My family and I moved to Glen Eden, on the East Coast of East London, 10 years ago and joined the local Crossways Church.
The couple who run the church, Tracy and Jonathan King, founded the Kings Children’s Home in 2008 after forming a bond with an abandoned baby the police had asked them to take in. They realised many more children were in the same situation, so, from their own home, they provided other options for mothers who couldn’t care for their offspring.
We often visit Kings, interact with the children and have seen Tracy and Jonathan’s positive impact. They offer safety to children with tragic stories of abandonment, abuse and neglect. The government doesn’t support them financially, and I’ve witnessed them struggle with the cost of caring for 70 kids. If nappies, doctors, school fees, lighting, water and salaries aren’t covered, there’s no home.
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My family is active. My gran, Paula, is 80 and still runs and cycles, and she often takes the older kids from Kings on hikes and other adventures. I wasn’t much of an athlete, more of a gamer, until my mom, Fran, and I watched Dad compete in an adventure race. I thought it looked like it’d be fun. At 19 years old, I don’t have tons of experience or years of training, but I’ve always been fascinated by athletes who push their bodies over long distances in a short time. Dad took my siblings, William and Jemma, and me to beaches and forests as children, so I enjoy being in nature, away from tar roads, cars and other people. My ideal run involves not seeing another soul.
Gran said, ‘Not everyone can adopt children or afford to donate copious amounts of money to a children’s home, but you can use your passion for a purpose by running for the orphans’.
The Amatola Hiking Trail was the first long-distance trail-running fundraiser my dad and I completed for Kings. It was uncharted territory, and I doubted my capability. Juggling training with matric exams was also challenging. But we did it, raising R55 000 for the Kings, which boosted my confidence.
I did the Trans Baviaans, a 230 km, 24-hr MTB race from Willowmore through the Baviaanskloof to Jeffreys Bay, then in the four months before Lesotho, Dad and I built up running mileage sensibly, averaging 80 km of running over two days on our biggest weekends. We trained as best we could, but there’s only so much you can do living on the coast without access to elevation, hills or heat.
Lesotho is very mountainous. It has the highest and lowest point of any country in the world, an average altitude of around 2 161 m above sea level and on top of some of the hills, we reached 2 800 m.
Another factor was the hills, with many steep gradients and switchbacks. Overall, we covered around 9 000 m of elevation gain, the equivalent of from sea level to Mount Everest over six days.
The average temperature was 32 °C, there was very little shade, and the lodges we stayed at along the route had no power from 10 am to 5 pm and had to rely on generators, so freezing liquids was challenging. On day one, Dad overheated and suffered dehydration.
We averaged around a marathon a day, typically running between the lodges, and fuelled our bodies with cereal, biltong, crisps, energy bars and gels, and breakfasted on bacon, egg and cheese rolls from the lodges.
Our crew of five – Dad, Mom, Uncle Greg, Aunt Vanessa, my girlfriend, Jenelle, and my friend, Keegan – took care of everything else so we could focus on running: cooking, packing, offloading, settling us into our accommodation, and meeting us on the route with hydration and nutrition.
What’s next? I’ve been giving it some thought. I’d love to stick with the Border-to-Border theme and see if we can grow it and get sponsors. Perhaps we could cross another country for Kings, on foot, by bicycle, by whatever means.
This article was written by Lisa Abdellah for Getaway’s March 2024 print edition. Find us on shelves for more!
(Pictures: Courtesy Images)
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