1981 was my annus mirabilis (or at least one of my anni
mirabiles)
Considering how momentous 1981 was for me, not only with
regard to running and racing (of which there was plenty, as described in great
detail below) but much more importantly finding a life partner, it was
bookended by a couple of disappointing marathon attempts.
My first race of 1981 was the George Claassen Marathon on
January 10. As seen in the front page of
the Pretoria Marathon Club (PMC) newsletter posted in “Ancyent blog33
1980 gainfully employed”, George Claassen was the Chairman of PMC at the time. That wasn’t the reason the marathon was named
after him though. Instead, it was
because he had won the Comrades (ultra) Marathon back in 1961 (on May 31, which
happened to be the day South Africa became a republic). Oom (uncle) George had won Comrades at the
age of 44 and was 63 at the time of “his” race in 1981. (“Oom” is often used by Afrikaners as a
respectful term when addressing elderly people.
He seemed old to me at the time, so it is rather strange to think that I
am now almost 10 years older than he was then.
In looking for information about him on the Internet I saw that he
passed away in 2014 at the age of 97. (His
son, Wynand was a top-class rugby player, captaining the national team in
1981-82. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynand_Claassen)
As a former winner of Comrades, the race was near and dear
to Claassen’s heart. He was very keen to
have PMC win the Gunga Din – the award for the first (male) club team, with the
first 4 finishers from a club being counted.
(I don’t know whether it is the sum of the finishing times or of the
finishing positions that is used to determine the winning team.) It is far and away the most prestigious and
coveted team award in running in South Africa and is named for the poem “Gunga
Din” written in 1890 by Rudyard Kipling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunga_Din I don’t think George had ever spoken to me at
that stage. But after Gerry Rees and I
announced that we were planning to run Comrades in 1981, that may have given
George hope that the Gunga Din might come PMC’s way. The next few races after stating our
intention, George was at the finish line to congratulate us. Gerry and I later changed our minds, and I
don’t recall George ever speaking to us again after that. (Even if we had run Comrades that year, the
chances of PMC winning the Gunga Din would have been essentially zero. Comrades novices, such as Gerry and I would
have been, typically don’t do particularly well.)
Back to the George Claassen Marathon … which was on an
undulating out-and-back course. Some of
the early miles were on a route that I used to run quite often, to the Pretoria
East Cemetery. Despite being very
familiar with at least part of the course, I dropped out soon after
halfway. I have no memory of why I
stopped and all that I recorded in my logbook was that I ran 17 miles. I don’t even know how long that took or what
any of my splits were.
Four days later, on January 14, Gerry and I paced Isavel
Roche-Kelly in the 25 km Exide Night Race, finishing in 1:45:00. (This was quite a bit behind the first woman,
who ran 1:39:00. For background on
Isavel’s running career, see “Ancyent blog33 1980 gainfully employed”.) The race took place in Germiston, an eastern
suburb of Johannesburg. Despite being on
a Wednesday evening, there was a huge field, with 1,310 finishers, according to
Andries Joubert’s logbook. He was 641st,
in 1:56:16. I logged 312 as my finishing
position. (This was still several months
before I met my future father-in-law or his daughter.)
January being summer, Isavel was at her parents’ home
between academic years. Her parents
lived in Welkom, in the Orange Free State province, about 320 km / 200
miles from Pretoria, close to the main highway between Pretoria and Cape
Town. I don’t recall if Isavel spent the
night at my parents’ house or if Gerry and I just happened to meet up with her
at the race.
Some people, including Gerry, apparently believed at the
time that Isavel and I were an “item”.
We weren’t. We didn’t go on even
one date. If we had, I would have no
reason to hesitate mentioning it here because this was still several months
before I first met Riëtta.
A few days later I received call-up papers for a 30-day
“camp” in the Navy, to be spent working at the Institute for Maritime
Technology (IMT) where I had been for most of the initial 2-year period of
national service (see “Ancyent blog32 rest of national service 1978 and
1979”). The call-up papers below mention
providing me with a rail warrant.
However, I planned to drive there and back rather than taking the train,
so that I would have transport while in the Cape Town area.
 |
| Call-up for camp,
page 1 |
 |
| Call-up for camp,
page 2 |
Considering the frequency with which I ran races back then,
a legitimate question is whether I could have achieved better times (and
positions) if I had selected races more judiciously. My best times would probably have been
somewhat faster, though likely not substantially so, because I didn’t have the
basic speed to be a great runner. For
instance, to be able to run a mile in under 4 minutes one needs to have enough
speed to be well under 60 seconds for a quarter mile / 400 m. I have never been under 60 seconds for 400
m. A corresponding argument works for
longer distances. I enjoyed racing and
have just a few regrets about the frequency, such as running two marathons a
week apart after already having done two marathons in the previous 6 weeks (see
“Ancyent blog33 1980 gainfully employed”).
If it seemed like I had been racing too often in 1980, the
6-week period starting about 10 days before I left for Cape Town was even more
bonkers. Not only did I run an insane
number of races, but I ran (almost) all of them hard, in every one either
improving my personal best for the distance or finishing first!
The sequence started with the Pelindaba Marathon on February
7. In 1980 I had placed second, in
2:30:40, which was best marathon time to that point. In 1981 I was two places further back but,
more importantly, I improved my best time to 2:29:51, my first marathon under
2:30. (Four weeks later I would improve
on that too, but I am getting ahead of myself.)
In writing about the 1980 Pelindaba Marathon in “Ancyent
blog33 1980 gainfully employed” I mentioned that my future
father-in-law, Andries Joubert, had also run it, finishing in 3:24:29. He ran it again in 1981, in 3:20:01, in 178th
position out of 358.
An anecdote about Andries: I later heard from a few people
that he used to boast that anyone who wanted to marry his daughter would first
have to run a marathon with him. After I
came on the scene, he didn’t mention that again. (That’s fortunate, considering that his
marathon pace was slower than my recovery jogs and running that slowly would
have been painful. Now, of course, it is
much faster than the best I can manage for even a short sprint.),
 |
| Newspaper report on
the Pelindaba Marathon. |
Translation of the above clipping:
MARATHON … Pelindaba
Andrew surpasses record in rain
Despite rainy conditions, on
Saturday Andrew Greyling of the Pretoria Marathon Club succeeded in setting a
new record time in the second annual Pelindaba Marathon.
