The Otter Ramble (42km trail run, Sunday 2 October 2011)

It all started about six months ago when a friend of mine in Cape Town emailed to let me know that he (as well as another friend who lives in New York) had managed to arrange entries for the Otter Trail Run.

I did of course know about the Otter, but to be frank, I’d never really had the urge to do the hike (or participate in the trail run in its first two years of existence – road running was my thing, and an annual pilgrimage to the Two Oceans provided more than enough endorphins to keep me going).
In a moment of boredom (or was it inspiration?) I did however sneak a peek at the website – and before I knew it, the bug had bitten. This year’s race had of course already been way over-subscribed, so all I could do was to join the waiting list at position number several hundred and plenty, and hope to eventually crack that coveted entry in the next few years (SANparks only allow 400 people to do the race each year, split between a faster group doing the “Race” on one day and a slower group doing the “Ramble” two days later).
A couple of months after joining the waiting list, I got an email from the organisers, enquiring as to whether I was still interested, as they were about to have a lottery for 5 places which had become free.
What a question!
Not only did I confirm my interest, I also sent them a begging letter that my 4 year old daughter (who knows exactly how to get her way) would have been proud of. I will never know whether it was simply the luck of the draw, or whether my heartfelt plea actually made any difference, but a week later I got another email, congratulating me on “winning” the lottery and giving me 48 hours to confirm my Ramble entry.
From then on I was hooked. I had a reasonable base fitness, but had never done proper trail running before – this clearly needed to be rectified immediately. I also did a bit of gym training (lunges, squats, burpees and some core exercise) as well as the dreaded Westcliff steps once a week (all 204 of them, up to 8 times per session…). Unfortunately I couldn’t train for most of July due to flu and a seemingly unshakable cough, but with a pretty good August and decent September, I was ready to ramble a couple of weeks before the event.
And then disaster struck. Having survived the koppies at Groenkloof and Hennops as well as the Jonkershoek mountains without as much as spraining an ankle, I had my first (and to date most serious) fall of my trail running career – and it happened in my own living room, of all places.
Carrying my daughter on my shoulders on the way to her bath, I tripped over a coffee table in the dark, if you can believe that. No, I wasn’t intoxicated: the furniture had been moved by carpet cleaners a day earlier, and I’d forgotten all about it… until that fateful moment. Desperate to break my daughter’s fall (she’s fine, thanks for asking), I twisted my back which in turn pulled practically every other muscle in my body out of alignment… leading to a few choice swear words and numerous sessions of physiotherapy in the last two weeks before The Big Race.
All’s well that ends well, however, and in spite of the coffee table injury, I eventually managed to take up my place in the Ramble last weekend. Unfortunately my friends from Cape Town and New York never made it to the start: after having successfully inspired my lottery-assisted entry, both of them ended up withdrawing due to illness and injury.
Because the Otter route is a single track virtually from the beginning, it would not be practical for all competitors to start at the same time. In order to solve this minor problem, everyone had to do a short and sharp time trial (the “Prologue”) over approximately 4km of fairly treacherous terrain the day before, based on which we were then seeded (with groups of 4 starting at 30 second intervals).
We had near-perfect conditions for the Prologue, but the weather started changing that afternoon and when we eventually sat down for the final race briefing the evening before the race, the rains came. At least this would cool us down the next day, I said to myself, trying to remain positive…
At 5:00 the next morning, we were picked up from Nature’s Valley and shuttled to the start of the event at Storm’s River Mouth. The nervous energy in the minibus was palpable.
Based on my seeding, I started at 6:10 – in approximately the first 20% of the field. But in hindsight, I probably made a schoolboy error in running the Prologue too hard.
I quickly paid the price as I could sense being “pushed” by some of the runners who had started just after me. This in turn meant that when I started scaling some of the sharp rocks just a kilometre or so from the start, I was rushing… and before I knew it, I had my first fall.
