June 26, 2016 – Celebrating in Plain Sight “He’s right there!” Adam says. “Near the Y-shaped tree!” “I don’t see him,” I say, scanning the South African savannah in front of the Land Rover. “Do you see the tree?” Gibson the ranger asks me. “I see A LOT of trees,” indicating the bush before us, […]
June 25, 2016 – The Big Five Marathon There’s a charity challenge at some marathons wherein a runner is the very last person to cross the starting line. For every person he or she passes on the course, a dollar or five dollars or some amount is donated by the sponsor to a charitable organization. […]
June 24, 2016 – A Three Hour Tour Entebani means “place of mountains.” And they ain’t kidding. Today we had the route inspection tour wherein a caravan of Toyota Land Rovers (note: I may have previously incorrectly identified them as Range Rovers) took us kilometer by kilometer of the entire marathon course. The whole thing […]
It was *mostly flat.*. And were I Ford Prefect updating the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, that’s how I would amend the entry to read. I finished 97th out of 296, in a time of 3:48:50. Three days, three marathons, second place overall in the Firecracker Triple. Truth be told, I never stood a chance […]
Eight loops, each again progressively slower than the last. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t easy, but I finished. An easier course than yesterday but I just collapsed under emotional and physical strains. We will see what tomorrow brings! Eric and Mary have been delightful and supportive hosts. Yesterday we saw Jaws for $2 apiece as […]
Six loops. Progressively slower each time. But I finished second overall. More photos later but for now, this:
And so the refund rigmarole spins round. Despite assurances in January by the race director that the refund for my cancelled 2015 Santa Barbara Marathon would be processed by June (!!) 2016, that did not happen. After my repeated messages to the organizers have continually been ignored I’ve now taken to contacting sponsors of the […]
June 23, 2016 – The Longest Safari The morning pickup was at 6 am. An eerie mist had settled upon the reserve, clouds having rolled in during the night. The sunrise game drive was therefore going to turn into a cloud bursting adventure. Departing the lodge at 6:30, we definitely didn’t have enough layers. The […]
June 22, 2016 – Game On! Despite being exhausted, I just couldn’t sleep. Somewhere and sometime I must have drifted off as it was suddenly 7:30 in the morning; shafts of sunlight streamed through the floorboards and wooden sides of the lodge. We are perched on the side of a ravine, hence the name Ravineside. […]
June 21, 2016 – On the Road To Entabeni Violent protests erupted in Pretoria, one of the three South African capital cities. The people are upset that the African National Congress has nominated what is essentially a carpetbagger mayoral candidate rather than a preferred local nominee and they are letting their displeasure by known. Nineteen […]