How I Peed On A Leopard

OK everyone. The 15th point of my previous post is explained below. Not that big a story but still one to tell...

How I Peed on a Leopard

Years ago I was fortunate enough to go on a 5 day hiking trip with a friend of mine. I had some contacts in the army that allowed us to do a hike on army property. The army bought 7 game farms and turned one into a military base. The other 6 were merged for later use but remained “untamed” for many years.

We decided to do a hike that would take us over the six game farms and just slept where we found a good spot. It was an amazing experience and we encountered lots and lots of game very close up. The best part was the feeling of total freedom we felt the whole time.

On the third day we decided to have lunch on top of a mountain with a spectacular view. My friend was busy preparing lunch and I was standing at the edge of a ravine admiring the unbelievable view. There was a ledge about 3m (9ft) below me that went all the way along the top of the mountain we were on.

I decided this ledge would be a perfect spot to pee on. Yep, I was a free man in my early twenties and this appealed to me…J So I did the P thing 3m down while admiring the great view. The next moment we heard a growl and a leopard suddenly got up right below me where I was doing the P thing…right on him! He got up with a growl, looked at me, and then walked away on the ledge…not pleased at all.

We didn’t hang around to see where he went or what he did next. We had our lunch an hour and a lot of kilometers later. I can’t remember if I completed the P thing or not. I can confirm that at least I didn’t do more than the P thing…it might have been close.

And that's how I peed on a leopard!

Thanks for reading! Have a super week everyone!

21 Random Things About Me

AJH at Age Groups Rock did a 21 Random Things About Me post a while back and I thought it a good idea to do the same. So here are 21 random things about me.

1. I am a very big stats fanatic.
2. I’m seen as quite the nerd.
3. I have very green fingers, everything I touch grow out of control.
4. I drink a lot of coffee.
5. I don’t drink tea at all…never!
6. Although I live in Johannesburg, I’m stopped very often on my way to work for cattle crossing the road. I love it!
7. I breed tropical fish and have literally hundreds of baby fish at home.
8. I love chocolate cake and sometimes bake my own for carbo loading before an important race.
9. I love chocolate milk and use it as my recovery drink.
10. Living in Africa is special for me.
11. I don’t like eating out and can easily skip restaurants for ever.
12. I love nature and being outdoors makes me very happy.
13. I love swimming but hate cycling so I stick to running.
14. I have completed 4 triathlons including one half iron man.
15. I accidently peed on a wild leopard once – true story!
16. The radio in my car has never been used although I use the CD player sometimes.
17. I finished my first cross country race with a broken arm.
18. I ran my second cross country race with my arm in a cast.
19. I’m the youngest of 4 children.
20. I don’t need much sleep and get by with 4.5 hours a day comfortably.
21. My best time for a marathon is 3:48.

Thanks for reading and happy running everyone!

RAC Tough One - Short Feedback

Hi all

I'm crazy busy at the moment so just a quick summary of Sunday's 32km (20 mile) race.

I had a great run! The weather was not bad at all and it was not as warm as it sometimes is in November. There was also some wind that cooled things down a bit.

I was taking things slow and easy, just hoping for a sub 4 hour finish. At halfway I was feeling so good I could hardly believe it and this was the same a few kms later.

I kicked things up a bit and ran a 12min negative split! Yep, I ran a negative split! Something that hardly ever happens to this slow runner.

I finished in 03:27:09 and is very happy with that.

Detailed report with photos as soon as I have the time.

Work is crazy and then there is a wedding on 14 January that I will tell you more about at some stage. :D

Have a super week everyone!

Charity Announcement

Hi all! Sorry for being so absent but things are really crazy on my side. Good news is that running and everything else in my life is going well and strong.


I have joined the Sudan4Jesus team for the 2012 Comrades Marathon. Joining a religious charity was not planned but literally shown to me as being where I was needed. I've never been ashamed to tell people I'm a devoted Christian and it is time to give back in the way I love to what matters in my life.

To me this is a leap of faith and doing so publicly is also part of what I need to do. I know some people won't like this and that's just to bad for them. I'm not changing and this blog is not changing but I will certainly give the space and time required to this journey. Sudan is probably one of the worst places for anyone to live on our planet. If I can make a difference I will.


I'm running the RAC Tough One (32km/20miler) this coming Sunday. It is one of the harder races around but I'm really looking forward to it. I will be running in my new club vest for the first time. The club t-shirt I've been running in is just to warm for summer racing. Even if I don't run good I will at least look good!

Happy running everyone!

A Foto For Friday

A lot of you would have seen this photo of Oscar Pistorius (South Africa's Blade Runner) on Face Book. It inspires me so much I want to share it here as well.

Have a great Friday and super weekend all!

MIA for all the right reasons

I’ve been MIA a bit and I do apologise. I do have some excuses though.

The two of us…

…have been so busy with these two…

…and these two…

…as well as this guy…

…that I’ve been out of the blog loop for some time.

Add to that the 7 dogs, 4 cats and zillions of fish and you can see why things have been a little crazy.

I also took ownership of this…

…and all this is part of the upcoming plan to get all the above into one happy family. Yep, things are moving here by me.

Between it all running is still going well and I’m training quite hard for some upcoming races. In general I can really say life is good.

Hope life is good there by you as well!

The Difficult Decisions are Usually the Right Ones to Make

I made a very difficult decision this morning. I will no longer run the Golden Gate Challenge this weekend. It was not easy to do this but I know it was the right decision.

Don’t worry, nothing is wrong and I’m not injured. I just don’t feel I’m ready. I know most people will say go for it and you will be ok and so on, but this is different. I know I am only 80% ready for this and because it is a 3 day race away from home, I have decided not to go and get myself into trouble. I’m listening to my body telling me I should give it a break from a heavy race that can break it down completely.

I’ll be honest, some of this has to do with my bad mugging experience of a few weeks ago. I decided that day to keep things closer to home for a while. This doesn’t mean I won’t do any away races. If I was 100% ready and the race was not as challenging, I would have been there. However, I am not ready to have my loved ones worry about me all the time. We all realized that day how we must treasure every moment together. Having them worry about me for three days does not feel right to me.

Anyway, enough babbling. I don’t feel ready for this race and decided to rather give it a skip. I have already adjusted my training for my next goal, the RAC Tough One (32km/20miles) on 27 November.

Happy running everyone!