This
race over 42.2 km stretched from the Booysens Primary School in Pretoria
West, over Horns Nek to Brits and the fast times that were achieved indicate
that this is one of the fastest marathon courses in the Transvaal. His winning time of 2:23:03 improved on his
winning time of last year by 17 seconds.
Furthermore, 357 of the 368 athletes who started finished the race.
Individual
results: …
Eight days later, on Sunday February 15, I ran the Springs
Striders 20-mile race. Springs is an
outlying eastern suburb of Johannesburg, further east than Germiston where
about a month earlier Gerry and I had run the 25 km race with Isavel
Roche-Kelly. This was a very popular
race that drew a large field. Despite
running 1:51:28, which was then my fastest 20-miler, I finished just 30th.
The next day I started the long trip to Cape Town, driving
as far as Welkom, where I spent the night at Isavel’s parents’ house. Isavel and I went for a run together. Afterwards, her mother seemed quite amused
when we were sitting on the back steps of the house comparing the state of our
toenails. (In those days running shoes
were not very kind to toenails.) Isavel
and her brother, David, were also heading to Cape Town, to start the new
academic year. The next day we drove in
convoy, with Isavel in one car and David and I in the other. (I don’t recall why he decided to come with
me rather than with his sister.)
On Friday, February 20, I was a guinea pig / volunteer in an
exercise physiology experiment in Tim Noakes’ lab at UCT. I don’t recall what the experiment was about
other than I did a VO2max test on a treadmill. It was a large, laboratory-grade treadmill
which, because of its size, was easier to run on than any treadmill I have used
since then (even for cardiovascular stress tests). According to my records, my VO2max
was 73 mL/kg/min. According to
Wikipedia, that was well above the 90th percentile for a male of the
age I was at the time (26): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VO2_max.
Three days later, on Monday evening, I finished first in the
Fish Hoek 8 km time trial, in 26:10.
Another 4 days later, on Friday, February 27, I ran the South African
Defence Force (SADF) Western Province track championships. Early in the day I won the 10,000 m in
32:21. The win was partly thanks to
usual military efficiency – the transport for a couple of faster runners did
not arrive in time for the start. They
had arrived by later in the day for the 5,000 m and so I ended up
finishing third in that event. My time
of 15:35 remains the best I have ever run for that distance, either on the
track or on the road. Three days later I
again ran the Fish Hoek 8 km time trial, finishing first in 26:32.
 |
| Results of the SADF
Western Province track championships. |
 |
| Certificate for
winning the 10,000 m. I have a
similar one for my 3rd place in the 5,000 m. |
Five days after the Fish Hoek time trial, on March 7, I ran
the Peninsula Marathon finishing 9th in 2:26:23, more than three
minutes faster than my previous best, set 4 weeks earlier. The newspaper report below mentions wind, but
there wasn’t much wind, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to run so fast. According to my logbook I went through halfway
in 1:12:02 and 20 miles in 1:50:02, improving on the time I had run for that
distance in the Springs Striders 20-miler a few weeks earlier.
After we finished Tony Dearling, who was one place behind
me, asked if I was aware that I slowed substantially on each downhill. Downhill?
That’s a bit like the wind – I wasn’t aware of anything I would regard
as being downhill (except a short stretch down to the Navy’s grass sports-field
where the race ended). The course was
essentially flat, so no real downhills or uphills. That being said, I have always been weak on
downhills. If I was evenly matched with
someone on a flat course I would usually beat them on an undulating one – I was
relatively stronger on uphills than I was weak on downhills.
 |
| Report in The
Argus on the 1981 Peninsula Marathon.
Unusually for a Cape Town newspaper, they spelled my name incorrectly. |
 |
| Newspaper photo of
the start. I am just to the right of the
middle of the photo, with a sweatband around my right wrist. (When I started sweating I moved it to my
head.) |
 |
| Deeper results of the
Peninsula Marathon. I see my Pretoria
nemesis, Andrew Greyling, was back in 40th. |
Two days after the marathon I ran the Fish Hoek time trial
again. I presume most people had run the
marathon because despite “jogging” it in 29:04 on tired legs I still finished
first.
Five days later I raced the Western Province 16 km
Championships, finishing 4th in 52:20, my best time for that
distance to that point. Why 16 km? Races in South Africa were slowly adapting
from Imperial to metric distances. The
autocratic government had decreed that only metric quantities could be reported
in newspapers. Races that had been over
Imperial distances first switched to the closest metric equivalents, before
moving to more sensible metric distances.
So, 10-mile races first became 16 km races and later switched to 15 km.
The day after the 16 km race I did a 20-mile training
run and the day after that ran the Fish Hoek time trial again, finishing first
in 26:50.
A week after the 16 km, I ran a 30 km race. (That was one that already used a sensible
metric distance rather than the Imperial-equivalent 32 km.) Although two headlines below say “Couper gets
vote” and “Dave Couper wins close Parow race” the third one (“Two come first in
road race”) is more accurate. Bruce and
I ran together and deliberately finished in a tie. Bruce will tell you that we had agreed to
finish together and that I had waited for him on an uphill stretch near the
finish.
 |
| Race reports for the
WP 16 km championships and the Parow/Tygerberg 30 km. (Tygerberg is part of Parow, which is an
eastern suburb of Cape Town.) |
That was the end of my month in Cape Town. I don’t recall whether I drove all the way
back to Pretoria in one day or spread it out over two days.
While I had been in Cape Town running the Peninsula
Marathon, Riëtta
was running the Pretoria Marathon. It
would still be several months before we met.
The reason I know she ran it because in 1982 the published lists of the
best times in 1981 by South Africans at various race distances had her in 23rd
with a time of 3:11:27. Topping the
women’s marathon list for 1981 was Isavel Roche-Kelly with the South African
record of 2:42:27 that she set in September (see later). When I asked her recently, Riëtta did not remember
running the Pretoria Marathon. She
doesn’t keep a running log, so doesn’t have a source she can check. (I have all of her late father’s running logs
packed away somewhere, so could check whether he ran that year’s Pretoria
Marathon.)
 |
| South African ranking
lists for 1981 showing Riëtta as having run a 3:11:27 marathon on March 7. She missed being listed for 10 km by just a
few seconds. My best marathon time was
several minutes off being in the top 50 men. |
A brief interlude unrelated to running:
I don’t recall what I worked on at IMT during that
month. However, they must have been
satisfied enough with me that either right away or some time later we started
negotiations for them to employ me. I
had been missing Cape Town and was also interested in having a place of my own
rather than continuing to live with my parents.
