I’ve recruited my daughter Patricia to go with me to South Africa (or maybe she recruited herself. With your children, it’s hard to know who is really in charge). I head to New York City to spend a few days with her, and then we gear up for the trip.
This is a beast of a flight. The seats are cramped, the movies are awful, and the food is even worse. The flight from New York to Johannesburg alone is eighteen hours. Our crew bails out about halfway at Dakar, Senegal, and another group carries us to Johannesburg.
Patricia and I spend just enough time in Johannesburg to rent a cell phone and eat an ostrich burger. These burgers are not unheard of in the United States, but they are a fast-food staple across South Africa.
Our race destination is Port Elizabeth, a city of around a million people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. You can’t go much further south on the African continent without falling into the Indian Ocean.
I’m excited, I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about South Africa. I’ve got lions and elephants and Zulu warriors dancing in my head. This is a country I never thought I’d visit; it’s as distant as a distant land can be.
Patricia and I are met at Port Elizabeth by our group leaders, Greg and Robin. This is probably the most relaxed, most enjoyable IRONMAN® trip I’ve ever taken. There are around 1,400 entrants in the race, but most are from South Africa. Just a few dozen athletes are from the United States, and our travel group is small with only eight competitors plus assorted family members.
Strangely, there are four people from Mississippi entered in the race. Larry, George, and Stephanie are all from the Jackson area, and like me, this is their first trip to South Africa. Larry is a cardiovascular surgeon and George is an orthopedic surgeon. Both are from out of state but were recruited to the faculty of the medical school.
The star of our group is George’s girlfriend, Stephanie. She is in her late thirties and has spent her entire life looking slim, fit, and attractive. This is her first IRONMAN Triathlon but we are sure she’ll do well.
Greg, our tour leader, is a competitive cyclist, and he knows what we need and want. His girlfriend, Robin, has figured out how to drive on the left side of the road so she fills the role of chauffeur. The rest of us do our best not to get run over when we cross the street. Greg and Robin take us everywhere—registration, practice swims, bike rides, course tours, pre-race banquet, grocery shopping. We’re all nervous and scared, but maybe a little less so than normal, thanks to our genial hosts.
The IRONMAN® South Africa race is held is held right smack in the middle of Nelson Mandela country. The swim takes place in Nelson Mandela Bay, the run course includes multiple loops through the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University campus.
Besides its proud connection to Nelson Mandela, this area has another claim to fame: sharks. Locals boast that it hosts more different species of sharks than any other place in the world. During the practice swim, I actually saw a shark, about three or four feet long, cruising along the bottom. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough for me. I mentioned it to one of the life-guards but he told me not to worry. He said the small sharks aren’t dangerous; you only need to worry if they are 5 feet or longer. Maybe I should carry a tape measure with me when I swim.
I’ll have to hope someone else keeps the sharks occupied on race day, but I think I’ll be pretty safe. I’ve always heard that when sharks select their prey, they prefer the tender flesh of the young and immature. If that’s true, I’ve got nothing to worry about.
Our group is up at the usual 4:00 a.m. on race day. First comes breakfast and then a short drive to the transition area.
The swim is a two loop affair. You head straight out, turn left past a giant pier jutting out a hundred yards or so, then make a circle and head back home. Next is a run of a hundred yards on the beach before going back into the water for the final lap.
Fortunately, the Indian Ocean is fairly calm, and the sharks are conspicuous by their absence. I feel really comfortable, those swim lessons have paid off. I’m through the first loop in 43 minutes, wave at Patricia, stop to get my picture taken, and head back in for the second loop. I finish in 1:28, including the beach run—better than I had hoped for.
The three loop bike course includes a gradual six mile climb at the beginning of each circuit. Early in the first lap, my friend Skip catches me. He’s from California and is an IRONMAN® veteran. I figure that if I can stick close to him, I’ll be okay.
