C o l u m n
THE RUNNING MANN
A live donkey at the top of Dead Donkey Hill
Sidenote : Whilst on the topic of naming rights . Farai Razano , attorney-at-law , runs a great YouTube channel where he records his marathon running adventures . It ’ s currently called “ 100 before 40 ,” after his quest to run 100 marathons before turning 40 . Shikhumba was his 102nd marathon and he turns 40 in November , so he needs to do some rebranding . I was thinking the new name of his channel should be “ The Law of Running ,” or “ Running from the Law ,” but if you have better ideas subscribe to his channel and let him know . ( You ’ ll find his channel here : www . youtube . com /@ 100before40 / videos .
My first personal checkpoint at the half marathon turn point
My second checkpoint was to get to the full marathon turn point , and once that was done , it was a case of slowly working my way back to the filling station . It was good to see my running mates coming back past me on their return journeys , and to share a few words of encouragement . Don and Julian were looking strong – Don even managed to jump for a real action pic – but Farai was walking when we crossed paths , and this is a running blog , no picture of him is allowed ! ( The fact that I did a fair amount of walking during the day is not important here , of course .)
The roads can get lonely in rural Limpopo , so the Shikhumba Marathon organisers hired a mobile DJ to drive up and down the route blaring tunes that could be heard three villages away . It ’ s a good thing the mobile ice-cream vans in Joburg have not caught onto this idea ! ( That said , I would have paid big bucks for an ice-cream during this marathon .)
The local cops made sure no one turned early at the marathon turn point
Survival Planning
My first checkpoint was to get to the half marathon turnaround point . It was a fairly small field , so I was largely alone much of the way , but then I started crossing paths with the faster marathon runners on their return journey . ( After the race , I was surprised to see that there were more 42km than 21km runners , 116 vs 85 , but the most popular distance was the 10km with 156 participants .)
Sidenote : I was told later that the DJ was playing traditional Xitsonga music , and I had read about the xibelani dance and accompanying skirt on the Giyani Wikipedia page : “ Xibelani is an African skirt designed to make the wearer ’ s hips look bigger , so that the hip movement during the xibelani dance can be more apparent . The Tsonga people have their own distinct music when the xibelani dance is performed .” This sounded interesting , but I had no idea what this looked like until Wendy Nkata Mabongani Khalanga replied to my Facebook post with the clip below from her ABSA RUN YOUR CITY JOBURG 10K race , which she ran in her Heritage Day outfit .
Don and Julian on their return journeys
A short while later , I thought our mobile DJ had reverted to a monotone techno version of the local music on the side of the road . On closer inspection , it was just that a man had given some cows a Bells , which Farai caught in the video below .
Images : Courtesy Stuart Mann
30 ISSUE 163 | www . modernathlete . co . za