One of the attractions of IMT was that a fringe benefit was mortgage
assistance. I don’t know if it is still
the case, but back then most government jobs (and many positions in large
companies too) offered a “housing subsidy” in the form of mortgage
assistance. If I remember correctly, the
subsidy involved covering the difference between 4% and whatever the current
(and fluctuating) mortgage rate was. The
government (or private company) may also have served as a guarantor of the
loan. However, at least for government
positions, the subsidy was restricted to married (White) males. One exception was Armscor, of which IMT was a
subsidiary. Armscor employees did not
have to be married in order to receive the subsidy. UNISA and other South African universities
offered a housing subsidy. As I was
neither married nor expecting that to change any time soon, I couldn’t qualify
for it. So IMT was attractive, both for
its location near Cape Town and the possibility of being able to buy a home of
my own. (The irony is that by the time I
actually started working at IMT I was married.)
End of this non-running interlude.
I was back in Pretoria, where the only convenient time trial
was one with the distinctly odd distance of 6.6 km. So I decided to organize one having a
standard distance. Pretoria Boys High
School was a little more than a mile from my parents’ house and I worked out a
route around part of the outside and through the grounds that I thought would
yield laps of 2 km. I managed to
borrow a measuring wheel and someone else obtained permission from the school
for us to run through the grounds. My
estimate of the distance turned out to be accurate, with the laps being almost
exactly 2 km. The time trials were at
5:15 PM on Wednesdays, with one Wednesday of the month being a 10 km (5
laps) and the others 8 km (4 laps).
I was usually the time-keeper.
Most Wednesdays I ran from home as a warm-up, ran the time trial myself
and then recorded times of those who finished after me. The few people who finished ahead of me had
to note their own times, for me to write down once I finished. Sometimes I ran just a few laps so that I
could finish before the fastest runners completed the full distance.
 |
| Approximate route of
the PMC time trial, with the start and finish being near the top left. (My drawing of the route using a mouse is
obviously quite wobbly.) |
 |
| PMC newsletter report
by Yours Truly on the first month of time trials. |
On April 17 I travelled with my regular Sunday run partner,
Richard Foss, to second him in the 54.5 km Jock of the Bushveld (ultra)
Marathon in what was then called Nelspruit (now Mbombela), in the Lowveld near
Swaziland (now Eswatini) and Mozambique.
The extract below from a PMC newsletter includes something
that shows a difference between South Africa and the US. In the US it is fairly common for the
first-born son in a family to be given the same name as his father, with “Jr”
after the son’s name to indicate that he is the junior one (Roman numerals are
used when more than two generations have the same name). In South Africa it is quite unusual for a son
to have the same name as his father. (My
father and his father had the same names and as there isn’t a standard South
African way of distinguishing between the two, this was apparently the cause of
much confusion. That’s part of the
reason I don’t have the same names as my father.) PMC happened to have two unrelated runners
with the name Kobus le Roux. To
distinguish between them, the newsletter usually used “Jnr” after the younger
one and “Snr” after the older, as in the PMC newsletter report above. In the
part of the extract below about the Jock of the Bushveld it is not clear which
Kobus le Roux that was.
 |
| Extract from a PMC
newsletter in 1981. I am not going to
bother to translate this. The top part
shows attendance at PMC Saturday training runs through the middle of March
1981. The lower part shows PMC
performance in the team event at two ultra marathons, both of which Richard
Foss ran. |
In 1980 I had run a couple of cross country races on a
Saturday afternoon after having a 20-mile training run with PMC in the
morning. In 1981 I decided that on
weekends with cross country races I would instead do my long training run the
next morning. That resulted in a
dramatic improvement in my performance in the cross country races with, as I
hinted earlier, life-changing consequences.
The first cross country league race of the season was over
10 km at the University of Pretoria on April 25. I finished 5th. I presume Riëtta was there too, but although the newspaper
clipping with results includes the first 6 men, it has just the first woman
(see results below).
 |
| Results of the first
cross country league race of 1981. |
Translation of the above clipping:
Cross country … Ntvl [Northern
Transvaal]
Mulder wins new event
The first league meeting of the
Northern Transvaal cross country program at L.C. de Villiers stadium [home of
the University of Pretoria’s track and field program] on Saturday was poorly
attended. That is due to the athletics
[track] season still being in progress.
A.
Annendale [should be “Annandale”] from Tukkies [nickname for the University of
Pretoria] won the race for men in 31:20.
The
teams from Technikon and Ndaba also [don’t know what the “also” is referring
to] took part for the first time.
The
new 8 km event for men between 30 and 39 was well supported and was won by
George Mulder in 26:04.
The
next meet will be held on May 9 at the Swartkop drive-in theater.
The
individual results are:
[Seuns
= Boys; O.11 means under 11; Mans = Men;
OPE = Open; Veterane = Veterans
(over 40); Meisies = Girls; Vroue = Women; and Spankompetisie = Team competition
(although being listed after Women, this looks like having been the one for
Men)]
A week later I was part of the Northern Transvaal team for
the Interprovincial Marathon Championships in Durban. There were 6 of us on the team – 3 of us
happened to be White and the other three Black.
The Black guys could not speak English or Afrikaans (and we couldn’t
speak their language), so the team was accompanied by a manager /
interpreter. For the flight down to
Durban the Black guys looked quite smart, in jackets and ties, whereas the
other three of us were more casually dressed.
While sitting around at the hotel waiting to check in, one of the other
White guys asked our team-mates whether they planned to go for a swim in the
ocean. Two of them hadn’t seen the ocean
before. The third one had and, although
we couldn’t understand what he was saying, he used his hands while seeming to
explain what waves were. It looked like
he was demonstrating that they were things that raised up and sent one
head-over-heels. I didn’t have a good
run, finishing 45th in what at that stage was a rather slow time for
me of 2:37:36.
 |
| First page of the
results of the 1981 Interprovincial Marathon Championships. |
 |
| My Northern Transvaal
singlet. |
The next two Saturdays were cross country races. The one on May 9 was just 8 km and I
finished 2nd in a small field.
