Ja well no fine, we are one month further into the year, and also one month closer to Comrades. When my kids were still very small, keeping them busy was to give them a newspaper and watch as they tore it to pieces. We used to say ‘they read the pictures and laugh at the words’. Well my next story is something similar, only this kid is a mother of working children. Elaine Cuffe recently took part in a race in KZN while being in the company of Samantha Hall.

Elaine was stopped by a race referee and her attention was drawn to the race number obscuring the sponsor’s name of the provincial license she had on. The referee informed her that she could be disqualified for this action but will let her off with a warning this time.  Elaine, wanting to be the good club member she always is, immediately texted on WA, and every other way she could use to warn all her running friends of this “new rule”!.

This was news to Elaine and was quite a shock to find this out in KZN. Meanwhile, back home in the Irene News, this was reported in January that this is the new rule and runners must take note. When Wynand asked Elaine if she reads the news letter, she replied she only looks at the photos. Well Elaine, reading the pictures and laughing at the words nearly cost you a disqualification.

When you are a prim and proper person, using a word that could be interpreted incorrectly, could lead to embarrassment. Adriaan van der Merwe was competing in a race and in the group was Henk Basson and Joy Nicholl. At a certain point in the race, Adriaan had to pull off for a nature’s call. When he rejoined the group he looked perplex and remarked in Afrikaans Ek het my mannetjie verloor! In English that would be, I lost my little man.  

The group was dumbstruck by this sudden revelation from Adriaan, and not sure what to reply just jogged on. Henk not wanting to embarrass Adriaan, but also wanting to satisfy his growing curiosity, asked if it was a number one or two, which forced Adriaan into the bushes.  The logical explanation to his revelation would be that it was a number two and something went horribly wrong, maybe something unforeseen bit something that should not be seen.

Slowly the penny dropped and Adriaan, slightly embarrassed explained that it is his champion chip with the small Comrades icon on, that was damaged in the pit stop, and the “little man” Comrades icon is in actual fact what was lost.

I have often heard of actions speak louder than words, but Clinton Nicholl gave a new meaning to this phrase. The club approached Clinton to make 2 new “braai” drums for the club. Clinton is in the type of business where this can be done. Clinton gave his workers two drums with the instruction to cut the drums in half and make two braai drums with grids. Upon his return he found that four braai drums with grids were made. When he enquired about this his workers politely replied that he gave then 2 drums, and 2 drums, cut in half make 4 halves and therefore, 4 braai drums with grids were made. Actions do speak louder than words.

Alzheimer’s is a terrible sickness which I don’t wish on anybody, but it is a fact of life that many people suffer from it, and forgetting things, people, events, names etc is what happens to these people suffering from this dreaded decease. But it is not only Alzheimer’s that make people forget, sometimes old age also plays its part. Then there are the people that just do not want to show up and then claim they forgot, no Alzheimer’s or old age to blame. Two of our committee members, one the chairman fell foul to this excuse.  

The committee had to interview the new cocktail dispensers (bar ladies) and Henk Basson was suppose to be there. He claimed that he completely forgot, but then, with a personalised number plate that reads “Oupa” (meaning grandfather) I guess, maybe, just maybe it could be contributed to old age, and that Henk even forgot to set a reminder on his cell phone. Louis on the other hand, was supposed to come and help with the filling of the lanterns and only remembered well after all the work was done and everything was packed away.

Now that to me sounds like a story, considering all the means of reminders like cell phones, wife, children etc, and to still put this ‘I forgot’ forward as an excuse. Sorry Louis, it does not fly. And if that was not bad enough, Louis forgot something even worse.

The club is running a competition for all members to attempt (in proportion) to lose the most weight in a specific time period. One of our attractive ladies in the club immediately wanted to claim the prize, even before the first weighing. When questioned about it she claimed she just lost 82 kilograms of ugly fat, she divorced her husband. Unfortunately my dear, that does not qualify you for the prize.

To get back to the chairman’s forgetfulness, Louis was supposed to bring a bathroom scale for the official last weighing on the 28th February. Needless to say the scale was conveniently forgotten. I have it on good authority that Kerry Trentham was very glad that the scale was forgotten as he could not make it to the club as he feels he might be in with a chance of winning this competition. Incidentally, Kerry is still married to his wife.

So there you have it folks, you be the judge, did these gentlemen actually forget, or what?

That’s it for this month so cheers vir eers.

