Expedition Africa 2014 Pre race ramblings

Diary of Adderjan Mole, aged 613/4

Monday

In a fit of new years madness I registered Bloed en OMO for the XPD Africa

Pleased with myself I mulled over the wise words : the biggest challenge of an adventure race is getting to the start line.

Then it struck me. There’s an even bigger challenge. Getting a team together.  Whereupon the peanut butter sandwich I was eating stuck in my throat.

So I hopped on my BMX and  headed for Biltong’s house to share the good news.  But, Mrs Bezuidenhout wouldn’t let me in. She just can’t understand the principle behind hating the sin not the sinner.

Tuesday

Went to Biltong’s house again and lobbed pebbles at his window until he couldn’t take it anymore and just had to have a skelm look. I gave the secret whistle - knowing that he couldn’t ignore the blood oath summons to our secret den.

After a long delay I could hear him puffing his way up the fig tree  to our Boomhuis. Even before he gets his breath back he says “whatever it is, the answer is no”.

Undeterred I went ahead anyway. “You’ve lost your marbles” he replies.

What? I don’t understand this oke. What’s he talking about? Its not even marble season.  I made a mental note not to trust him with the maps.

 We don’t have any friends left he says. Rooie has found a girlfriend and Fat Cat (our BEE front man) can’t climb the tree anymore and besides, he’s taken up a better offer from the Eskom gang.

Wednesday

Woke up with a headache. A new challenge had wormed its way out my  subconscious. I need to get Koshuismoeder’s  permission!

The first hurdle is to break the news without getting embroiled in discussions about acting one’s age and that a visit to the vet is the only solution for irrational wanderlust.

Then it strikes me, a refusal will allow me to phone Heidi and withdraw from the XPD with my honour intact.

I break the news at breakfast with a challenging tone of voice. She just says “fantastic”.

I remain silent and dig around in my porridge to give me time to think. There’s got to be a trap here somewhere.  But after 38 years of marriage I can’t come up with anything, let alone an escape route.

“I’ve always wanted to tour that part of the Wild Coast” she eventually says.

You joining Bloed en OMO ? I ask, realising that this would sabotage any hope of withdrawal.  It turns out she has in mind volunteering as a marshal. I sigh. At least she won’t  be destroying the race’s “only for the tough” reputation, as she did with the Swazi Extreme.

Thursday

Biltong and I head off to the sports grounds to recruit some age-group talent.

Some hard choices have to be made and someone’s going to be disappointed at being left out.

There’s Ken (60+)  regular SA Triathlon champs winner and multiple podiums at Worlds who still swims a 23m 1.5 km and runs a 42m 10 km. Robbie (60+) holder of  ½ Ironman records in two age groups. Lood (60+) who beats me by well over an hour in the SA Xterra and podiumed at the Xterra World’s. Dionne (60+F) holder of  the SA Half Ironman record. Lochi (70+) who does a 6 hr half Ironman which includes 1h53 for the 21km. Other Ken (75+) half and full SA Ironman winner and record holder.

And they all decline. We listen to excuses about needing hot showers and sleeping in clean sheets knowing that its all about the malicious skinder about a certain navigator who got lost in the Menlyn Mall and had to phone his wife to come rescue him.

So we head for the playground prepared to coerce anybody who doesn’t throw a ball like a girl or can run with his elbows close to his ribs, into the team.

We strike out. Passing by the sand pit we almost hook two youngsters but some nearby parents threaten to call the cops. We take to our wheels, only slowing down two blocks later.

Friday

The mood at the Boomhuis  is sombre until we remember Oom Sputnik who has finished the Comrades six times, only failing to make the cut-off gun once. The other five times the gun was already out the holster when he crossed the line.

A Boksburg man with vasbyt who clearly does not get fazed by trivialities.  Also a man that I saw give his warm clothes to his son in the howling wind and sleet of the  2013 Sky Run.

So we head for the Royal Hotel where he likes to carbo load and wait for him.  Eventually he comes out the swing doors walking like a cowboy.  Surely its legs like these that inspired Shakespeare to write:

“What manner of man is this

  that wears his b**** in parenthesis?”

He tells us to bugger off but eye contact has been made and its only a matter of time before he caves in.

“Manne” he says “ you realise this is six Comrades in six consecutive days?”

“Ja, but” says Biltong, in a rare stroke of brilliance, “now you can qualify for your green number in one shot and even allow for two misses”.  We have him hook, line and sinker.

One to go and then it its full steam ahead to the start line.

Saturday

We head for Costas’ Café  for  a pie and coke and run into Bittereinder sitting on the pavement with his head between his knees.

A veteran of Slagtersnek,  Maggersfontein, Iwo Jima, Tobruk and various other skirmishes that have left his body gnarled and patched with more corrective surgery than a Miss World finalist.  He listens and says, with squinted eyes and a smile as broad as a wes-Transvaal landscape, why not?

The man has clearly not heard of Adventure Racing or XPD Africa before. Back at the Boomhuis  I realise that perhaps he’s just pretending ignorance all along when he says:  are we not supposed to have a female in the team?

Do all team captains have to put up with such dwarstrekkery?

The mention of chicks gets everyone excited until we realise we don’t know any.  Biltong, always the Einstein, makes the brilliant suggestion that one of us must register as a boy named Sue. But who?

After several indeterminate rounds of rock, paper, scissors a scuffle breaks out which eventually – when  someone says he’s “not having his test tickets removed” - escalates into a brawl and, to quote Johnny Cash again: we fall out the tree and “ there is a  whole lot of a-kicking and a-gouging in the mud … the blood .. and the beer”

It only ends when someone bites a piece off my ear and the rest decide, according to newly formulated rule, that as the first to bleed I loose.

I hear Biltong mutter “he’s too hairy and ugly to be a bird” but I let it pass uncontested as my ear is throbbing and I can feel PMS coming on.  

Besides, a team caption must exhibit fortitude at all times.  So, as the new “Tsu” I smile inscrutably and make a mental note to mention their lack of moral fibre, let alone discipline and perseverance, in the race report.

Sunday

We bunk Sunday School and head for the Dorpsdam with a 44 gallon drum split lengthways for some paddling practice. Words cannot describe the chaos.

Some quick arithmetic tells me that even if the plastic canoes are 5 times faster we still don’t have a snowball’s hope of finishing the 100 km paddle in time.

I attend the evening service fully intending to break my rule of not being allowed to pray for deliverance from a bugger-up of your own making.   Then Dominee quotes apostle Paulus as saying “If the trumpet sounds an uncertain note, who shall prepare for battle?” and I know this can only be a personal admonition to get my act together.