Harrismith isn’t known for a whole lot other than the one-stop. But, it is home to the oldest race in South Africa. A 15k mountain race up the Platberg [flat mountain]. Arguably, one of the toughest 15km races in the world. Today, on a whim, I entered.

My friend, Peirce, had planned on running it for along time. He was a collegiate cross-country runner and is training for a marathon [Disney in January, Boston in the spring...]. Last night I had the crazy idea that we should join him.

Shannon was already thinking about it, so she was in. And through persistent begging, we convinced Crys to join. 

Peirce finished in a little over 90 minutes and Shannon wasn’t too far behind. 

Oh, Crys and I “finished” between the two of them. But, that’s only because we disqualified ourselves and made a little detour. We skipped the mountain part of the race. Really, distance wise it didn’t cut much out of the race. I’m thinking 3k or so. I’m pretty sure we did about 12k.

But, honestly, although I didn’t complete the race, and technically I failed, I’m pretty proud of myself. I’ve never entered a race before. I’ve never been great at running, the most I’ve ever run is about 3 miles and that was a struggle. [Crys and I definitely didn't run the whole thing, but we kept a steady pace. Part of it was on level ground and then it went up rocky foothills to the base of the mountain]. 

Despite skipping part of the race, the feeling running across the finish line was pretty amazing. [oh, and hey, I got a t-shirt AND a metal...]. Here are some more photos…

oh, but, next year, I’m definitely entering AND finishing. 

We live outside of Harrismith. It’s not known for much other than the one-stop (a gas station, a few restaurants and shops) people stop at on the way between Johannesburg and Durban. There are about 7,000 people that live in town, they’re mostly Afrikaaners [Afrikaaners are generally of Dutch decent, so they're white] and English. The neighboring township, Intabazwe, has about 65,000 people living there. Intabazwe has a large Zulu and Basotho population, so both Zulu and Sosotho are spoken in the township [also called a village]. 

Harrismith reminds me of many small towns in America. There are a couple of grocery stories and a few furniture stores. KFC is really popular here, they just revamped the one in town. There are a few other South African chain restaurants, Nando’s [although, I think Nando's is a worldwide chain], Wimpy and Spur. It was named after a British Governor, Sir Harry Smith, and established in the 1800’s. Apparently, Harrismith is “the capital of the country’s top red-meat producing region.” [...um, slightly humerous since I'm a vegetarian...].

Intabazwe has a much larger population than Harrismith, but lacks infastruture. It’s considered a village because it doesn’t have everything you could consider standard in a city. Most shops are small and many are out of people’s homes. Tuck shops are common; they are small convienience stores that carry things like some food, sometimes produce or cleaning products. Shabeens [bars] and bottle shops [liquor stores] are generally the same, either out of someone’s house or a small shop. 

Although places like Cape Town and Johannesburg are generally fairly intigrated, because Harrismith is in such a rural area, it hasn’t kept up with the cities when it comes to integration and diversity [in JoBurg, for instance, it would be common to see a people dating outside of their race, I think I've seen one or two mixed race couples in Harrismith since I've been here]. Although there isn’t blatent hostility, there still seems to be a distinct separation between black and white people*. Part of the reason there aren’t a lot of black people that live in Harrismith, although they probably would be welcomed, is because they can’t afford it.

*Also, as a side note, in South Africa, it’s culturally appropriate to call people black, white and coloured [South African's use British English...]. Coloured is a term not generally offensive here, it was one of the racial groups designated under the Apartheid system of racial segregation, along with “Black”, “White” and “Indian”. 

done. //