My initial relief when I realised that my legs were fine in spite of the fall was quickly superceded by a minor panic attack when I saw the blood gushing from my left hand. I had cut myself just under the thumb – about 2 centimetres across, and pretty deep, from what I could see.
“Idiot!”, I thought to myself when I assessed the wound. After all these months of preparation and anticipation, traveling all the way down from Gauteng to the Southern Cape, spending loads of money on kit and entry fees and travel expenses… and here I am less than 10 minutes into the event, and I cannot even keep myself upright on the rocks! Do I even deserve to be here in the first place?
But not a problem, I soon thought: I was after all carrying tampons and strapping for exactly this kind of eventuality. It did however take me a while to get the tampon out of its wrapping (I only had one good hand at this point, remember, and I can honestly say that this is the first tampon that I’ve opened in my life). But eventually I got the job done, arrested the blood flow, strapped it all up, and I could start running again.
My fall happened to take place only a few meters from where Kelvin Trautman (the official race photographer) was standing at the time. Maybe that’s precisely why he had positioned himself there in the first place, realising exactly where the route gets interesting and mishaps were therefore likely to happen (like those vulture tow trucks at busy intersections on some of the main roads)… but be that as it may, he took some choice pictures of yours truly with outstretched bloody hand. He also helped to cut my plaster (I had only one good hand, remember) – so thank you, Kelvin; I look forward to the picture.
About two hours later, when I was approaching Scott hut (the second overnight point for those who hike the Otter in five days rather than ramble it in one, about 12 and a half kilometres into the route), the blood was starting to ooze through the plaster and I realised that I would have to up the ante: time for superglue to come out of Camelbak and liberally apply to wound.
The glue burnt like fire, but it worked like a charm: the flow of blood was arrested pretty much instantaneously. It did have an effect on the rest of my race though – healthy hands may not be quite as important as functioning feet in order to finish the Otter, but you actually do use your hands a lot on a route such as that.
You need your hands, for example, when climbing rocks, as well as for holding onto tree trunks and branches and roots next to the route (especially on some of the steeper downhill bits). Furthermore, in wet conditions such as those that we experienced on the day, nearly everyone will slip and fall at least once or twice (even if it is only a relatively minor sit-on-your-bum exercise) – and guess what everyone uses instinctively to break their fall?
Needless to say, therefore, that I re-injured my hand a number of times, and the superglue had to come out time and again.
It is very hard to describe to someone who hasn’t done the Otter how tough it really is. The fact that it’s a total of 42 kilometres over rugged coastline doesn’t even begin to tell the story. Neither does 2,700 meters of vertical ascent paint the full picture (even though that equates to scaling Table Mountain no less than four times on one day). You should also bear in mind that one needs to be totally self-sufficient in this race: it’s up to each competitor to decide how much food and drink and energy gels he or she carries along the route; you don’t have the luxury of water tables every couple of kilometres.
You hardly ever get into a proper running rhythm on the Otter: if you’re not clambering over rocks, you are going up or down steep stairs, crossing rivers or navigating boulders and beach sand – I estimate that I actually ran less than 25% of the route. This also goes some way towards explaining why I took the better part of a day to complete the event: my finishing time of 9:13 placed me in 104th position out of 165 finishers on the day. That works out to an average of over 13 minutes per kilometre, and I doubled my previous slowest time over the marathon distance.
The conditions on the day of our Ramble were also pretty extreme. It rained consistently until the afternoon, which meant that all the footpaths turned into muddy streams, requiring additional concentration not to slip and fall every few yards. According to the organisers, this probably added between 30 and 60 minutes to everyone’s total running time.
In addition to being tough, the route is also pretty dangerous in some parts. I say this not only because I fell and induced a tampon-and-superglue injury early on, but I honestly believe that there’s a number of the technical (i.e. rock-climbing) bits where you can seriously hurt yourself if you’re not careful. The most telling example of this is just after the Bloukrans crossing, where they have tied some rope to the rockface (which is virtually vertical at that point) in order to assist one’s ascent. It’s one thing climbing that with a Camelbak weighing 3kg; I’m not sure I’d really enjoy doing it as part of a “normal” hike with a backpack of 15kg or more.
