Separate AR & Trail running calendars

My event calendar on www.AR.co.za is meant to be about adventure races; but I've always hosted listings for aligned disciplines like trail running and Rogaine (not MTB as these events have a home on Spinman). With the growing popularity of off-road running events and the explosion of short city trail running series', spotting adventure races on the AR calendar, between all the trail listings, has been like looking for a CP in a forest without a map.

The near domination of trail listings has bothered me for a while - afterall, www.AR.co.za is an ADVENTURE RACING website - but it wasn't until I received Fred's email yesterday that I got the kick to put AR and trail running on separate calendars. As Fred put it, "I never thought I’d say this because I absolutely love trail running. But isn’t it time to move the trail run events into a separate space? I can’t see the adventure races on the AR calendar any more." He was quite right.

So, you'll now find adventure races on the primary event calendar and a link,at the top of the AR calendar, to a trail running calendar.

I spent much of last night looking for the 2008 dates and details for the many trail running events in SA. If you know of any others, please drop me a note so I can add them.

Thanks for the nudge Fred.

Are you aware?

This commercial, posted on YouTube, should make you - and all drivers - think twice about how aware you are of things happening on the road. As mountain bikers and cyclists, we're probably a little more aware than most. This ad hits the nail on the head.

Take 1-minute to watch this clip.

We're likely to see more cyclists, motorbikers and scooter drivers on the roads as the petrol price, interest rates and other economic evils climb. Personally, I'm terrified 'cos being zapped by a taxi while I'm on my bike is not the way I want to go. Would be nice to see some campaigns, like this, on telly here.

* I got the link from Seth Godin's Blog

Cross the finish line together

Adventure racing is a team sport. Yes? Whether racing as a pair, 3 or 4 the essential AR element is that the entire team completes every stage together. They have to visit every check point together and they are expected to cross the finish line together. Why then do participants desert their friends?

De-sert, verb - to leave (a person, place, etc.) without intending to return, esp. in violation of a duty, promise, or the like.

At the recent SPUR Adventure in Joburg I caught a number of participants at the finish line, without their team-mates. When I asked where they were I received answers like, "they're behind me" and "they're coming down the hill". I made them wait for their buddies and chastised them about the team element of the event and also the safety element. What if their team mate had wiped out on the long steep downhill to the finish? And, why would they not wait for the person who had done the whole race with them to cross the finish line as a team?

This is by no means specific to the SPUR event; we see this all over at sprints and distance races.

But, one of the saddest situations of the day involved a young girl, Amber.

One of my marshals was driving down the hill when he saw this little girl pushing her bike. He had our event photographer and a tv cameraman with him. He pulled over and asked her whether she was ok. Amber burst into tears saying that she'd crashed and her mom had left her. She was reluctant to speak to my marshal, which is quite right; she shouldn't be in the position where she has to talk to strangers.

He said that they could load her bike into the bakkie and that they could give her a lift to the finish. She quite rightly didn't want to get into this strange man's car. With the reassurance of the photographer, cameraman and event stuff, they loaded her bike, got her into the bakkie and took her down to the finish.

My marshal was walking with Amber to look for her mom, who came up to them. My marshal, not one to mince his words, said to her, "What kind of mother are you?". She was startled and in the course of the brief conversation said, "I just couldn't go that slow".

When you're an adult racing with a child, you should expect that they would be a bit slower than you. I'm glad I didn't see this woman 'cos she would have had it from me too. It was just a 15km sprint! The chance of this sweet little girl doing another race is probably close to zero.

That said, the moral of this tale is that the whole point of racing as a team is to stay as a team, whether you're faster or slower than your team-mates. The satisfaction of completing a race is when you cross the finish line together. If this team element is not your thing, do triathlon.

Lobola - the cost is high

This past weekend I gave a lift to two Natal Parks Board gentlemen from the NPB office to a nearby settlement, which was on my route. In the passage of our conversation, about the city vs country life, the younger man mentioned that he wanted a job in the city, to earn more money, because he wanted to get married.

This is where the whole lobola issue comes in. Lobola is "a southern African dowry custom whereby the man pays the family of his fiancée for her hand in marriage. The custom is aimed at bringing the two families together, fostering mutual respect, and indicating that the man is capable of supporting his wife financially and emotionally".

Cows now cost R4,000 each and the young man has to give 11 of them (a standard lobola amount) to his prospective bride's family. That's R44,000! How do you save this amount of money when you're earning minimum wage of around R1,500?

Laughing I suggested: "Don't get married". But marriage and lobola is a strong tradition and is very important to this young man.

This is probably quite a strong force driving young men from the rural areas (homes, family, rivers, crops, cattle and traditions) to the cities where they still earn minimum wage (if they get jobs). In the city they're likely to end up in poor living conditions with no family support, no means to grow food and in an environment where the cost of living is higher and what they have is likely to be stolen from them. And, once they're married they'll probably end up staying in the cities to work, away from their wife and children, who they'll only see for a few weeks a year.

I find this quite sad.