May 16 was at the international standard distance of 12 km and I
was 9th. They were followed
on May 23 by the Ndaba half marathon in which I ran 1:12:12 for 10th
place. (Andries Joubert was there too,
running 1:38:10 for 147th place out of 249.) For the next few weeks my only “races” were in
the PMC time trial. Then on June 13 I
ran another 12 km cross country league race, again finishing 9th. (In my logbook I have it as being 12 km. A newspaper clipping says 10 km. Judging by the times, the distance must have
been somewhere between the two.) Riëtta, who I didn’t meet
until a week later, ran the 4 km for women and under-19 girls, finishing
10th in 14:45 (Judging by the
times the distance may have been a little short of 4 km.)
As a result of my performances in the cross country races to
that point, I was selected for the Northern Transvaal team to compete in an
interprovincial competition in Durban on June 20 (see clipping with the team
below). This was the first time I had
been selected for a provincial team for an event shorter than a marathon.
 |
| Northern Transvaal
cross country team to travel to the interprovincial meet in Durban. Two points to note, both of which I will
comment on below: The team included
runners in several age groups (I think there were more age groups for
girls/women than just under 14 and open), and “R. Joubert” in the women’s team
is Riëtta. |
Translation of the above clipping:
Athletics
Northern Transvaal’s team
The following athletes have been
selected to represent Northern Transvaal against Natal and Northern Natal in a
cross country meet in Durban on Saturday.
[As noted previously: Mans = Men;
Veterane = Veterans (over 40);
Seuns o.19 = Boys under 19; … Vroue
= Women; Meisies = Girls.]
The team travelled from Pretoria to Durban in a large
bus. I don’t recall how long it took,
though according to a line in a popular song from the 1960s, from Johannesburg
rather than Pretoria “It's only eight hours in the Chevrolet”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag_Pleez_Deddy. Most team members were Afrikaners, with Gerry
Rees and me being among the few English speakers. On the long trip down, Gerry and I sat next
to one another and didn’t really interact much with the others. I thought Riëtta was a high school girl and so didn’t pay any
attention to her. (It was only later
that I heard that she was a high school teacher!) Also, she spoke a language that I didn’t
really understand.
I don’t remember anything about the race itself. My logbook says the distance was 12 km
and I finished 21st out of 40 entrants (Gerry was 6th). The men’s race was in the afternoon, and we
stayed overnight in a hotel somewhere in Durban.
That evening the adults in the team went to a restaurant
together for dinner. That plus being a
statistician was what led to life-changing consequences. We sat together at one big table. At the end of the meal, when the waiter
brought the check (one check for the whole table) the amount looked too
much. This was before the days of
electronic cash registers, so it was just a hand-written check. I did a quick calculation. I don’t remember the details, but the
principle is easy. Suppose there were 16
of us. Based on what I and those around
me had ordered I estimated that what each of us had would have cost an average
of about R20. So that meant the total
should have been around 16×20
= R320. Instead, it was well over double
that amount. I told the waiter “That’s
wrong.” I didn’t say what I thought it
should be. But he knew he had been
caught out trying to cheat us. He didn’t
even try to argue, just turned away and then brought a more appropriate
check. I don’t know where Riëtta had been sitting
other than it was definitely not right next to me. I don’t recall having been consciously aware
that she was even part of the group at the restaurant. However, she had been close enough to see my
interaction with the waiter. She told me
later that that was enough for her to decide “That’s the man I want to marry”.
If Riëtta and I
hadn’t both been selected for that team, and gone to that restaurant, and had
that waiter try to cheat us, our paths would never have crossed, or at least
not in a way that would have brought us together. Although we were both selected for other
provincial teams after that, it was the only time we were on a travel team
together. This is one of several times
in my life that I have had the good fortune to be in the right place at the
right time with the right qualifications.
I had been coming down with a bout of the flu. On the bus trip back to Pretoria, I felt
terrible and sat by myself away from the rest of the team. Gerry sat next to Riëtta and told her stories
about me, including about the time trial that I organized on Wednesday evenings,
though not that I usually ran there from home.
(Gerry had already been married since the previous December, not that
that stopped him trying to chat up women.)
By the Wednesday I was still suffering from the flu (and
didn’t run again until the Friday). So,
instead of running to and from the time trial, I drove there. Riëtta came to the time trial and made sure I overheard
her mention that she didn’t have a way to get home afterwards. When I heard that, I offered to take her
home. (Riëtta didn’t have a car or even a driver’s
license. But she had arranged with her
father to come to pick her up if necessary, which it would have been if I
hadn’t had the flu. Riëtta travelled mostly by
bus or bicycle. When I met her, her
bicycle wasn’t in very good condition.
She is even less mechanically minded than I am. She didn’t even have working brakes and used
to stop by putting her shoe against a tire.
That is something I was able to fix.)
Although I had been suffering from the flu all week, by the
Saturday I was feeling good enough to run the Muller Potgieter 25 km
race. Having taken a few days off
running probably helped my performance and I ended up 3rd. Gerry was the overall winner. Riëtta was the first woman. Although I had obviously met Riëtta by then, I don’t
think she introduced me to her father, who was also at that race, running
2:01:02 for 106th place out of 170.
 |
| Newspaper report on
the Muller Potgieter race. Although they
spelled my name correctly for a change, they had Gerry’s last name incorrect
(“Reis” instead of “Rees”) and also had Riëtta as “Retha”. |
 |
| More extensive
results of the Muller Potgieter race.
The Geoff Rees in 8th place is one of Gerry’s brothers. |
Over the next few weeks and months Riëtta and I went on
several dates. I don’t recall any
details. On one occasion Riëtta came to my parents’
house for a fondue dinner. Some time
before I met her, Riëtta
started renting a one-room apartment. It
was right next to her grandmother’s apartment, on the same floor of the
building. On at least one occasion I
visited Riëtta in
her apartment to help her paint it. No
painting ended up being done, at least not by us. Her father eventually did the painting.
