Following in footsteps of greats tonight
THIRTY-EIGHT years ago the first Washie 100 started outside the East London City Hall and headed off into the night to the coastal town of Port Alfred.
Lionel Whitfield wanted a fitting memorial to his father George Washington Whitfield, and so The Washie sojourn of 100 miles in the cold dead of night and into the following day of often cold winds, rain, and at times dry heat, was born.
The modern race is run in the reverse direction and finishes at the Buffalo Club.
Talking on Wild Coast Radio in the Friday morning running slot, Clyde Mountfort, who has been involved with the race for more than 30 years, bemoaned the fact that most of those involved in the Washie today do not know the history of South Africa’s leading 100 miler.
He makes an important point because without knowing the history, not only of the origins of the race but of the men and women that have set the standards, commentary on recent performances is meaningless.
There are three men in particular who have made the Washie a respectable contest. They were Len Keating of RAC and later Celtic Harriers, Manie Saayman from Vaal AC and Thomas Gxakaza of the then Ciskei Joggers. Many more characters abounded and were good runners, but these three ran times that had scholars sitting up and taking note.
And now after a long lull of sometimes disappointing times and fields, we can add the name of Pietersburg AC’s Johan van der Merwe, a maverick runner who declared boldly on Facebook before his first race that he would break Manie Saayman’s long-standing record of 13hr 13min 38sec, set in 1982. Sub 14-hour Washies had only been run on seven occasions and all but one of the times belonged to the three men mentioned above.
The only other fell to Louis Harmse of Spectrum, when he recorded 13:54:04 in 1990.
This scribe was not going to take Van der Merwe’s statement for granted, but having done research into the times he had run at Comrades and compared them with those of Saayman and Keating, became a convert and rushed out in the early hours of the 2012 race to see if history would be made.
It was and Van der Merwe, who had been led off course by a traffic vehicle, resulting in at least an extra kilometre, recovered his composure and finished with an adjusted winning time and new record of 13:07:05. In two runs since then he has finished in 13:18:02 and 13:21:39. He says he is feeling strong this year and is making another bold prediction on the record. Will history continue to evolve?
The surprise winner of the Comrades in 1998, Rae Bischoff entered theWashie the same year and set a new record of 14:53:06. She finished ahead of all the men as well. Her record still stands 17 years later.
And so it will be that tonight runners will line up in Port Alfred and meander towards East London. They will run in the footsteps of icons of mega distance running, the likes of John Ball, Dave Park, Tony Spence, Reg Donovan, Don Underwood, Cheryl Torr, Yvonne Sumner, and Len Jenkins.
Indeed it is quite possible that they will “see” the ghosts of great men and women of the Washie in the dead of night. For some it will be night again before they finish, if indeed they do.