On Sabbatical

Aerobics is a sport, okay?

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Am experiencing a bit of housewife panic on this fine Wednesday morning. I have just returned from my very strenuous tennis lesson and now I have to figure out how I’m going to feed a dinner party full of cyclists tonight. Fiftten people, to be precise – including a few cycling side-kicks like myself, thank God. Because when I say “cyclists” I don’t mean people who like to hop on their bikes for a spin along the Braamfontein Spruit or who sometimes head to Northern Farms for a family outing. No, I mean psychotic people who do things like the Cape Epic (8 days) and the Panorama Tour (4 days) and other crazy events where you're on your little two-wheeler for over 100km per day – i.e. the real butt-numbing stuff. Which is fine if that’s what makes them happy – just don’t torture me.

Which brings me to the reason for my panic. The Husband has this thing that he does when we’re in the company of uber-sporty people. He knows full well that he’s married to the girl who did aerobics as her compulsory school sport. (Seriously, I’m not even kidding about this. York High in George was surprisingly progressive back in the ’90’s). Anyway, I think that The Husband really is okay with the fact that he married Aerobics Girl and not Iron Woman.

Generally.

Except when we're in the company of uber-sporty people. Often, "this thing that he does" happens when we're with The Husband’s super sporty clients. The conversation will be flowing between The Husband and these uber athletes – it’ll be about the Comrades, Iron Man, the Argus, the Two Oceans – any, or all, of those good things. Then the one client will describe their best ever Iron Man time and The Husband will talk about his latest cycle race and another client will bemoan his Comrades injury. And then – even though I’ll be doing a great job of pretending to be fascinated by the topic – The Husband will do something to to try and prove that (contrary to all indications) his wife is not a total couch potato. "The thing" goes like this:

"Natalie's run a half marathon".

There is dead silence and I can see the bankers trying not to spit out their drinks in disbelief. By now everyone is staring at me and I'm wanting to crawl under the table, but I have to be polite so instead I splutter:

"Er, yes. Once. Once upon a time, really. Never again, though! Hahahahahaha."

And then I down my glass of wine in an act of defiance. But at this point, The Husband has only just got going and invariably he starts banging on about my one and only sporting achievement. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that he's telling some of the most hardcore sporting psychos out there – people for whom a half marathon is a weekend training run. What's worse is that he's been dining out on this story for two years now and I get the distinct impression he'll be doing so for the next few decades. That's practically a given, because I doubt I'll ever subject myself to another half marathon (I really feel like I've ticked that box).

I can just picture one of The Husband's client functions in 2025. "Natalie's run a half-marathon!" he'll announce proudly during a sporty discussion. "Really? When was that?" one of the polite clients will ask and I'll have to mumble into my wine glass, "Er, I think it was 2008". And then the client will do the Maths and there'll be an awkward silence amongst everyone except for The Husband who'll be trying to remember my time for this historic event.

I fully expect tonight to be one of these nights. Although The Husband's plan is to plough these Sporty Spices with his signature drink: The Great South African Suitcase. Over the years, The Husband has successfully exported the GSAS to at least 6 countries – from Scandinavia to Singapore. Granted, passion fruit has often had to be replaced with OJ, but the effect is the same – he gets the party started.

I wonder what you get when you cross 10 super fit, uber athletes with 40 suitcases? I guess I'll soon find out…

Mamil Wife

Cape Epic Day 8: Lost on Lourensford

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Sunday 28 March 2010. The big day had arrived. Not only was it the FINAL day of being a soigneuse/ cycling slave; it was also the day of The Maiden Trail Run. Oh, and it was the last stage of the Cape Epic for the boys.

On registration day for the Epic, my fellow soigneuse and I discovered a reason to give ourselves licence to moan, feel important, eat lots, be stressed etc. The reason was a 12km run. There was a 6km option but we decided to sign up for the longer one to get more airtime during the dinner table conversations on heart rate, lactic acid, carbo-loading, aches and pains and other such phenomenally fascinating topics. In truth, we weren’t too stressed about the run.

Initially.

Then I heard that it was an off-road run on Lourensford Wine Estate that would take us half-way up the Simonsberg Mountain and back down again. The Husband suggested that a 12km trail run was probably “roughly equal to” to an 18km road run. That’s when the panic truly set in. Only, I’d been moaning so much and milking the 12km thing so extensively, that no-one took me seriously once I was in genuine terror mode.