A week after the Muller Potgieter we were again part of a
Northern Transvaal team for an interprovincial cross country meet. The clipping below has the teams. This one was in Pretoria, so didn’t involve
any travel. The men’s race was over the
standard international distance of 12 km.
I wasn’t very competitive over such a “short” distance, especially when
the opposing teams were so strong. I
finished just 33rd out of 40.
 |
| The Northern
Transvaal team for an interprovincial cross country meet in Pretoria on
7/4/1981. The first “o.12” section is
labelled incorrectly. That is the
women’s team. |
Translation of the clipping:
Cross country … provincial meet
The North’s team
By Kobus Scott
The Northern Transvaal selectors
have announced their team to represent the province on Saturday in the
interprovincial cross country meet on the Swartkops course in Pretoria. Teams from Transvaal, Western Transvaal,
Eastern Transvaal, Far Northern Transvaal, Natal, and Griqualand will also take
part n the meet, which begins at 10 AM.
The
team is …
A week later, on July 11, I ran the SABC (South African
Broadcasting Corporation) TV half marathon in Johannesburg. I don’t remember the route but seem to recall
it as having been hilly. Races in
Johannesburg tended to have much stronger fields than those in Pretoria. According to my logbook I finished 33rd
in 1:13:08. Riëtta didn’t do this race,
but her father finished in 1:40:00.
Back in 1978 the International Amateur Athletic Federation
(IAAF) had suspended indefinitely the South African Amateur Athletic Union
(SAAAU; the country’s governing body for track and field, cross country, and
road running) because the IAAF was not satisfied that multiracial athletics
existed at club and regional level. (The
IAAF had expelled the SAAAU in 1976 but changed it to a suspension in 1978
because they had received legal advice that the IAAF Constitution did not allow
expulsion. In 1981 the SAAAU brought a
legal challenge against the IAAF in the High Court in London. (Information from the October 1981 issue of SA
Atleet/Athlete, a magazine produced by the SAAAU.)
My opinion even back then was that the legal challenge was a
waste of time and money. If the High
Court ruled that the IAAF Constitution did not allow expulsion or suspension,
the IAAF would almost certainly have had the necessary votes to enable a change
to their Constitution. I don’t recall
whether the legal challenge was eventually dropped or the High Court ruled
against South Africa, but the suspension remained in place. In addition to track and field, South Africa
was banned from competing in the Olympic Games (in any sport) starting with the
Olympics of 1964. The ban was eventually
lifted in time for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
It is not just Olympic sports that were affected. Rugby and cricket were much more popular
among White South Africans than any Olympic sport. International cricket tours (either to South
Africa or by South Africa to other countries) were affected first. The South African Cricket Union funded seven
“rebel” tours to South Africa, by teams from England, Australia, Sri Lanka, and
the West Indies. The teams were
comprised of mercenaries –mostly players who had represented their countries,
but who were willing to risk being banned from further international
competition because of playing in South Africa.
Within South Africa the teams were billed as national teams of their
respective countries. However, unlike
usual international teams, the players had not been selected by the governing
bodies of the sport in their countries but instead were just those willing to
play in South Africa. Many of the
players, particularly those from the West Indies, had a hostile reception when
returning home, and were ostracized socially and professionally. (In contrast, they were received warmly by
much of the White population in South Africa and many stayed on to play for
domestic teams in the country.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_cricket_tours_to_South_Africa Official rugby tours continued long after
those for cricket had ended but eventually gave way to rebel tours for this
sport too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_and_apartheid
I was opposed to the rebel tours. That was in part because I disagreed with the
attempts to subvert anti-Apartheid efforts.
Also, I recognized that any South African victories over such teams were
rather hollow, because they weren’t legitimate, full-strength teams selected by
their countries.
On July 23 I flew to Port Elizabeth to attend the South
African Statistical Association’s annual conference. Then on July 24 I flew from there to East
London (the South African city, not the eastern side of a little town in
Britain that you may have heard of) for the South African Half Marathon Championships
the next morning.
 |
| Clipping about the
Northern Transvaal team for the 1981 South African Half Marathon Championships. |
Translation of the clipping:
Half Marathon … SA’s in East
London
Nel out, Couper in
By Kobus Scott
Gert Nel of Tukkies [University
of Pretoria] has withdrawn from the Northern Transvaal team to compete in the
SA Half Marathon in East London on Saturday.
He has been replaced by Dave Couper of the Pretoria Marathon Club.
The
three Tukkies now remaining in the team are the Springbok athlete [that is, one
who had been selected for a national team, in this case for a track team] Johan
Fourie [more about Johan below], Buks Annandale and Arrie van Heerden. Joseph Esterhuysen and Gerry Rees are the
other members of the team.
It
is still a formidable team. The strong
team from Transvaal is possibly the only one that can show a clean pair of
heels to Northern Transvaal. [That was
optimistic. Although Transvaal won the
team competition, Northern Transvaal didn’t even manage to be in the top 4.]
Johan
Fourie, who is beginning to run longer races, will be watched with keen
interest.
The
race in East London will comprise seven laps of 3 km each.
 |
| The course for the
half marathon championships. As noted in
the clipping above, it comprised 7 laps of 3 km. East London is on the coast, and the ocean is
in the lower part of the image. The
teams stayed in the Holiday Inn near the right in the image. |
With the laps being so short, my first priority was to make
sure I wasn’t lapped by the leaders! Not
only did I manage that, but I had one of my all-time best races. It probably ranks in my top 5 performances
across all distances. As seen in the
results below, I finished 26th, in 1:08:26, which remains my fastest
half marathon. I was 4th of
the 6 in the Northern Transvaal team, including being ahead of Gerry. As explained a little later, that may have
affected our subsequent training together.
 |
| SA Atleet/Athlete article on the SA Half Marathon Championships. The winner's nickname “Loop-en-Val”
translates to “Run and Fall” (more literally actually “Walk and Fall”) and
referred to his ungainly action which looked like he was falling with every
step. If you read the article carefully,
you may notice that there is no mention of women’s results. I don’t think there were any women. Remember that at the time the longest
distance race for women in the Olympic Games was just 3,000 m. |
On Sunday, July 26, I was back in Pretoria. That was when Riëtta and I decided we
would get married. It was just 5 weeks
after we had met! We didn’t get engaged
until about 3 weeks later, on August 14.