Skip is in his early forties and is a much better athlete than I’ll ever be. I settle in three bike lengths behind him and put my mind on cruise control. There are a lot of race officials riding the course on motorcycles, so I’m careful to stay out of the draft zone. Skip makes it nice and easy, he sets the pace and I follow. If I catch myself getting too close, I ease back a bit. If I manage to get in the draft zone a time or two, I’m not too concerned. There are worse things that can happen in the world of triathlon, like getting eaten by a shark, for example.
I’m carrying several flasks full of energy gel and I suck the stuff down along with bananas, water, and Gatorade. We’re through the first lap in about 2:10 and I’m feeling surprisingly good. Skip is my domestique, leading me on, checking back from time to time, making sure I’m okay.
The climb on the second loop is not too bad. Skip and I laugh and talk and the miles go by quickly. The whole lap is maybe seven or eight minutes slower than the first. The final 15 miles or so of each lap run along the Indian Ocean, making for a magnificent ride. The rocky shore is lined with crashing breakers interspersed with beautiful coves and sandy beaches. The scenery in South Africa is definitely equal to the Alps, and the ride is a lot easier on the legs.
By the third lap, my domestique is gone. Skip has absconded up the road, and I’m forced to think and pedal at the same time. The six mile climb on my own is a lot harder. It’s gotten hotter, and they seem to have steepened the roads since I was last here. Still it’s tolerable, definitely no Heartbreak Hill. I get all the way to mile 95 before I begin my ritual of checking my odometer every fifty yards.
Just past the 100 mile mark, I’m suddenly struck by flavor fatigue. I’ve downed several flasks of raspberry energy gel with careless abandon, and now I’m sick as a dog. Each flask holds five servings, and I’m on my fourth packet. It’s amazing, just a few miles back this stuff tasted great, now the gel is threatening to come up for air. I’m certain that I’ll never want to taste another raspberry for as long as I live. My stomach feels like it’s full of leftover ostrich burgers.
I stumble out of the second transition around 8:30, my best time yet, thanks in good part to Skip. I’m in good shape time-wise but in horrible shape health-wise. Giant waves of nausea are followed by dry heaves. I can’t find my electrolyte tablets; I seem to have a talent for losing them. The folks in the changing tent have never heard of such a thing. I ask twice for electrolytes and they hand me a jar of Vaseline. A few sips of water are followed by gagging and heaving, I’m hoping all this will pass.
Early in the run, Patricia pops up alongside the road urging me on. She had watched the swim from start to finish, then left to visit some friends in Port Elizabeth, go to church, eat Sunday dinner, play with the friends’ children, and still managed to get back in time to catch the whole marathon. This event is a long day for competitors and spectators alike. No one ever says, “I haven’t gotten enough. I wish it was a little longer, I hate to see it end.”
The run course is a three loop journey that includes a circuit through Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The crowds are big and noisy all along the way. There are a lot of roadside barbecues and some serious beer drinking. The barbecues, or braais as they are known in South Africa, seem to raise my nausea level a notch or two. They smell awful. There’s a lot of back and forth chatter between spectators and participants, most of it in Afrikaans. I can’t understand anything.
This is a bad situation, a nauseatingly unpleasant experience. I can’t hold anything d
own. I know I need fluids but anytime I drink, I gag. I’m getting progressively slower as the hours pass. I’m not moving at much more than a slow walk, a shuffling gait of six inches or so. The suffering is slow, unrelenting, and undramatic. There’s a sense of impending doom. On the last lap I’m swaying from side to side as I alternate walking and shuffling. I keep staggering along, looking like a drunk leaving a bar at closing time. A medical team tries to get me in a van but I’ve only got three miles to go and I’m determined to finish.
There’s an old general surgery axiom you learn early in medical training: All bleeding stops. Similarly, all marathons end eventually. My 6:41 run puts me home at 15:15. It’s an ignoble end to a difficult race.
As soon as I cross the finish line I head for the medical tent. I know I need help, I don’t need to be convinced.
The first thing they do is put me on the scales. At race registration, everyone was weighed. My weight, eighty kilograms, was written on the back of my race number. My new post-race number is seventy-one kilograms. I’ve dropped nine kilograms, close to a twenty pound weight loss. I feel like a giant piece of human jerky.
