Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 62, September 2014 | Page 48

Doing the Dodo

Ma race report

There are two islands of Mauritius.
The one is what we see in glossy
travel brochures – lazy beach resort
hotels and honeymoon destinations.
The other is an adventurer’s
paradise, with endless mountain
tracks and trails to the highest, most
remote peaks and lowest valleys,
and The Dodo Trail lifts the veil on
this side of the island.

famous Black River Gorges and summit
the highest point on the island, Black River
Peak at 814m.

SA’s Landie Greyling won in
a new course record.

There is nothing flat about this race, and
the nature of the trail is unlike anything
South Africans are used to. Black basalt
rocks tell the story of the island’s violent
volcanic origin, and the single track is
littered with either slippery round pebbles
or sharp solid basalt spikes. Nowhere
is your footing secure and any loss of
concentration can have painful results. But
how does The Dodo Trail rank against the
epic trail runs we have in SA? Ricky and
Landie have run both the Otter and the
Num-Num Trail Challenge, and they agree
without hesitation that The Dodo Trail is
way tougher than SA’s toughest!

– BY ERIK VERMEULEN

t’s billed as a trail run, but the Dodo Run is
so much more. With routes over 50km, 25km and
10km, plus a 5km fun run, the event draws over
1300 entries from 13 countries. Be warned though,
even the 10km is not a ‘fun run,’ as this brute of a
run takes in over 500m vertical metres of altitude
gain and reaches a maximum height of 315m. Still,
it’s the ‘resort version’ of the Extreme Dodo Trail
50km with more than 3500m of altitude gain.
South African interest is growing by the year,
thanks to the enthusiasm of Gavin Grobbelaar.
Over 50 South Africans entered the Dodo events
in 2014, with Salomon’s Landie Greyling and her
husband Christiaan leading the charge. Landie
emerged as the winner of the women’s Extreme

THE TOUGHEST ONE

Starting in the shadow of Le Morne Brabant
on the south west corner of the island, the
race begins with a fast, flat 6km trail along
the beach until you tackle the ascent of Piton
Du Fouge, a 600m peak. From there the roller
coaster run takes in another six peaks of over
500m before runners drop back down to sea
level off the 550m Tourelle Du Tamarin. This
knee-jarring drop only takes about 5km! In
between these peaks, runners traverse the

The Dodo Trail 50km
includes 3500m of
altitude gain.

48

ISSUE 61 AUGUST 2014 / www.modernathlete.co.za

Images: Erik Vermeulen

I

race, completing the 50km course in 6:49 and
beating the previous record by 26 minutes.
Christiaan came in sixth overall in the men’s
race, which was won by World Champion
Ricky Lightfoot in an astonishing 5:19, beating
second-placed Jean-Pierre Grondin by 37
minutes.

Volcanic basalt rock everywhere!