The Running Reporter

Ja well no fine, it is that time of the month again and I must write a report. This month it feels like it’s a committee report and nothing else. What is it with this committee of ours that they are forever in the news?  Let’s start with our vivacious blonde admin lady. For a whole year Zelna looked after her health and especially no injuries, as Comrades was the goal. She succeeded in this “no injuries” drive of hers only until just after Comrades. And then she goes and chases a dog, and injured herself. Zelna, you are missing the point. Dogs are supposed to chase things like other dogs, cats, motorcars etc. Human are not suppose to chase dogs. I trust you have learned your lesson.

The objective of making an appointment is normally to see someone at a pre-determined time. That is, if all parties play their part. Travelling to the long awaited Rhodes Ultra Marathon a few members from our club agreed on meeting at a specific place; like the Ultra City and at a specific time like 04h00 to all travel in convoy. The parties that agreed to this travel style were The van den Raad family, the van Vuuren family and the family Koch.

On the day of the convoy’s departure Gerhard & Johan were there on time and ready to roll, but Chris was running a bit late. Well you know me; I always exaggerate, so when I say a bit late, I actually meant something like 3 hours. I am not going to speculate as to why the family Koch were this late, but they left long after the agreed time. I am saying it a bit tongue in cheek but something like a suitable alarm (very load and in working order) could be a well worth purchase.

And last but not least, because of her size, we have our club captain Joy. Now a person with a green number for Comrades is not new to the running game. Joy arrived at the Zwartkops lapa to participate in the race on the day. The fancy excuse she offered was that she actually just wanted to do the 5k fun run and then changed her mind and entered for the 10k. The truth is she forgot to bring her licence number with and was forced to buy a temporary licence in order to take part. Nice try Joy, but your explanation was not bought. Do not pass go, do not collect 200, go straight to the dog box.

Our last story is more a sad story rather than a laughing one. When a grand master who is a multiple podium winner has only one medal to show for his entire running career and that being a gold medal, then something terrible is wrong. Piet van Loggerenberg was a victim of a house breaking and theft. One cannot believe that something as worthless money wise for reselling purposes as race medals would be stolen from a person’s house. Piet, unfortunately lost every medal he ever earned during his entire race career longer that most people’s arms in one housebreaking incident. Piet, rest assured, we know you competed and competed well, and whoever this despicable thief is, may he/they suffer the consequences for the errors of his/their misguided judgement.

I was going to ask some of our members to donate some of their medals they don’t want any longer to Piet, but he would need a pickup truck with a large trailer to move the medals.

On that sad but true to South Africa note I bid you cheers vir eers. Make sure your alarm is set, the dogs are released from their kennels, the revolver/pistol is loaded and the pepper spray is within easy reach. Don’t worry about switching off the lights, the cable thieves will ensure the lights are off.  

The Running Reporter

Ja well no fine. I don’t know if it has anything to do with comrades being so close or what the matter is but some of our members are acting strange to say the least. Some things in life are fact, others speculation but then there is a fine line between some. We all know that strong drinks can cause people to act funny, stupid or all fall down. I know some people like to drink triples; see double but act single, but this was not one of those days. At an early morning, pre race coffee, Annamarie Breytenbach must have made an exceptionally strong coffee. 

With the coffee in one hand and a rusk in the other she was about to be seated when something went horribly wrong. I am not sure if the chair gave way, or if the surface on the chair that was covered by the buttocks was insufficient, or if the chair was totally missed. Annamarie thought she was about to sit when she, ever so slowly, basically in slow motion deposited het derriere on the cold hard surface of the tar road. Warm coffee was spilled down her legs but fortunately, the only damage was to her ego. 

It is common knowledge that Joy Nicholl has a sight impediment. But can it be so bad that it even affected her sister? We know Joy is tiny in posture, but by no means invisible At the Safety road run Vanessa was standing about two meters from joy, and kept turning facing all directions asking if anybody has seen Joy. I thought it was a trick question, because Vanessa has 20/20 vision, until someone pointed to Joy 2 meters away and asked, This Joy? The expression on Vanessa’s face said it all.

For my next item I need to go back in order for the new members to understand. Last year a group of our members went down to Eastern Cape to compete in the Washie 100 Miler and also some as supporters. Now we have all heard of runners losing their bags for some reason or another, but this one group lost an entire trailer, with their luggage stowed away inside. Well two of our current committee members were amongst those crew that lost their luggage, Wynand the manager and Joy the club captain both lost their comrade’s rug sacks that they got for the 2010 comrades. They felt so bad about this that they both had other rug sacks made to replace the lost items. The items that were lost had names embroidered on but the replacement sacks unfortunately did not! At a recent event, both Wynand & Joy had their respective rug sacks without the names on and would you believe it, they went home each with the wrong sack. I am just glad they did not try on the items inside.

