The Addo Elephant Trail Runs

Report ~ Laura Forster (100Mile)

While many of the adventure racing fraternity (including CSIR’s own Stephen Mallory) were hurling themselves recklessly around Swaziland in boots, bikes and boats, and road runners were deciding between the Wally, the Agape, the Jo’burg, or a combination of all three, a few of us were taking in the Eastern Cape at a more measured if no less determined pace.

The Addo 50 and 100 miler trail runs took place on 2/3 May in the Addo National Park. The two routes were largely coincident this year, with both groups starting at 6 am from Kirkwood, and sharing the trail for about 6k before the 50’s ducked off one way and the 100’s settled down for an extra loop and a loooooong day, with both races ending at the main rest camp at Addo.

The weather was kind, and the trail was stunning, with wild and beautiful scenery, and a mix of roller-coaster fence-roads, gentle sandy jeeptracks, sinous singletrack through the spooky forest, many rivers to cross, sweeping grassy hillsides, tricky rocky tracks, and a killer mindgame of a dirt road out-and-back from about 100k to 140k that had me quite literally, at 3 in the morning, sleeping and dreaming whilst walking along wrapped in my space blanket against the freezing wind that leapt up from the darkness, stripping heat and energy from my body when I was already at my lowest ebb. (That was a very freaky section. I saw some extremely weird things going down that road…). The 100 milers experienced a total climb and reciprocal descent of about 2400m by the end of their journey, which concluded for Bruce in a little more than 19 hours, for first place and a new record, and a mere 10 hours later (!) for yours truly, 3rd woman and 7th overall.
This was my first 100 miler and was an awesome experience, quite unlike any other run I’ve ever done. There was the elation of the shiny morning that saw me going much too fast, the steady work of the hot afternoon, the slog of the cooling evening and on into the cold night, the almost void of the small hours, and then the second red dawn of the race bringing a desperate and growing sense that the deadline was approaching more quickly than the finish line. Then, somehow, as the sun rose and the colour came back into the landscape, there was the certain knowledge that This Could Be Done. A few more switchbacks down from the mountain and, amazingly, along came my friend Karen (who had done the 50 miler the day before!) trotting 12k out to meet me and then sticking at my elbow all the way in, just to make sure that I did get it done.
And then it was done, at last, but much too soon, all at once. After all those hours of movement and effort, it seemed so odd just to stop.
I have a long list of people to thank who made the day what it was for me:
Nadia and Estienne Arndt and the Extreme Marathon team, for once again investing all their passion and organisational skill into giving nearly sixty 50 milers and thirteen 100 milers the race of their lives.
Bruce, for inspiration always, a big hug at 100k, and homecoming at the finish-line.
Stalwart Stuart Wainwright, who hooked up with me at around 90k as the trail ran out and the dirt road started, and who battled the route and an almost overwhelming onslaught from various bits of his body, (including, mysteriously, his elbow), and ladled more vaseline into his shorts than seemed quite proper, and yet still managed again and again to subdue the road with a ferocious stare and hoist himself into yet another trot, and kept me from defeating myself in the dark and wavering hour before dawn by brusquely instructing me to "pull up your big girl's panties and get on with the job!"
My son, brave Ed, who entered the 50 and trotted companionably with his Mum at the start, but lamented the next day that he "only got 40k's " before he wisely withdrew with a sore knee – totally overlooking the fact that he had not done so much as a five K fun run in all his 20 years, bless him;
My dear friend Karen, who got lost for ages the day before but still soldiered on to finish her 50 in the dark, then got up the next day and ran out to meet me and run all the way back in to the finish;
And finally amazing Yvette van der Westhuizen, last year’s dogged heroine, who didn’t run this year but was miraculously there for Stu and Stucky and me miles up the road, and again at the finish, goodness knows how.
What a day, what a race.
Can’t wait for next year.