ON WILD SIDE
Honing skills on China’s great wall
AFORMER Glengarriff runner who now lives in Beijing has taken to training on the Great Wall of China so that she will be fit enough to take part in the annual Wild Women on the Run coastal run, in which 25 women will run 100km of the rugged Wild Coast next week.
Lucille van der Merwe, 44, who cofounded the non-competitive event along with extreme adventurer Kim van Kets in 2012, now lives in China but will be back in East London next week to participate in the unique event.
The three-day run, which is known for its nurturing, empowering benefits, starts on Friday April 27 at Kobb Inn and ends on Sunday at the Anchorage Hotel at the Mthatha River Mouth.
The women, whose professions range from lawyer and doctor to graphic artist, take three days out to bond over beaches, blisters and bubbly, which is heartily consumed at their overnight hotel stops.
“My Wild Women China story starts when my family and I moved to Beijing a few weeks after running Wild Women last year,” said Van der Merwe, who is married to Mercedes Benz’s Arno van der Merwe.
Having already decided to run her seventh Wild Women this year, Van der Merwe set about sourcing a running mate, which she found in the form of Australian Kate Goode.
“The only challenge was that Kate was not a runner.”
However, after glasses of Prosecco and “waxing lyrical” about the beauty of South Africa and the Wild Coast run, her new friend was persuaded not only to find her inner runner, but also to enter the Wild Women on the Run on a “wild card” ticket.
Because a vital aspect of the run is raising funds for Eastern Cape charities African Angels and Busfare Babies, Van der Merwe and Goode set a goal to raise 10 000 yuan (R20 000).
“Kate came up with the idea of ‘100 days of Giving’ where our friends, families and communities could sponsor a day for 100 yuan (R200) and in return we guaranteed we would exercise six out of every seven days.
“To date it looks like we will at least double that,” said Van der Merwe who runs with Goode between one and three hours daily and who has had strangers hand over 100 yuan to her in her local supermarket.
“I have been humbled by the enthusiasm and generosity of this new community I find myself in.”
Although training in extreme temperatures has been a challenge, nothing hampered her from getting fit for her Eastern Cape run.
“I had not anticipated the extremities of the seasons in Beijing. Summer temperatures reach a very humid 40°C while winter can drop to a bone-chilling minus 20 degrees. Then there is the hectic traffic, pollution and spring pollen allergies than one has to contend with, but all this was not enough to deter a wild woman!”
A highlight has been the duo’s regular run on one of the seven wonders of the medieval world – the Great Wall of China. “We have tried to run on the wall at least once a month, although in winter it is impossible due to ice and snow,” said Van der Merwe, who lives about an hour’s drive from the nearest stretch of the awe-inspiring wall.
So enthusiastic has she been about the project that she has stirred interest in the possibility of a Wild Women China run. “I am investigating the idea with intent,” she said. —