Pride alone got me to strut to the start of the run on that Sunday morning. As we waited for the gun to go off, I surveyed the competition. It was a fairly small group so there was no seeding – just one mass start. This meant, that instead of being in Group J with all sorts of shapes, sizes and ages, we were standing amongst some of the leanest and meanest most athletic-looking people I’ve ever seen. There was even a bunch of sports nerds in matching uniforms with the following logo embroidered on their backs: The Drinking Club with a Running Problem. They weren’t fooling me for one second. They looked as though their body fat was about 6%. Between them.

Sh**

And then the gun went off and this herd of elite athletes took off. Quite literally. Almost immediately, we had to hurtle up a bl**dy hill while we were in full view of hundreds of spectators. And the competition was SPRINTING. I kid you not. So was my fellow soigneuse. She’d kindly offered to run a chilled race with me, but I honestly could not blame her for bolting right in the beginning. I mustered up every ounce of energy I could and I hauled myself up that little hill as though my life depended on it. Well, my dignity certainly depended on it. Within seconds, my heart rate was through the roof and I’d broken my personal average speed record. I was heaving and spluttering and could barely breathe. But that was not the worst of it, with every step I took, about 10 people FLEW past me. It might have been more like 20 people but they were going so fast, they were blurred. After about 500m, so many runners had passed me that I started to wonder if there was anyone behind me. “Oh my God,” I thought. “I could literally come last in this race. Absolutely stone last.” Another blur of people flew past. Was there anyone left now? I had no idea but I knew that if I turned around to see the motorbike marshall, I might just fall down and die of embarrassment. So I devised this little survival mantra and started repeating it to myself.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Whatever you do – DON’T LOOK BACK!

While I was chanting away like Lot’s wife, I was passed by a seriously out-of-shape chick with an arse the size of Simonsberg. She didn’t fly by, she just steadily sidled past me.

That was it. I was going to beat her if it was the last thing I did.

Incidentally, I did beat her. But not through athletic ability. Once we were out of sight of spectators and hidden amongst the vineyards, I found my fellow soigneuse waiting for me. When I saw her, I felt it was safe to turn around. Mercifully, there were some runners behind us. Granted, they tended to be septuagenarians or carrying up to 30kg in excess weight, but the point was: WE WEREN’T LAST!!! And so we began the long walk/run up the mountain. And then down. And then up some more. And some more. And then down. Basically we were zig-zagging up and down the mountain in between the vineyards. Around the 6km mark, the route sort of looped back on itself. This did seem a bit odd but the signs were telling us to go straight, so we did. The next thing a bunch of runners just in front of us starting shouting at us. They told us we’d taken a wrong turn and that we’d missed a section. I thought they were kidding, so I just grinned at them and carried on shuffling up the mountain. But they were serious – somehow we’d managed to miss a section of the route. This sort of made sense because I didn’t recognise anyone around us anymore. Crap. We had two choices: we could either continue, having effectively cheated at an amateur trail run or we could run back down the mountain and try to figure out the correct path to get back up. So as you can see, it was a no-brainer – we carried on with our new group.

Even though I later figured out that we’d skipped about 1.5km, we were still nowhere near the super elite, lithe front-runners. This was really fortunate because the middle-of-the-pack group we found ourselves with now didn’t give a toss that we had this massive unfair advantage over them. There were three super friendly middle-aged ladies who were chatting away and more than happy to include us in their group. And then there were two 30-something class clowns who were more interested in chatting us up than turning us in. I reckon their mums had told them that a running club might be just the place to “meet someone nice, dear.” Clearly they hadn’t been as successful as their mums had made out, because they were in full-on spade mode. They didn’t seem to care whose attention they attracted out of the 5 females around them – anyone who laughed at their jokes would do just fine. Lucky for me, I can’t speak when I do cardio-vascular exercise, let alone laugh. When our friend realised that his jokes weren’t going down too well, the leader of the the little duo changed tack. He heard one of the women cursing litter-bugs as she picked up a runner’s coke cup and so he launched into a long speech about how littering runners should be lynched. Now he had this woman’s full attention. Nice going, buddy.