We didn’t make an official announcement about the engagement, but I
bought Riëtta a
diamond stud for one of her ears. That’s
what she wanted, rather than a ring. I
don’t recall when we decided on a date for the wedding. So as to have a honeymoon during a school
vacation, we eventually set it for April 1982.
I was a corrupting influence on Riëtta. When I
met her, she didn’t use to run on Sundays.
Some time after that she decided it would be okay to run on a Sunday as
long as she went to church afterwards.
Well, the very first Sunday that she went running, church fell by the
wayside. That wasn’t my fault though.
 |
| A photo of us from around that time. |
A week after the national championships I ran another half
marathon, in Verwoerdburg
(now Centurion), which is just south of Pretoria. As noted in “Ancyent blog33 1980
gainfully employed” Verwoerdburg was named after the Apartheid-era Prime
Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, who was assassinated in 1966.
Considering that Verwoerdburg is at (moderate) altitude rather than at
sea level, if the distance was accurate my time of 1:08:45 may have been
intrinsically better than the 1:08:26 of the previous week. These races on consecutive Saturdays remain
my two all-time fastest half marathons.
For the first 10 miles I ran shoulder to shoulder with Johan Fourie, who
had been my team-mate the previous week.
Johan then “out-kicked” me over the last 3 miles, finishing 23 seconds
before me. As noted in the clipping
below and also mentioned earlier where I wrote about the 1980 edition of the
race, Johan was a top-class middle distance track runner. Riëtta won the women’s division in
1:30:09. Her father ran 1:39:51
for 105th place out of 182.
 |
| Clipping about the Verwoerdburg
Half Marathon on August 1. |
Translation of the clipping:
Johan Fourie the boss
By Kobus Scott
Johan Fourie, Springbok
middle-distance [track] athlete from the University of Pretoria is busy
developing into a strong long distance runner.
He
followed his 18th position at the South African Half Marathon Championships
in East London last weekend, where he recorded a time of 1 hour 7 minutes, with
a victory on Saturday in the 21 km road race organized by the Verwoerdburg
Marathon Club.
His
winning time of 1:08:22 is a very good time inland [that is, at altitude]. In the process he beat some of Northern
Transvaal’s most seasoned distance runners.
The
race, which started and finished at the Littleton [should be Lyttelton] Manor
High School in Verwoerdburg, took place over three laps. Dave Couper of the Pretoria Marathon Club
finished second, half a minute behind Fourie, with Frans van Niekerk of Defence
in third.
Retha
[sic] Joubert of the Pretoria Marathon Club was the first female athlete to
finish, in a time of 1:30:09.
The
individual results are: …
 |
| First page of the
official results of the Verwoerdburg Half Marathon. (I presume the “G. Rees” in 7th
place was Gerry’s brother Geoff, because it is unlikely that Gerry would have
run so slowly.) |
Translation of the above:
The VMC [Verwoerdburg Marathon
Club] 21 km took place on August 1, 1981 in ideal winter weather. 180 athletes decided to tackle the three laps
through the streets of Verwoerdburg.
Right from the start it was obvious that the competition was going to be
tough and that the winner would need to know his running. John Fourie, the 21-year-old Springbok
athlete from the University of Pretoria ran a brilliant race and succeeded in
taking first place in a time of 68 minutes, 22 seconds. Verwoerdburg Marathon Club offers hearty
congratulations to this outstanding athlete and wishes him every success for
the future.
The
results are as follows … First, Second, Third, First veteran [age 40+], First
woman, First junior
Our
thanks to all athletes who participated in this race and trust that you enjoyed
the race and achieved your goal.
Tracksuit
badges will be mailed to you once we receive them from the manufacturers.
Verwoerdburg
Marathon Club’s prestigious race the “Wally Hayward” [Marathon] will take place
on May 1, 1982 [D.V. = deo volente = God willing]. See you there!!!
When I first started running with Gerry Rees early in 1980,
soon after moving to Pretoria, I was a substantially more experienced runner
than he was. However, he had much more
natural talent than me and was soon able to beat me easily in races. For instance, in the 1981 Muller Potgieter Memorial
Race he finished more than 4 minutes ahead of me (see clipping earlier). Although he was faster, when we trained
together we usually ran next to one another most of the way although, as noted
earlier, he would sometimes pull away near the end.
One of our regular routes in 1981 was out and back along a
trail to a convenience store where we stopped to play the arcade game Scramble
before beginning the return journey.
Scramble is the only arcade game that I ever played regularly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_(video_game). Although I last played it more than 40 years
ago, this YouTube video stirs muscle memory for working the controls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vc-RIkpk40.
As I noted above, by 1981 Gerry used to beat me quite
comfortably in races. So it was probably
a surprise to both of us when I finished (exactly) a minute ahead of him at the
South African Half Marathon Championships.
After that it was as if he needed to prove himself every time we ran
together. He seemed to need to stay half
a step ahead of me. I don’t like feeling
as if every training run is a race, so we gradually ran together less and less
often, though remaining friends. On the
other hand, Gerry started training with Johan Fourie quite frequently, which
was probably good for his running.
Gerry seemed to have a somewhat fragile psyche in other
regards too. For instance, at work he
was offered an opportunity to go on a course to learn more about using
computers. Although some of us tried to
persuade him this would be good for his career, he eventually turned down the
opportunity. (This was still in the days
before personal computers and being able to use a computer was still very much
a novelty.)
Gerry and I knew quite a lot about the running shoes that
were available in South Africa back then.
We could even identify most shoes by the tracks they left. On one occasion we were stumped. We came across some foot (or, rather, shoe)
prints that seemed to be a strange hybrid.
We recognized most of the print, but the heel seemed odd. I speculated half in jest that someone had
had the heels of their shoes replaced.
Lo and behold, a few days later we came across the guy who was wearing
those shoes. He had indeed had a
shoemaker replace the worn-down heels!
Gerry and I wrote a long piece about running shoes for the
PMC newsletter. I have included it all
below for posterity. I wrote the article
based on numerous discussions Gerry and I had when running together. The newsletter editor typed it, so incorrect
information is my fault, but typos are not (including the “heals” rather than
“heels” on the last page).
