In the debut edition of Oliver’s Travels, Oliver Keohane reflects on a two-year journey back to running that inspired a marathon around Table Mountain over the Human Rights Day long weekend.
We’ve stopped to catch our breath after a steady scramble along Missing Link, my favourite trail on Table Mountain. We’re resting under maybe Apostle Six. I always feel like they’re watching me, these impressive 12 Apostles – wise men communicating to tread lightly and gratefully. Everyone shares a smile and a sip of water and resumes puffing along the Atlantic face of the mountain towards the end of a special weekend.
Loving Cape Town’s mountains is not a hot take. The Ultra Trail Cape Town (UTCT) pulls in over 2000 participants from 47 countries each year, and the number of communities organised around dirt tracking with a duckbill hat and at least one piece of Patagonia attire is a good indicator of the growing popularity of trail running. It’s an activity that cleared my head and opened my heart for many seasons before very quickly being taken way.
It’s Christmas morning 2023, and I am unwrapping a familiar, weighty stack of paper. At Christmas, we get books. My parents, both journalists, met at Newspaper House, St George’s Mall. Our home was always filled with books, magazines, newspapers and notes. We got older, and the gifts changed, but there were always books.
This one was gifted by my sister:
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.
I hadn’t run in a year. Three days before Christmas the previous year, I endured the mouthful of tearing my Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) and doing some good damage to the radial and lateral meniscus too. I spent about seven months hobbling around in denial before negotiating an operation date with the specialist for the following year. On Christmas morning, I was two weeks out from my operation, staring down the barrel of a 12-month recovery.
Swak gift.
‘I know, I know,’ my sister said. ‘I think you will find it inspiring.’
I finished the book in five days, just before the operation. Author Christopher McDougall sets out in search of an answer as to why his foot hurts. The result is a 300-page epic, tracking the world’s greatest, most mysterious long-distance runners – the Tarahumara Indians – into the merciless Copper Canyons of Mexico. The investigation-turned-story reads like a novel; it is filled with colourful, deeply interesting characters, and at the time of publication, it popularised the barefoot running phenomenon that questioned everything about the science behind running, running shoes, running techniques and the notion that humans were not born to run.
The incredible story climaxes in the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon, ‘The Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen’. I won’t reveal any more; you deserve equal wonder at how Born to Run unfolds. But there is a scene, in the final race, where America’s greatest ultra runner, Scott Jurek, is in perfect sync next to Tarahumara runner Arnlufo Quimaere. They are both beaming. And it is that joy that proves a golden thread throughout the book, the smile that seems to be the secret to the greatest runners in the world.
I was cleared to start running after three months. I went to the Molteno reservoir with my mom; we jogged together for one and a half minutes, walked an equal measure and repeated seven times, at the foot of the mountain I adore. The next day, I flew to Berlin, not knowing when I would be back.
A city so enthralling a few years earlier, on holiday, proved a different and difficult place to start a life. Especially when life at the bottom of Table Mountain was so good. I never settled in Berlin, but I could run.
I rehabbed my right leg and started running circles in marginally increasing intervals at an athletics track behind the apartment. Eventually, I could string together a few kilometres through the cobbled streets of Prenzlauerberg and work out a pretty enough route through Mauerpark, dodging skaters and skipping over concrete to run past little pockets of green. The environment was a far cry from the crazy landscape we have at our doorstep in Cape Town. But I was smiling.
Nine months after the op, I was back in Cape Town. I was reassessed and given the go-ahead to start trail running again. Luckily, my girlfriend loves the trail too, and when she arrived back in Cape Town, we started stacking up some distances over the summer. Our apartment is close to the Lion’s Head and Signal Hill loops, Kloof Corner, Platteklip Gorge and Oppeslkop. And we’re a ten-minute drive away from my favourite route, Theresa Avenue, where you run beneath the watchful eyes of the 12 Apostles.
Keen on pushing further and connecting our favourite trails, a friend suggested we track the perimeter of Table Mountain. Splitting it into three days seemed a good use of the long weekend, and we figured out that by tracing the main contour paths, with a few adjustments, the distance would come to 42km. Our own Mountain Marathon.
Starting at Kloof Corner, we tackled the town-facing side of Table Mountain, picking away at technical rocky terrain under Woodstock Cave and eventually passing the Blockhouse into the green, shaded routes of Newlands Forest, finishing in Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
The different sides of Table Mountain could be different countries, and our second day was filled with rain, fog and dense foliage. Winding up Cecilia Forest and down into Hout Bay, we continued along the main road before hooking back onto the Mountain near Taragona and enjoying the jungle-like contour above Ruyteplaats that delivers you to the border of Hout Bay.
Day Three was reserved for my favourite: Theresa Avenue. From Llandudno, we charged down the 12 Apostles towards an epic homing beacon in Lion’s Head. The track undulates for seven kilometres before you scale the face of the mountain to connect to the popular Pipe Track route. From there, it’s the home straight.
Pipe Track is technical underfoot, filled with loose rock and tree roots. Running quickly but carefully, we eventually burst out onto Kloof Nek Road. One final climb to touch Kloof Corner, where it all began, before hurtling two kilometres down the road to The Power & Glory; too early for a beer, but well positioned for coffee.
It’s the most I’ve run in my life and probably the best physical use of a long weekend. Petrol and a pair of running shoes aside, it was free. Just a group keen to smile along together for three days. New road and trail running groups are popping up by the day in our beautiful city, catering to different wants and needs.
Most people around the world dodge cars and foot traffic to get their lungs burning, tracing up and down concrete paths and sucking in fumes. But they do it. During lockdown, people ran marathons in their gardens to scratch the itch. So to have the privilege to run in Cape Town… You have to believe that we were born to run. Even if you crawl, you get to crawl these mountains.
Explore more of Oliver’s Travels on Getaway and @oliverkeohane_
Check out the Strava routes: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3
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Picture: Supplied