Now, I know that some of the loss may be due to clothing and I realize that scales can differ, but still, that’s a lot of pounds to leave on the roads of South Africa. Twenty pounds in one day—it’s better than liposuction. Maybe I’ve discovered a new weight loss plan: 7 hours of exercise with no fluid tacked on to an 8 hour workout.
The medical tent looks a little like the battlefield scene from Gone with the Wind. There are stretchers full of beat-up bodies, sounds of moaning and groaning fill the air, and harried-looking medical personnel run amok. The nurses find a nice cot for me in the tent with the other ne’er-do-wells. I’m ready for some intravenous fluids, I’m certain that a couple of liters of fluids will pick me up in no time at all and return me to the land of the living.
For some reason, it doesn’t work like that in South Africa. Instead, my physician, Dr. Johann (I call him Dr. J in a futile attempt to ingratiate myself) checks my electrolytes, gives me an intramuscular injection of Phenergan® (an anti-nausea drug), and hands me a bottle of Powerade®.
What’s going on? I’m nauseated, I can’t drink anything. I beg and plead for an IV. I use my most submissive, pitiable tone of voice (it’s almost second nature after 40 years of marriage). I offer to pay for the IV fluids. Doesn’t Dr. J know that I’m a fellow physician, a brother in the art of healing, a member in good standing of the medical fraternity?
Well, my medical fraternity must not have an international chapter because Dr. J isn’t budging. He assures me I’ll feel fine in just a little bit. He even offers me a chicken sandwich from a big bag labeled CHICKEN KING.
I don’t need fried chicken, I need fluids and the only way I’m going to get them is through mini-sips of Powerade. For the next couple of hours I lay on the cot wishing the Phenergan would kick in, hoping that I’ll be around for the next African sunrise.
The medical tent is right next to the finish line, and I listen to the blaring music as the race announcer welcomes home each finisher. The official finish-line song of song of the 2008 IRONMAN® South Africa is “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People. It plays nearly continuously over nightclub quality speakers until my ears want to bleed. The lyrics are beamed directly into my brain, a bold audio tattoo. I can’t shake it.
I’m sick, everything aches. I’m dry as a bone, it seems like years since I took a leak, yet I’m very happy. I’ve finished, I know that sooner or later I’ll quit hurting. It’s a wonderful feeling, once again euphoria and relief, unrivaled anywhere in the world.
By dawn the next day I’m doing great, everywhere I look the sun is shining. When the breakfast buffet opens, I set a new South African record for the most orange juice drunk at a single setting. It tastes like the nectar of the gods, my body absolutely craves it.
Everyone is happy, everyone in our group finished the race. Stephanie turns out to be the fastest Mississippian and I turn out to be the slowest, no surprises there. It’s all fun now, the hard work is behind us and Patricia and I are anxious to see South Africa.
Cape Town is probably the most beautiful city on the African continent. It’s situated on a small peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean at the southern tip of Africa. Patricia and I are eager tourists and we’re ready to do our sightseeing duties. Cape Town is a melting pot of cultures. There are a tremendous number of blacks as well as whites, but there are also large numbers of Cape Coloureds. This latter category is a mixed race group of descendants of Dutch settlers, their slaves, and local indigenous people. Most are native Afrikaan speakers, and at various times over the years, they have received better treatment than blacks under apartheid. Under the apartheid system they occupied a middle land between black and white. Racial categories have been abolished in the new South Africa, but the Cape Coloureds have been slow to embrace the African National Congress, the ruling political party.
Cape Town sits at the foot of Table Mountain, an appropriately named flat-top mountain. It’s part of a large national park that extends all the way down the Cape Peninsula to Cape Point. A popular spot, many think that Table Mountain is the most climbed massif in the world. It’s not very crowded, but our time is short so we take the cable car to the top. The wind is ferocious, Cape Town is one of the windiest cities in the world. The sunset is burnt orange and beautiful, the city bowl sits in a dark shadow. It’s beautiful in the extreme, we feel like we’re looking at the bottom of the world.