When do you have to do the right thing or the more popular thing? Stephan Mee, our catering person at the club had to attend another boring club meeting. Fortunately for Stephan there was an alternative possibility of attending something at his kids’ school. It was not really a command performance, but a good enough excuse to skip the club meeting. Unfortunately things turned sour for Stephan because while at this school, someone relieved him of his set of wheels. Stephan is now beating himself up about his decision to attend the school thing in lieu of the club meeting. The lesson from this, even if the club meeting is boring, you don’t have to walk home afterwards.

Well folks that it for this month, so cheers vir eers. I will give you the low-down on all the stories about our members at comrades in the June issue.

The Running Reporter

Ja well no fine, this month is mainly dedicated to people falling. I am not even going to hazard a guess as to reasons why people fall, but I will share some of the reasons our members fell. We start with a member who is not just a runing, but also cycling, swimming, mountain climbing etc. Now one would assume that a tried and tested athlete would know some basic ground rules about what to do to prevent falling.

Take cycling for instance, the basic rules are that the cycle has to be moving faster than standing still, otherwise the cyclist tends to fall, unless they put at least one foot out to support the body & cycle. Belinda Skinner clearly forgot about these basic steps recently when she was paddling uphill and started going slower and slower until there was practically no more forward movement.

Having a nice road bike with cleats fitted to the pedals she could not get her foot out fast enough and fell ever so gently. No serious damage was done to the body but I have it from reliable sources that Belinda’s derrière is sporting an ugly blue mark. Don’t worry Belinda; normally it is the ego that has the lasting bruise not the body.

Some of our members will go to extreme measures to get their names on a trophy that would ultimately end up in the club’s trophy cabinet. Louis v/d Merwe did just that the other night at the time trial. Louis has realized some time ago that the possibility of getting his name on a trophy was not that likely, so Louis took matters into his own hands.

Louis parked himself on a club chair with a tall drink in his hand and closely watched the other members. And when nobody was looking he converted the white plastic chair into a recliner, because the legs of the chair just gave way and Louis fell backwards, very nearly succeeding in depositing himself into the trophy cabinet.

Now Louis is blaming it on the condition of the chair and the slippery floor, but I think it was a planned move to try and get into the trophy cabinet. Believe me in this whole falling episode Louis never spilled a drop of his tall drink. I leave you, the reader to be the judge.

Our third faller of the month is none other that our club captain. Joy has purchased a new Garmin 310xt. I know Joy will never admit to it and will blame something else but the fact of the matter is she was staring at her new Garmin 310xt and did not look where she was running. Don’t worry Joy, we all know when a new app is purchased we all like to stare at it, but advice from someone who has bought parts of the road in the past, stare at the watch while sitting at the dinner table. The light is better and the surface not so uneven.

Our last story of the month is about categories of runners. You get age categories, sex & disability categories. Then we get serious & casual category runners. Now one would think that the serious runners are the podium position runners, event winners, competition competitors and runners improving on their PB weekly. The casual runners are like me that just beat the cut-off time and then wash off the excitement with a black label. But there is another type of casual runner, and I want to sketch you a runner like that in our club.

This runner has won competitions, awards, obtained provincial colours etc, so we could easily mistake this runner as a serious runner but not at the Sunny park race. Henk Moen on the day went for a warm-up run, or so I suspected because when the field for the 21 was loaded and waiting for the starter’s gun, Henk was running towards the start line from the opposite direction.

When the race started all runners made the normal dash and then the back markers made their way across the street leaving the next batch (10k runners) behind. Then stone last the single figure of Henk Moen appears, walking slowly, with a cup of coffee and a rusk. The back markers were disappearing but Henk walked ever so slowly through the intersection, sipping coffee and dunking a rusk.

As if in amazement, Henk looked up and realized he was loosing sight of the very last runner in the 21k race. He briefly stopped, finished his rusk, and then handed the remaining coffee to a spectator along the route and started jogging. I guess the spectator was lucky to receive warm coffee with the remains of a rusk at the bottom all for free. Now that is what I call a casual runner, with attitude.

Well folks, that all for now so cheers vir eers.

The Running Reporter