Maybe I’ll eventually write a whole blog entry on running
shoes. I definitely have enough material
packed away and waiting to be sorted or disposed of. For now, I’ll add a comment on just one of
the shoes mentioned in our article. I/we
wrote that the Adidas “Marathon 80 is by far the best cross-country racing shoe
available in South Africa.” The “Marathon”
in its name implies it was a good shoe for that distance. That is somewhat false advertising as that
was true only “if you are used to shoes without much forefoot cushioning.” It had about as much cushioning as most shoes
from just a few years earlier. However,
in the interim I must have become used to having at least a little more cushioning. I ran one marathon in the Marathon 80s and my
legs took a terrible beating. On the other
hand, they were worn by Grete Waitz of Norway when setting a (disputed) world
record for the marathon in 1980. For
those who don’t know, Grete Waitz was the first female distance running
superstar, winning the World Cross Country Championships five times and the New
York City Marathon NINE times! She set
world records at a variety of distances, including 4 times for the
marathon. Three of those 4 are disputed
because of doubts about the accuracy of the distance for the NYC Marathon in
those years. She died of cancer in 2011
aged just 57. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grete_Waitz.
I wrote above that the Marathon 80s had about as much cushioning
as most shoes from just a few years earlier.
It was no more than 3 years previously that I had run at least one “good”
marathon in the Onitsuka Tiger Jayhawks, which also had very little cushioning
under the forefoot – see photo below.
 |
| Onitsuka Tiger Jayhawks in which I ran at least
one “good” marathon in the late 1970s. |
 |
| Gerry Rees is in the
middle of this photo, wearing a white shirt and with his hands in his
pockets. His wife, Joey, is to the right
of him. The guy in the lower left, who
is sitting and eating, is Buks Annandale, who is mentioned in a few of the
newspaper clippings. The photo is
probably from several years later than 1981 – the umbrella in the background
has the logo of the Magnolia running club, which was formed towards the end of 1981, though initially with
another name. More on that below. |
A week after the Verwoerdburg half marathon, Gerry, Johan
Fourie, and I, plus others whose names I didn’t record in my logbook, ran the
first 20 miles of the JSE 50 km race as a training run. I don’t recall why we did that rather than
just doing our own run.
Two weeks later, on August 22, was the Northern Transvaal
Cross Country Championships, which also served as a try-out for the Northern
Transvaal team for the South African Cross Country Championships to be held in
Cape Town. I finished 13th,
which was good enough to earn selection (perhaps after some of those ahead of
me declined the opportunity).
A further 7 days later, on August 29, I was second in the Roodeplaat
Dam 32 km race in 1:51:46.
According to Andries Joubert’s logbooks there were 196 finishers. He was 89th in 2:30:21. Several days after that I flew to Cape Town
and stayed there for more than a week.
The South African Cross Country Championships were held on
September 5. The men’s race was the
standard 12 km distance. I don’t
have a record of who won or how large the field was. I finished 50th in 42:50. It was apparently hot enough that some
runners had heat stroke and others heat exhaustion – see the article below by
Tim Noakes.
 |
| Running in the 1981
South African Cross Country Championships. |
 |
| One of Tim Noakes’
monthly columns in S.A. Runner was on heat stroke at the Cross Country
Championships. |
The next morning I ran the 16 km time trial organized
by my old club, VOB. I managed to win by
more than 2 minutes. I presume that some
of the others had also run the cross country race the previous afternoon. Chris Sole almost certainly had, considering
that he had travelled from East London.
 |
| Clipping about
winning the VOB 16 km time trial. |
Six days later, on September 12 was the Stellenbosch
Marathon. It was on a new two-lap
course. In the 10 times that I finished
that marathon at least 5 different routes were used. The 1981 event is the only one for which no
part of the race was actually in the town of Stellenbosch. For the third time that year I managed to
improve on my previous best marathon time, finishing 9th in
2:25:54. (I improved on it just once
more after that, by a mere 3 seconds in 1983.
More on that in a subsequent episode.)
This is the race in which Isavel Roche-Kelly set a new South African
marathon record. The second-placed man, Ricky Robinson, was later a team-mate
in a great road relay victory the University of Cape Town had over Stellenbosch
University (more on that too in a later episode).
 |
| Route for the 1981
Stellenbosch Marathon. I don’t know why
the race booklet was printed in this weird color – maybe because it was close
to the color of the sponsoring “Isotonic Game”. |
 |
| SA Runner article about the 1981 Stellenbosch Marathon. |
 |
| First page of the official results booklet for
the 1981 Stellenbosch Marathon. The
winner was Mark Plaatjes (not “Plaatjies” as printed in the results”) who, as
noted in “Ancyent blog30 UCT 1977”, later sought political asylum in the US and
won gold for the US in the marathon at the 1993 World Championships. |
I wrote a few race reports for the PMC newsletter:
Cross Country Round-up
Cross country racing is a sadly
neglected aspect of running in the Northern Transvaal. Is it just a coincidence that Western
Province always beats us in interprovincial road races and their cross country
league races regularly attract fields 10 times the size of those for local
races? Is it a coincidence that every
member of the 1981 Northern Transvaal half marathon team has also represented
the province in cross country?
Cross
country racing is one of the toughest forms of racing – the constantly changing
surface never allows one to settle into the easy rhythm one can usually achieve
in road races. In the Western Province
even the slower runners (3:30 marathoners or slower) appreciate the benefits of
cross country, realizing that to improve one’s marathon times one needs not
only endurance but also strength and speed.
After our first full season of cross country, Gerry Rees and I have just
managed to run our fastest marathons even though our average weekly mileage
over the last few months has been appreciably lower than usual. Although cross country is tough, it makes a
pleasant change from running on the roads – especially when the courses involve
true cross country (such as crossing rivers) rather than being of the
round-and-round-the-rugby-fields type.
Very
few PMC runners even tried to run cross country this year – as far as I know,
of the senior men, only Gerry and I ran more than one league race and both of
us were regular members of the Northern Transvaal team. Gerry was one of the finds of the season –
last year he didn’t even finish in the top ten whereas this year his worst
position in a league race was second.