Speaking about Bloukrans: I have to say that the thought of crossing this river (approximately 50 meters of deep water, 30km into the race) gave me some sleepless nights in the build-up to the event. I may not be the best runner that’s ever taken to the trails, but I’m definitely The Worst Swimmer In The World.
Fortunately my timing was near perfect: I arrived at the river just after midday, within half an hour of low tide – which meant that I could wade through, chest-deep in the water, and without having to resort to a slow breast stroke (in full kit, and with Camelbak, in case you were wondering…).
But some of those behind me were not so lucky. About an hour after I had crossed, the Bloukrans came down in flood (due to the steady rain of the previous 24 hours) and nearly took one of the competitors out to the deep sea. Fortunately there were professional lifesavers on duty, and all turned out OK – but those participants who arrived at the river subsequent to this had to be re-routed.
At the risk of stating the very obvious, the Otter is probably one of the most beautiful trails in the world. The fact that you run through a national park means that nature conservation is the highest possible priority. The coastline, the rock formations, the vegetation, the white sand and perfectly round boulders on the beaches are plentiful and pristine. I never saw an otter though.
I picked up a couple of beautiful, rare shells for my daughter in one of the coves that we passed through – although in hindsight I’m not sure that I was allowed to? Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footsteps – that’s the golden rule, I seem to remember… I hope I’m not banned from the event in future years due to this slightly absent-minded transgression?
The last 10km of the race is comparatively easy – a relatively flat run along the plateau, followed by a descent down to Nature Valley’s sandy beach and a bit of dirt road. And then, just when you think it’s over, you come around the final bend and realise that you have to cross the lagoon via a fairly rickety floating bridge about 50 metres long.
By the time I got there, the tide had come in, and the bridge was somewhat submerged. As you can imagine, unstable legs meeting unstable bridge is not quite a recipe for success, and my resulting fall into the freezing water was witnessed by fifty or so cheering supporters (the first ones I came across in more than 9 hours of running, not counting the handful of marshalls on the course).
Desperately treading water and arms flailing in all directions – this was not quite the way that The Worst Swimmer In The World had planned to finish his first Otter Trail Run. It was a mission to get back onto the bridge (full kit, remember, Camelbak etc…) – and those last few steps tested my balance, my nerve and more than anything, my sense of humour.
Having finished, there was one final equipment check (you’ll get disqualified if you forgot to carry emergency equipment such as space blanket and whistle all the way around the course).
For the first time in my running life, there was no medal at the end: I had to attend the prize giving that evening in order to receive it. At first I thought this was a bit silly – I honestly didn’t feel like going out after getting up at 4:00 in the morning and engaging in strenuous physical activity for the better part of the day.
But in the end, this after-party was one of the many highlights of a fantastic weekend: everybody swopping stories, making new friends, enjoying a very tasty meal (although I would’ve eaten anything that night) and sipping Mitchell’s beer which went down like mother’s milk. I realised that this intimate atmosphere, with everyone fitting into one tent and relating to each other, must have been what it used to be like in the first few years of events such as the Two Oceans marathon, four decades ago (when only a hundred or so competitors took part in the race) – but the beauty is that the Otter will probably always be like this, given the fact that SANparks will only allow so many permits per annum.
The satisfaction of finishing the Otter in one day is a memory which will stay with me forever. As I sit here writing this, I am overwhelmed by a multitude of clichés: I am filled with deep sense of gratitude for being alive, for being one of the privileged few to have experienced this, for being healthy enough to take on the challenge and lucky enough to get to the other side in one piece.
My prevailing memory will be of running through the fynbos in absolute solitude, at one with nature – with big waves crashing into gigantic rocks on my left, a steady rain falling from above and a strong breeze blowing into my face.
And the best of all is that I now have preferred entry for the next 2 years, so I can go and do it all over again.

Voetstoots van Tonder
5 October 2011