Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 119, June 2019 | Page 9

Have Your SAY LETTERS Got something on your mind that you want to share, a burning question you want answered, or a good story to tell? Then send it to [email protected], and add a pic if you can. Letters should preferably be no more than 300 words long, and pics must be high-resolution to be usable. (Note that letters may be shortened due to space limitations.) EDITOR’S PICK THANKS TO THE SUPPORTERS Run Cango, they said. You’ll get a PB, they said. Downhill all the way, they said. Well, yes, that may well be so, but when you die at the Cango, you DIE at the Cango! My beautiful sub-five turned into a murderous sub-six, when everything but everything went wrong with about 15km to go. It was so over for me. I couldn’t even run… I was going to have to walk the last 15km of that ‘godsverlate vlakte,’ amongst tumbleweeds, vultures and green plastic sachets. All that was missing was the theme music from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! I don’t think I have ever come so close to giving up on a race. But there is magic in every race. The infantrymen at the water stations were amazing. So friendly, so helpful, so full of energy and vibe. One wonderful man came running towards my pathetic self, holding handfuls of sachets of ice cold water. Another sprayed me down. Another helped me squeeze water into the water bottle I was carrying. One ran with a struggling runner coming up behind me, holding her arm, encouraging her and making her laugh. And then there was this bakkie that kept passing me. They were supporting some other lost soul out on that white-hot road to hell. Every time the girls sitting in the back saw me, they would whoop and cheer. “Kom, Tannie! Tannie kan dit maak!” And every time I heard them, I lifted my head out of my pain cave and smiled and waved and felt better. And then there was the finish. People cheered as if I were a winner and the sound of the cut-off gun a mere legend to frighten weak runners. I approached the last corner of that dusty field of damnation, and heard RUNNING NOT AN ELITES ONLY SPORT I am a long distance road runner with 15 Comrades Marathons and several marathons to my name. Of late I have taken note of the way races have become expensive. Most are over R200, which means an average runner needs to spend between R200 and R300 per marathon to run it, including transport to the race and snacks. This is going to cripple the love and courage to run, and races are going to suffer dwindling entries. With the economic impact of basic necessities becoming expensive, more runners tend to stay home and use money to buy home necessities as a priority. Also, many runners now prefer a single qualifier race and then train on their own for major races like Comrades and Two Oceans. the runners from Century City AC, sitting in the shade of their yellow gazebo, clapping and cheering for me as if I were one of their own. As I hauled myself up by the scruff of my sunburnt neck and made myself run to the end – because one does not simply WALK across the finish line – they all stood up and cheered. I was getting a standing ovation! The merciless sun couldn’t make me cry. My painful knee, hips, back, neck and stomach couldn’t make me cry. That last stretch of road couldn’t make me cry. But Century City AC runners, your support in the last few metres almost turned me into a blubbering wreck. Thank you to all the supporters out there. You have no idea how much it helps to have someone call out some encouragement. And next time you see someone out there, doing some dumbass thing like run a whole lot further than is sane, throw your inhibitions under a bus and cheer! – Deirdre Hewitson, via Facebook Your graphic descriptions of the warzone that your race became made this a letter I had to share with the readers. – Ed. Road running should not be seen as an elite sport. Race organisers should do more to keep road running affordable, by looking for more sponsorship, which should assist to carry the cost of organising the race, and should be able to encourage young aspiring runners to preserve this sport while keeping fit to avoid obesity and terminal diseases. We should be able to encourage the young ones to take up road running without second-guessing their reaction to entry fees. – Muntonezwi Khanyile, Johannesburg Go find more sponsors... If only it were that simple! Economic times are tight, sponsors are scarce, or reducing their commitments, and race organisers are having to adjust pricing accordingly. That said, prices should not be pushed so far up that runners of lesser means are priced out of the sport. – Ed. NAME AND SHAME THE LITTERERS To the idiot who will probably call himself a runner, throwing his water sachets on the ground during the Zevenwacht Farm Trail for Cancer, and having the audacity to say, “It is not my problem” when taken to task by a few TRUE runners who run clean, you don’t deserve to run on the road 9