Koos Sutherland represented Northern Transvaal in the veterans division
[40+ age group] despite claiming that the 8 km that the veterans run is
tougher than Comrades. Riëtta Joubert has been a
regular member of Northern Transvaal teams for a number of years but missed the
SA [Cross Country] Championships this year because of injury.
Next
year I hope to see more PMC members at the league races – entry fees are a
paltry 50 cents. PMC has enough good
runners to come second to Tukkies [University of Pretoria] in the league and
slower runners who have the desire to improve their marathon times should at
least try a few races (not just one).
Stellenbosch Marathon
In contrast to last year’s race.
PMC runners raced very well in the 1981 Stellenbosch Marathon and if we had had
one or two more of our stars there we would probably have won the team prize.
The
new 2-lap course (the fifth different course in the seven years that I have run
the race) must be one of the flattest marathon courses in the world – there is
hardly a noticeable incline at any stage.
Although most people managed good times I am not convinced that such a
flat course is ideal – one has to concentrate on running hard all the time
rather than being able to push up gentle hills and then rest slightly on the
downhills. A gently rolling course also
allows slightly different muscle groups to come into play while reducing the
work-load on other groups.
From
PMC’s point of view the highlight of the day was undoubtedly the fine
performance by Rina Howard whose 2:56 makes her the first PMC woman to break
the 3-hour barrier. Rina provides an
excellent example of what can be achieved with dedicated training and good
coaching. Andrew Greyling showed that he
has recovered from the problems that have plagued his running this year as he
followed up his good showing in the JSE [50 km race] with a 2:21 – his
fastest time in more than a year. I
managed my best time (2:25) and former Western Province marathoner Malcolm
Donald ran 2:31 in his first marathon in PMC colors and showed that he is approaching
his best form again.
SA Half Marathon Championships
PMC’s domination of road racing in
the Northern Transvaal has ended – for the second time this year PMC supplied
only 2 out of 6 members of a Northern Transvaal road-racing team. The University of Pretoria supplied 3 team
members and ATVOS 1.
The
beach-front course comprised 7 laps, with just enough slight undulations to
prevent the monotony of a flat course but without any of the uphill stretches
being steep enough to cause problems.
The race was originally scheduled for the afternoon but was brought
forward in an attempt to avoid the wind.
Unfortunately the race did not start early enough in the morning – the
gentle breeze that greeted runners on rising had freshened by the start of the
race and became more of a nuisance with each successive lap, causing tempers to
fray as runners tried to use one another as wind shields.
Despite
having one of the youngest and least experienced teams in the race, this must
rate as one of the best performances on the road by a Northern Transvaal team,
with the first 4 runners achieving personal best times. Since the championships, a few other local
runners have also run good races and by next year Northern Transvaal should
have an excellent chance of winning a medal in the team event.
Leon
van der Merwe successfully managed, coached, supported, seconded and
transported the team.
A week after the Stellenbosch Marathon I was back in
Pretoria and raced the Hyperama half marathon, finishing second in 1:11:07. By then I had probably raced myself into the
ground. I was selected for the Northern
Transvaal team for the South African Marathon Championships in Potchefstroom on
October 17. (“Potch” as it is known
colloquially, is a city about 40 miles south-west of Johannesburg.) My legs were dead from the start. I made it to about 20 miles and then dropped
out. It would be nearly three months
before I ran another race (other than a few PMC time trials).
Around about that time Riëtta was selected to run for Northern Transvaal in
the Foschini Women’s 10 km National Championships in Cape Town. She finished 18th in 38:26, which
made her the 27th fastest South African woman over that distance in
1981. Second overall was a certain Zola
Budd, who no-one outside South Africa had yet heard of. (Foschini was a chain of women’s clothing
stores.)
 |
| Report on the women’s
10 km championship in the September 1981 issue of SA Atleet/Athlete. |
I am not sure exactly when, but it must have been soon
afterwards that time Riëtta
came down with hepatitis A and was not allowed to run at all for 6 weeks. That may have been why she didn’t also travel
to Cape Town for the SA Cross Country Championships. Not being able to run for 6 weeks triggered
an eating disorder. At the time of our
wedding she was still much too thin.
Earlier I mentioned that there were no running clubs in
Pretoria that were open to all races, with PMC in particular being restricted
to White people. At the PMC annual
general meeting towards the end of 1981, I planned to propose a motion that the
club be opened to all. Before the AGM I
was told that a new club was being formed, partly with the aim of being open to
all races, and that the inaugural meeting was going to be the same evening as
the PMC AGM. I think the timing was
deliberate. I vacillated between
attending the AGM versus the meeting to form the new club. I ended up choosing the former, with the
intention of giving PMC the chance to become open. My motion was not accepted and so I resigned
to join the new club. (Ironically, one
of the PMC members who I had thought was most opposed to allowing Black people
to join later started coaching a large group of Black runners, including
driving them to races and generally providing plenty of assistance to
them. By his deeds he did far more for
Black runners than I did with my agitating.)
The new club was initially called Jacaranda Road Runners,
Pretoria being know as the Jacaranda City because of the many jacaranda trees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretoria#Cityscape. The name was used for a few months, with club
singlets being printed. However, early
the next year the governing body for the sport in the Northern Transvaal
refused to approve the name, because there was already a Jacaranda Marathon
(which I think had last been held two years previously). So it was subsequently decided to change the
name to Magnolia. The new club soon
attracted a large membership and did a good job of catering for both elite
runners and those near the back of the pack.
(Despite PMC’s emphasis on the Comrades (ultra) Marathon, over the next
few years more runners from Magnolia finished in the top 10 in the Comrades
than had ever done so for PMC.)
The new club started its own time trial which, according to
my logbook, was 8.1 km rather than a round 8 km. I ran it for the first time on December 9,
1981. After that on a couple of
occasions I still ran the PMC time trial that I had organized but mostly did
the Magnolia one.
 |
| Singlets for what was first called Jacaranda
Road Runners but then became Magnolia. |
Running summary for 1981:
I logged 3,318 miles, which is less than either 1979 or 1980 (or 1986). I ran 4 standard marathons but no ultras,
though plenty of other races at a wide variety of distances.
Next up 1982, a year with some life-changing events.