Finally, 10.5km later, the finish line was in sight. I can’t say that I was gagging to run another 1.5km at that stage but I was nonetheless racked with guilt. I had visions of being reported by the chick with big butt whom I’d now beaten illegally. I felt as though I had the scarlet letter “C” around my neck and was convinced the crowd was about to start chanting “Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!”. I was so convinced I was about to be bust that I started explaining myself to the volunteer at the finish line who was recording runners’ positions as we came in. “No, no, don’t take my name! I didn’t finish the race. I mean I did finish, but I skipped a section. Not on purpose. OBVIOUSLY. It’s just I followed the wrong sign and then I couldn’t find the right one, so actually I’m not supposed to be in this position. It’s my first trail run and I’m very unfit…” I thought that if I gave her the full, honest sob story she’d just omit to write down my race number and that would be it. But she was taking her volunteer role very seriously. In fact, I don’t think she’d heard a word I’d said to her. All she wanted was the race number pinned to my back and before I knew it, she had grabbed hold of my waist and spun me around, before ripping off my race number and screaming at me to “move on!” I was shoved across the finish line and presented with my finisher’s medal: a wine glass adorned with the Lourensford logo. It might not have been much compared to the flashy yellow and gold Cape Epic medals that the guys were presented with, but hey – try drinking beer your beer out of your medals, boys…

Mamil Wife

Cape Epic Day 7: Botrivier Goes Bos

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On Day 7, I decided to crawl back into bed once the boys had left at 6:30am. We were in our B&B in the thriving metropolis of Botrivier – in a delightful guest house in one of the four residential roads that comprise the town. I was on my way back to wonderland when someone down the road decided to throw a party. Seriously. Blaring bl**dy music at the crack of bl**dy dawn. Who does that? Someone in Botrivier, that’s who.

Eventually, both my fellow soigneuse and I gave up trying to have a lie-in and got up and put on our running kit. We’d been training all week for our very own little epic – at 12.5km trail run starting and ending at the Cape Epic’s finish line. Still yawning but with our ears throbbing from the music, we set off down the road and ended up running to the beat of Botriver’s Saturday morning jam.

About half-way through our run, we thought we heard a loudspeaker. This got us thinking – perhaps there was some kind of event going on? Yes – that must be it.

Then, about 500m from home, we saw a bunch of cyclists flying by. Could the “event” be the Epic? And could the music be coming from a spectator point? It slowly dawned on us: there was a spectator point literally on our doorstep and we didn’t even know. We debated jogging down to the point to wait for the guys to come past, but we decided breakfast was a bit of a priority. We’d go and have a squizz after a warm shower and a croissant.

About two hours later we drove the 0.3km to the water point (the return journey consisted of a LARGE up-hill). It seemed a little quiet so we asked someone what level of rider was coming past just then. “No level,” we were told. “Everyone’s come through this point.”

Oops.

And to think we could have upped our spectator stats to 2 water points out of a possible total of 16, instead of just 1. Oh well. 1 would have to do. We had a ladies lunch to get to at Peregrine Farmstall in Grabouw. Smell you at the finish, boys.

Mamil Wife

Cape Epic Days 5 & 6: Searching for Stuyvies in the Winelands

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Because the Epic was so, well, epic – i.e. LONG, they needed MC’s to keep the crowds entertained and up-to-date. The race employed three such lads. The first – and by far the funniest – was a guy called Dan Nicol who really did keep us entertained with his dead-pan humour. I forget the name of the second dude – probably because entertainment is not really his strong point, but he did a good job keeping us up-dated about who was arriving, in which position, etc, etc. The third guy was a German import who went by the stage name of…wait for it… “Mike Mike”. I kid you not. If he was a hugely ironic dude, then perhaps you’d smile when you heard his name, but his commentary was literally cringe-inducing, which made his stage name even worse. Not only was the poor guy NOT entertaining at all, he also had a penchant for techno-techno-techno-techno. As in the song “no, no limits…” from 1993. And when I say 1993 I am not exaggerating – I have vivid memories of bopping to that song at the back of a school bus in Std. 7.

For some reason, Mike Mike was always on duty for the most crowd-pulling aspects of the race like the finish of each day. Day 5 was a little different in that it was time-trial day, so all the top cyclists started later in the day, after the regular people. As a result, The Husband, his partner and my fellow soigneuse and I were sitting on the grandstands of the Worcester Gymnasium, watching the pro’s take off and listening to Mike Mike and 2 Unlimited. My head was throbbing from the super loud techno and I wanted to go back to the Nuy Valley and drown my boredom in a bottle of lovely local wine. The Husband, however, was fully into the race.

“Oh my God, that’s Helmut Schlusserdorf!” he’d scream.

I could see a skinny, little dude in a pair of tight pants and a funny shaped hard hat, but he looked exactly like all the other little skinny dudes in tight pants. The Husband was beside himself – he was acting as though we’ve just seen George Clooney in the flesh.

