Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 123, October 2019 | Page 46

Dodo Endeavours
To be perfectly honest, Mauritius was not on my bucket list. Tropical islands look wonderful in the movies, and all the
holiday package adverts that pop up on social media, but it just wasn’t on the list of places I would visit tomorrow if I had
the time and money to go anywhere in the world. Different strokes for different folks, as they say... But when the e-mail
arrived from Roy Rouget, one of the directors of the Dodo Trail, inviting me to pop over to Mauritius to attend, cover and
run the race, it took me all of a split second to decide I would actually like to go there after all! – BY SEAN FALCONER
G
rowing up in South Africa in the 80s, the
tiny island in the Indian Ocean seemed the
number one holiday destination for South
Africans. The best competition prizes included
a trip to Mauritius, the island seemed to pop up
often in local films and television series, and it was
a favourite honeymoon destination. It was just a
four-hour flight from Johannesburg to the island, but
it was like stepping into a different world, filled with
soft white beaches, coconut trees swaying in the
breeze, crystal clear blue seas with colourful coral
reefs, rainforest and waterfalls, romantic sunsets,
and more. Wait, maybe all those touristy adverts had
left a mark after all...
Pre-race drinks with organisers, elites and media,
(from left) Sean Falconer, Rory Scheffer, Roy
Rouget, Naomi Brand and Jérôme Désiré
Trail Running Heaven
Back to the present... Roy’s mail said the organisers
would fly me over, put me up in a hotel for a few
days, give me an entry if I wanted to participate
(although I could just cover the race as a journalist),
and take care of main meals. My first ‘destination’
was the Dodo Trail website (www.dodotrail.com), to
see what I was getting myself into – because I have
some ‘bruising memories’ over the last 20 years of
accepting free media invites to races and ending
up tackling distances and terrain that I wasn’t even
remotely fit enough or mentally prepared to take on.
(As a result, I have a few DNFs on my running track
record that I have always accepted without too much
regret, as I knew I was simply not in shape to finish
those events, but it still bugged me a little bit. More
about that later.)
What I found is that the Dodo takes place in the
south-western corner of the island – that’s bottom
left, for those who are direction-challenged – and has
four distance options, the longest being the Xtreme
50km, with an added 2x25km relay option. The route
features 3500m of ascent and several big summits,
notably Chamarel (810m elevation at the 21km mark),
Macchabee (680m at 31km) and Tourelle (550m at
Sean capturing the
view from the top
of Tourelle, looking
towards Le Morne. The
ordeal to get there is
in the next few pages!
46
ISSUE 124 OCTOBER 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
And of course, the island is famous for the legendary
dodo, a large flightless bird that was reputedly wiped
out in the late 1600s, apparently due to being hunted
for food by visiting sailors and the growing human
population on the island. The bird was endemic to the
island, and due to having no known predators to deal
with prior to the arrival of humans, it was extremely
tame and thus easy to catch. However, it is now
thought that the loss of its habitat and the introduction
of rival species, including dogs, pigs and other birds,
was more of a factor in the dodo’s extinction, but
either way, the last known sightings of a dodo are
dated around 1680. It spawned the famous saying,
“deader than a dodo,” which many still use today. And
that saying definitely sprang to mind a few times in my
head later during the race...