Gritty Yellow Traffic Light Running

Let me take you on a journey. Imagine being in a place that will scare you the most and imagine running away from this. Now surrender yourself to the words and your imaginings and listen to this story.

It begins on the edge of the Nelson Mandela Bridge. In Braamfontein, after an icy cold rainstorm and the streets are glowing gritty yellow. Traffic lights flick green to orange to red to green to orange to red to...

I am standing next to a catholic church on Jorrison Street. Damp and sweaty. So am I. The air is cold and catches on the tips of my nostrils. It's the first lick of winter reminding us it shall be an early one this year.

It's nighttime and I am in the centre of Johannesburg

I step onto the bridge and begin to run. There are people running behind me now, faster and faster and I don't want them to catch up to me.

Over the bridge from Braamfontein and into... another dark place in Johannesburg.

And still I run.

Police cars park quietly on the sides of the road. And watch me run as I take a short cut through a darker green grass park and slam back onto the hard street.

People line some parts of the street shouting as I, we passed. They shout as the big fat bright shining-in-the-dark-light snake heaves and puffs past them.

It's a dark, cold, wet night in Jozi centre.

I run through Hillbrow and Mama's Tavern regulars leer friendly-like as me and we slap high five. This is the stomping ground of my folks!

And into another dark place in the city. The yellow snake pull me up the hill. Drums echo, ululation and cheering

Vuvu-vuvu-vuvuzela blows next to me, us.

The air quickly dries the sweat on my skin and hurts my throat. And then it's only a few kilometres until the finish line. More and more people fill the sides of the street. And hold signs

Into another dark place in Jozi. I look up and see Ponte building.

(Photo credit: Nike Running ZA)

And then the fun begins. Crowds grow and shrink people clap us along the route. Some hold signs promising, jokingly, that we should run because there is food at the end. Someone else shouts to a walking runner that "hey! this is run jozi, not walk jozi"

The yellow snake is 10 000+ runners, all reclaiming the night time streets of Johannesburg with each wet, beating step.

For the last 2km I run non-stop as more and more people cheer and sing and make us laugh, because even Pumba the fat warthog is running up this particular hill.

Kids chant run, jozi, run, jozi, run jozi until it becomes the mantra for the last kilometre. The longest kilometre I have ever run.

I snap the Nike wrist band onto the wrist of an unsuspecting little girl and she first jumps back in fight and then waves to me, glowing yellow like the snake in front of her.

I ran, ran through the streets of Jozi on a cold, wet, gritty yellow night. And I continue to run, run, back into the streets of Jozi, to continue what Nike began - reclaiming the city centre.

(watch this space)

 1:20:16.6

(Photo credit: Nike Running ZA)

(PS to my new running mates, Sars, Twitter and Nakhe - you made the three hours of the lead up to the race much fun)