And then he’d go: “No ways! That’s Siegfied von Underheim about to start the time trial!”

Whatever. Wake me up if you see Lance Armstrong.

This went on for several hours before we were finally able to head home to our lovely guest house in the Hex River Mountains. A short time-trial day meant something glorious: an afternoon kip. I wasn’t going to miss it for the world. Unfortunately, it was over all too quickly because before I knew it, it was 4:45am on Day 6 and we were back to the 8 hours-of-cycling-a-day routine. Day 6 saw the race village move from Worcester to Oak Valley Wine Farm outside Elgin. Driving there to pick up the boys, I could sense that I was getting closer to Cape Town because it was raining. And I was in a tearing hurry. I’d been swanning around with a schoolmate in Stellies – I managed to fit in a spot of pilates at her studio – and I had NO IDEA it’d take me so bl**dy long to get over Sir Lowry’s. So I tore through the mud into Oak Valley and ground to a halt at the race village at 3:30pm on the dot. The Husband had said they’d be in at 3:30 but I still had to half-run, half limp about 2km across the grounds to the finish of the race. Which would’ve been fine if I’d remembered to buy his friggin’ cigarettes in Stellenbosch. But of course, I hadn’t. Normally, I faced a tired, ravenous and slightly grumpy husband. Now, I’d be facing a tired, ravenous, sopping wet husband, gagging for a cigarette.

Sh**.

As I was loping over the grounds I scanned every single human being in sight for signs of a smoker. A marshall, a girlfriend, a parking attendant, SOMEONE! But all I could see were sporty types in Cape Storm and First Ascent gear. And absolutely no Peter Stuyvesant. The Husband knew this, which is why he’d asked me 30 times to buy cigarettes on the way. Eventually, I decided to take a flyer and went to the “beer tent” (First Ascenters do drink beer, apparently). The barman’s response was, “you’re going to be hard-pressed to find cigarettes in these parts.” Thanks, mate!

But there was something about the tone of his voice or the glint in his eye that got me thinking…

“You don’t smoke by any chance, do you?” I asked him.

“Actually,” he replied, “I do. And I happen to have a brand new box with me.”

“Really? What brand?” I almost knew he was going to say Peter Stuyvesant before the words were out of his mouth…

“How much?”

Again with the glint in his eye.

“One hundred bucks and that’s my final offer.”

This man had himself a deal. Now I know what I’ll be doing at next year’s Epic. I’m going dress up like Patricia Lewis and I’m going to strut around the race village brandishing a burning fag. Then I’m going to supply a secret stash of ciggies to the all the undercover smokers, at a huge premium. Suddenly, being a soigneuse has some fringe benefits…

Mamil Wife

Cape Epic Day 4: To Worcester It Is

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On Day 4 of the Epic, the riders left Ceres to make their way to Worcester, where the race village would be based for the next two days. Thus far, my fellow soigneuse and I had successfully avoided all spectator points. But on this day we joined The Parents-in-Law and the rest of the crowds at “Vantage Point 2”. Unfortunately for mountain bikers, the sport is about as spectator friendly as scuba diving, so when I say “crowds”, I mean three other cycling widows and their bored-stiff kids. When we emerged from the warmth of the car, it felt as though a mini tornado had hit the outskirts of Worcester and we stood behind the spectator railings (lest the over-excited mobs storm the riders), munching on mouthfuls of dust and waiting for our boys to come past.

At some point…
When you’re ready…
Aaaaaaanytime now, boys…
A leeeeetle chilly out here…
Now would be good…
Here they come!
Where?
Thzzere! (mouthful of dust)
Where?
Oops – not them. (eyes full of dust) Seriously, NOW would be good!

And so we stared at the portaloo across from us, teeth chattering, matted hair in eyes, hoping, praying, that they were just around the corner. Note that we didn’t stare at this portaloo by choice. We stared at it because the thing was basically facing us – just slightly to the left of where the riders were coming past. To make matters worse, I was desperate for the loo – I crossing my legs and clenching my teeth but there was just no way I was going to strut out from the “crowds”, be ushered along by the marshals and wave to everyone as I entered the plastic vault to do my business.

An hour and a half later, and a bursting bladder later, the boys pulled in with some lame excuse for their tardiness – something about a “cross-wind”. Whatever. We’re freezing here!

Of course, they said “hi” for all of 12 seconds and then sped off into the dust storm.

