The LIV Village Race, WESSA Trail Run and Tobie’s Karkloof write up

#92 A patch of green grass surrounded by fences of steel, filled to the brim with bright colours and soft lights. We stood like colourful christmas trees with plugs in our hands waiting for the moment we would shine. The earthy rhythmic music was filling our souls like steaming coffee poured from a height, touching the curves of our bodies and splashing over our throbbing hearts. A slow moving hip dance of light and darkness. Buzzing electric energy filled the air. Then with a roar we flowed into the darkness like red hot burning lava, as our names reached up to the brightest stars. The man on the moon watched in silence as we motioned into a single track train of light, sound and laughter. Hugging the sides of the Karkloof plantations, with grey white dust rising from the path, we disappeared. Each towards their own destiny filled with dreams, passion and uncertainty. We own our own hearts, but we also own our pain. As the night stretched and shrunk between the sounds of rushing water, croaking frog choirs and chewing milk cows, I found that I also owned my own physical pain. I could see it was a baby crocodile called “Old Friend” with it’s sharp teeth cutting deep into my left heel and ankle. A purple croc with yellow dots, and on its back was a orange duck quacking karaoke songs and Go Go Go! Thus I got left behind not to see the army of glowing one-eyed warriors reach up the mountains and stringing the paths through the trees. Green eyeshade black spiders, mom and four blue-eyed baby jackals and an endless stream of happy faces and smiles, so many beautiful smiles came my way later. Friends with arms like magnets hugging with joy and talking excitedly. The rocks, the rivers, the trees and the splashes of pink, white and ever so bright colourful flowers came and went as we passed from darkness to light and back into the night. The beautiful sounds of hundreds of birds and thousands of frogs took our ears by the hand and led them on a journey of joy. At the break of dawn I turned on top of a hill and looked back at where the hidden sun was bit by bit spray painting the mountain sky in soft purple, pink and glorious orange. As its rays reached us an ocean of green erupted from the dark trees around us and our eyes surfed the beauty into our souls. Later the heat and the sleep monsters would come for us as we dragged our tired bodies stumbling and mumbling through Benvie Gardens, Mbona, Bushwillow, Rockwood, Karkloof Country Club, Karkloof Falls loop and home where a tired crew and photographer awaited our presence. Up and down the valleys of falling water and stumbling rocks, past green pastures of black and white dairy cows, on curving paths through perfectly planted plantation trees towering like green tipped assegais, gravel roads stringed with aloha flowers between slippery rocky rivers, past beautiful child lined fishing dams bleeding pure seethrough canal water into each other, to the muddy mossy path underneath the cathedral of silent gaints holding up the sky in their pretty flowered pantoffels. As the mud and dust covered warriors filled with magic came home, some broken, some triumphant there wasn’t a dry eye as stories flowed and Karkloof 100 mile buckles gleamed. Happiness is adventure, community, friendship, gratitude and humilty served in oversized portions with burning eyes and joyfilled smiles. Forever changed in failure and success the brave will live to fight once more. We all stood stripped in front of ourselves, looking at who we really are, but finding who we could be if we truly believed that brokenness is only the beginning…