the pub, as judging by the moans emanating from there, the semi-final between South Africa and New Zealand wasn’t going well. It felt like that game was taking place on another planet....

The medical staff were in demand today... Two days of running on wet feet were starting to take a grim toll. When your feet are wet for so long that they get like prunes, and they are in such demand in those hills, either running up, or trying to stop you going down, things start to go wrong. I had forgotten how important looking after your feet was....

Mary-Lyn, at the end of Day 1. The medics doing running repairs trying to keep her feet free from infection.

The same feet at the end of Day Three. Mary-Lyn displayed some real grit to finish on these...

DAY 3 – SEMONKONG TO RAMABANTA

Distance: 44kms

Vertical Gain: 1124m ascent  

Day Three arrived too soon. We packed in a bit of a scramble.... it was tough to be back to the 06h00 start. Everyone started slowly too. The first few hundred meters from the lodge is straight up a rocky drive, and there were no heroics here on tired legs.

The first 6km of the route were the same as the last of Day One... But once that was behind us, we veered off to the right, and dropped into the Makhoalipana valley. It was going to be another beautiful, clear day. The valleys were lush, criss-crossed with cool rivers and streams, reflecting an un-imaginable quality of light up the walls of the green hills all around us.

Within a few hours we arrived at the summit of the infamous ‘Baboon’s Pass’, at 2700m the highest point for the day, and of the event.  We checked in at Check Point 1 in high spirits.

The Team at CP 1, Day Three.

From here on down we had been told, we would be running on the “Baboons Pass”, which was like a road. This would make a cushy change after all the technical single track we had battled with over the last few days...

But then, when on a WildRun, and especially in Lesotho, never assume anything. The Baboons Pass is not a road. Not as I understand it at least... Rather a narrow, winding path, strewn with rocks, from fist size, all the way through things the size on a VW Beatle.

The Baboons Pass... Not quite the cushy running surface we were longing for, but the end of the bundu-bashing.

But as they say in the classics, beggars can’t be choosers... We could see the hills surrounding Ramanbata and the lodge on the horizon now, and we were enjoying this run. There was less emphasis on the navigation, and we could spend more time on looking around, taking in the scenery. We felt relaxed and strong.

By the time we got to Check Point 2, we could smell the finish. We got our maps ticked, and were off. And from about 5km out, we could see the inflatable arch of the finish standing out against the green lawns of the lodge. 

There is something special about the finish on a multi-day run... The finish of day one and two are nice... But in the back of your mind, you know it’s not really the finish. There is still more to do, things you have to hold a little in reserve for. But the finish on the last day is something special. And always seems to come as a surprise, something more than anticipated, or expected....

So once we could see the finish, impatience grew in us. We consulted the map one last time... screw it, we were just going direct now. Dayle set off in the lead, and we crashed down the side of a hill, through some fields and a little wood lot. Through a village, and over the crest of a hill. And then for the first time we saw one of the distinctive Wildrun banners, on the crest on a hill, right down the end of a finger of land, jutting way out into a long smooth bend in the river. We ran the crest of the ridge out to the banner, hills all around us, river either side. It was going to be one of those iconic Wildrun finishes... Like only Owen and Tam seem to know how to build. We could hear the guys at the finish, whistling and cheering. These sounds drifted out effortlessly through the still air, carried easily on the silence and solitude that abound in these hills.  Kelvin was on the ridge too, his camera at his side, and we followed him down the side of the hill, to make our final river crossing of the event.

All Dayle’s efforts to keep his feet dry were to no avail...

With the end in sight, things slowed... We didn’t really want this to end anymore. We took our time. We had a water fight as we crossed the river. Took a brief swim for a last time in the crystal clear water to freshen up. We could have stayed there a lot longer, but the finish was calling, people were waiting, so we put the packs on one last time, and scrambled up the slopes of the hill, past small groups of cheering children from the village at the hotel, up the steps, and through the finish arch.

Tamryn gave us one of her special welcomes, jumping up and down and cheering as only Tam can do. Hugs and kisses, medals on, and it was done.

Seven and a half hours today. Twenty two hours, thirty seven minutes and four seconds over the three days. I felt a lot fitter now that when I had started three days ago... ;)

Lunch. A few beers in the shade, swapping war stories. A massage for the legs, under a tree in the warm afternoon air, looking out over the ridges, as more of the field drifted in to hoots and applause...

An emotional final prize giving, dinner, and the usual legendary party... Everyone always seems to have a bit of spare energy left over for one of these...

Wildrun Lesotho was a surprise package. It delivered everything and more in terms of the stunning scenery we were expecting. And a whole bunch more in terms of challenges. But there was something else, some intangible spiritual thing that has left me feeling on a high for the last few days. And I think that comes down to a few special things:

1.       The peace and serenity was not just in the physical beauty of the land, but it was amongst the people that inhabit it too. Never in all my years in Africa have I seen a group of people living so close, and so in tune with nature. There can only be a hundred or so of these villagers left, but the symbiotic way they live amongst nature, and the respect and love which they show their animals, was something that left me feeling pretty humbled.

2.       The privilege of running with such a small group of people, all of whom seemed to be enjoying the adventure as much as each other. We all were enjoying the privilege of running in pristine environment, that without an event like this, you could never hope to traverse. No whining, even from those dealing with some pretty nasty physical pain or injuries.

3.       The joy of seeing Owen and Tamryn doing what they seem to truly love so much: Setting up crazy runs in the wildest places, and seeing it all come together, people having experiences and making friends that they will remember for the rest of their lives...

So a number of people have asked me, “how was your run?” I think a bit, and smile. “Amazing” is my standard response....

“Would you do it again?”

Yes!        And No.

Yes! This is an amazing event. I would recommend it to anyone.  And because it would be good to go back, knowing what I had let myself in for. To be properly prepared, and to give it a good klaap this time...

No, because if I am really lucky, Owen and Tam will have thought up another amazing race in some other special corner of this continent that I am yet to visit, and I can re-indulge my love of taking on another inaugural event... So many races, so little time....