It was all worth it, though, once Day 4’s riding was over and we started heading out to our guest house to some place I’d never heard of: the Nuy Valley. I still can’t pronounce that word. Some of the locals told us that “Nuy” rhymes with “play” and others that it rhymes with “dewey” as in “dewey decimal system”. No matter how it’s pronounced, it’s absolutely gorgeous. The valley is framed by the beautiful Hex River Mountains and there are vineyards almost as far as the eye can see. You could be in the South of France, except that the wine costs next to nothing. And better still, it’s out of this world.

Definitely worth standing in a dust storm for…

Mamil Wife

Cape Epic Days 2 & 3: Butt Sores & Friendly Boers

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If you think that chivalry is dead, you need to move to the Ceres region. For the first three days of the Epic, we found ourselves in Op-die-Berg in the Koue Bokkeveld. (Yes, that’s really what it’s called). I don’t think you could really call it a town. It literally consists of two roads: one residential and one commercial. The commercial road boasts no fewer than two drankwinkels and a Spar. I don’t know if it’s the proliferation of liquor outlets but the residents could not have been friendlier.

We checked into Oppi Berg (not a typo) Guest House, owned and run by the Hanekom family, aka Oom, Tannie, Boetie, Sussie and Boetie’s wife. And each family member was more charming than the next. In fact, I think Tannie’s biefstuk may have saved The Husband’s life. I brought him back to the B&B at 10pm at the end of Day 1, battered and bruised by The Masseuse and just generally looking miserable. After a few bites of rump, he had regained his sense of humour and forgotten about his debilitating ITB from just an hour earlier.

Subsequent meals featured not one, but two types of meat. We’d be served chicken AND lamb the one night and then pork AND beef the next. Luckily, the surrounding dirt roads provided gorgeous, peaceful running routes for the two soigneuses, since every time we crossed paths with Tannie Aletta, she offered to feed us.

At lunch on Day 2 we shared the dining room with four friendly, khaki-clad farmers who’d tootled into town for Tannie Aletta’s famous grub. I honestly think I spotted one of them tipping his hat at us as he walked in. Before we knew it, we were “aangename kennis-ing” left, right and centre and 20 minutes later we’d been invited on a “farm tour”. Later that day, we had another taste of local chivalry. We were headed for Ceres to go and fetch the boys when a piece of industrial plastic flew up and got caught in our front fender. We didn’t feel like stopping and figured we’d simply rip it out when we got to Ceres 40 minutes later. But just as we were entering the outskirts of the town, we saw a farmer in a bakkie behaving rather strangely. He pulled over in front of us and seemed to be making hand signals at us. Ever the alert Joburg gals, we assumed he was the local loon and we put foot. Only to have him follow us. He was flashing his lights madly and seemed to be signalling for us to pull over, which we eventually did. He then appeared at our window, tipping his hat and smiling broadly, before ripping out the piece of plastic now wedged in between our front grill. He politely explained how dangerous this was as it would overheat, melt and cause all sorts of complications. And then he smiled, tipped his hat and was gone.

Then it was back to real life with “where’s my burger” and “go get my bike from the wash-bay” as we met our boys at the finish. “It’s fine,” I thought. “The Masseuse will exact revenge on our behalves”.

When we arrived at The House of Pain, we were greeted by the now slightly more familiar sight of near-naked men. But this time, one of the riders (a respectable dentist, I might add) had his jocks whipped into a wedgy to form a lovely thong up his butt. Not only did this reveal his taut bum cheeks, it also exposed the nastiest-looking boil-like butt sore I’ve ever seen. Ouch. And then on top of it, he was wincing in pain as The Masseuse dug her elbows into his quads. If only his root canal patients could see him now.

The Masseuse interrupted her work to thrust a box of Epsom Salts at me and to tell me to get The Husband into bath in these salts. I decided not to beat around the bush and told her that The Husband doesn’t bath.
“Just tell him he must,” she said, looking at me as thought I was nuts.
“I’ll tell him but he still won’t bath,” I said.
She looked at me as if to say, “what do you mean he doesn’t do what you tell him to do?”
I just stood there, so she grabbed the Epsom Salts in one hand, the Husband in the other and marched him off to the bathroom.

I heard running water and then The Masseuse emerged from the bathroom sans The Husband. I actually think she may have locked him in.

Welcome to the Boland. Where the men treat the women like ladies and the women take no sh**.
Love it.

Photo: The “Bum Clinic” inside the medical tent at the race village.