Never ones for orthodox, disciplined, organised affairs – or maybe: having grown out of enjoying organised affairs, a small group of us started running in the early mornings. We’d meet and run the short course above the hostel, past the jail and back. We called ourselves Mossies cos we got up at sparrows-fart to run. Tuffy Joubert, Louis Wessels, Fluffy Crawley, myself – who else? We were in Std 9. 1971. It was summer; daylight came early.
We chose a bird name as the organised runners were being coached by a teacher called ou Makou, so they were the Makoue. Muscovy ducks. Their star was Stefan Ferreira.
After a while, a match-up was arranged; a challenge. We were determined to win this showdown: Us vs The Establishment! At the last minute a third team was entered by Dana Moore; he said they hadn’t trained, so were calling themselves the Pikkewyne. Penguins.
The course chosen was new to all: Up, around and down Queens Hill. Only about 3,5km google earth tells me. That was probably a standard distance for school cross-country, as Oosie was in charge. Oosie always made sure things were done right. The maths teacher! White coat, black glasses . . something like this. Oh no, wait, that’s not Oosie: That’s a science lab, so that’s Oscar Boehmer, our science teacher.
The Pikkewyne were given a good head start, and good thing too, as we soon caught them while still on the climb. They were huffing and puffing! The pace seemed way slow so I soon moved to the front and started pushing harder. On the way down I saw Kevin Crawley watching. He must have come back to town on leave as he had finished school. He said, ‘Good going, you’re lying second!’ and that surprised me. I thought I was well ahead. ‘Only Dana’s beating you,’ said Kevin. Ah! Of course! How could I have thought Dana was among the huffers n puffers!? His ‘unfit’ was always better than most people’s fit! I pushed harder down the hill. The finish was now visible ahead. As I got within a few hundred metres another surprise: I caught a glimpse of Stefan Ferreira just behind me over my right shoulder! He stayed a metre back as I pushed again, even harder, nearing the finish. A number of cars had been parked on both sides of the road and the straightest line to the finish was hard against the cars on the right, but that would mean ‘scraping’ Stefan off against them. Dilemma. I moved left to make room for him to also run past them. Well, longish story short: he pipped me at the post! I came second. Damn! Consolation prize was: WE came first. The Mossies won the team competition.
Our next big X-Country day was an inter-school event on the slopes of Platberg. A far more serious course – about ten km and a lot more climbing. It was the route of the famous annual mountain race except for y’know, that actual ‘mountain’ section.
The start and finish was on the tar road outside the high school and the girls hostel.
As we got to the first steep section, where the yellow arrow points, the pace slowed right down. Once again I was impatient. I didn’t want to go ahead, but this was too slow! I went ahead. Soon after we turned down I noticed there was one guy near me, the rest had dropped back. At a barbed wire fence I glanced back as I hopped through and noticed he was barefoot. Ah! I thought, I have a plan for that! I pushed hard and aimed for the donga where the blue arrow points; I knew it well, it was very rocky and uneven. I planned to make a getaway there. I was wearing my asics tigers. I loved those shoes with their thin hard soles and super light tops. When I hit the donga I pinned my ears back and ‘put foot,’ leaping from rock to rock and flying down, leaving my pursuer in my dust.
Or so I hoped. As I emerged from the donga onto the flat veld leading to the country club road he was half a metre behind me. Uh oh! I knew I had a problem. I had run those 800-odd metres as fast as I could go, and – barefoot – he had absorbed the surge. Respect! He stayed just behind me on the gravel road and drew level with me as we turned left onto the tar road. We ran shoulder to shoulder up the gentle incline.
When we first appeared in sight of the finish I heard a disappointed groan from the crowd. They were hoping to see one of our distinctive orange vests. They thus thought the two leaders were not from Harrismith. They didn’t know my rebellious nature had me wearing my own favourite white vest that I’d sewed a Scout badge onto and painted a peace sign on. Then they started recognising me and an encouraging shout went up. ‘Dis Peterrr!’ Once again there was ear pinning and I let rip with everything that I had.
And got left in the barefoot fella’s dust. Second again. To make it worse, he was from Vrede, our main rival dorpie! When I got my breath back I went looking for him to congratulate him. I joked ‘Oy! Couldnt you see I wanted to win in front of my mense?!’ He grunted and scowled and turned away. Oh well. Vrede humour is probably different to this rooinek’s!
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Leon Fluffy Crawley wrote: Yep great memories… Lovely piece on your blog.. Confessions… I was part of the early morning run… I was staying in the hostel after Mom Pollie moved down to Ladysmith.. Std 9….that’s where we met at the hostel.. early morning and did a stint before school…. I did not do the races…. You were the athlete… Great athlete… I must have bailed out at some stage… Great to see Kevin’s name there as well.
We had a great youth period in Harrismith… I pity not going back there more often after school as Pollie stayed in Ladysmith – which then became my “home town.” I missed a lot of that period of my life in Harrismith!!!!
Well keep safe… At least the keys are in the lock waiting for stage 3 – Fluffy
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Vrystaat Confessions 