One day we connect with our guide Faisal for a trip to the Cape Peninsula area. Faisal, a Cape Coloured Muslim in his forties, is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever run across. He knows absolutely everything about South Africa—history, politics, sports, music, science, and so on.
As we head south down the Cape Peninsula, Faisal introduces us to the unique plant life of the area. He points out that there are only six plant kingdoms in the world and one of these, the Cape floral kingdom, is found here on the southern tip of Africa, occupying only 0.04% of the earth’s land area. Much of this land is covered by a natural shrubland vegetation known as fynbos. You can find some nine thousand or so species and most are unique to the area. There are hundreds of proteas and ericas and other strange plants. If you like rare and unusual species, the Cape Peninsula is the place to go.
Faisal is a walking encyclopedia and he has a couple of avid listeners. Patricia and I ask a lot of questions, and this encourages Faisal to tell us more. The next day I find that my brain is overloaded with South African flora and fauna. I decide that the best way to clear my mind is a trip to the Cape Winelands.
We visit Stellenbosch, host to the country’s leading Afrikaner university, then we continue on to Paarl, home of an Afrikaner memorial as well as the site of Mandela’s long walk to freedom. The final stop is Franschhoek, the community founded by the French Huguenots.
It’s no simple trip, we’re stopping and tasting wines all along the way. Things are getting better and better. Everything is wonderful and the country is finally coming into vivid focus. I’m grateful someone else is driving.
Wherever you go in South Africa, people are eager to give you advice on what to do and what to see. It seems that everyone knows the ins and the outs of the entire country. Headed to Port Elizabeth, we hear, “it’s a laid-back place, nice beaches, watch out for the sharks.” Going to Cape Town, they say, “one of the most beautiful cities in the world, be sure to visit the top of Table Mountain and don’t forget the wine country.” Spending time at Kruger National Park, it’s “try to see the Big Five animals.”
For Johannesburg, it’s different. The universal admonition is “watch out for the crime, muggings and car-jackings are common events, never go out alone, you might not make it back.” It’s not advice on what to see, it’s advice on how to stay alive.
Johannesburg, the financial and commercial hub of South Africa, is the country’s largest city. It’s located on the Highveld, a mile-high
plateau, and it got its start in the late 1800s as a gold mining city.
The contrasts in Johannesburg are striking. The northern suburbs are beautiful, wooded areas with lovely homes protected by high walls topped with razor wire. On the other hand, shanty towns, overcrowded and often lacking water and electricity, are sometimes just a few miles away from rich estates.
Everywhere we go in South Africa, Patricia and I do a lot of walking and talking. South Africans all seem eager to explain the journey from apartheid to a multiracial democracy. They’ve lived through a historical change and they are rightfully proud of their country. In Johannesburg, it’s a different story. People seem a little more streetwise, a little more savvy, skeptical and suspicious. They give you a wary look when they talk to you.
We’re booked in Sandton, one of the very nice leafy northern enclaves of Johannesburg. After repeated warnings, we stay pretty much in the commercial areas. There are the same clothing chains, fast-food outlets, and shoe stores that you see in the U.S. It’s not much different than visiting a mall in Atlanta or Dallas. We’re careful and cautious but we’re not alone; even Nelson Mandela has moved north. We drive by his home in Houghton and see the same walls, barbed wire, and armed guards as everywhere else in town.
A guided tour to Soweto turns out to be full of surprises. This famous black township, part of the Johannesburg metropolis, was the seat of resistance to apartheid. The area was originally created to house black laborers who came from the countryside and neighboring countries to work in the mines. Soweto has all the expected problems—poor infrastructure, overcrowding, high unemployment, and crime. I’ve been to the favelas, the slums of Rio de Janiero, so I expected the usual tin roofs with no running water or electricity. There are plenty of these areas but there are also many middle-class areas with good homes, schools, and parks. There’s even a convention center.
Against the Odds Page 13