Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 122, September 2019 | Page 40

13 Peaks to Solve a
Quarter-life Crisis
The 13 Peaks Challenge was conceived by Ryan Sandes and after he had run the roughly 115km route, he invited all trail
runners to give it a go, with the aim to summit the 13 peaks of the Table Mountain Range on the Cape Peninsula. One of the
most recent to finish the challenge was Leigh De Necker, and this is her story of an epic two days of summiting.
A
I was forced to miss the race and was quarantined. I
screamed, cried, swore, threw tantrums threw things,
scratched a little, ate a lot. I was incredibly unpleasant
to be around, and to look at. Turns out, viruses and
anti-virals really mess with your heart, physically, and
rob you of all your fitness (and happiness). Okay that
is dramatic, but stubborn as I am, I decided to train
anyway, and as my luck would have it, I got injured.
By that stage, I was sitting with about 23.1% sanity
remaining.
So before I went around kicking children, I decided
to allow myself time to recover and I entered a
consolation race, the Knysna Marathon. Fast forward
to training for said marathon, running it, and doing
pretty well, considering my misfortunes, I fell in love
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ISSUE 122 SEPTEMBER 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
quarter-life crisis is an odd thing. Mine started
about a year ago, and included one (and a
half) unsuccessful romantic relationships and
their respective break-ups, family dramas, moving
house, financial struggles and career uncertainties.
So, stuff we all have to go through... In order to deal
with this, I run. I converted all my frustration into the
energy that got me running faster and stronger than
ever. I was fired up and ready to take on my second
ultra-marathon. But, two days before the Two Oceans
56km, I got chicken pox. A vaccinated, 28-year-old,
on Easter weekend, with chicken pox!