You Have to Get Past the Grind to Find the Beauty
You Have to Get Past the Grind to Find the Beauty
Find out about the exploits of the Tyrone Harriers running in Johannesburg city centre. 👇
Most people travelling to South Africa pass through Johannesburg on their way to fun and beautiful places.
On the surface, Johannesburg looks like a dump.
The streets are full of trash.
The manholes have no covers.
The sidewalks are broken.
The roads have potholes.
Taxis are everywhere.
Traffic lights don’t work.
Everything about Johannesburg’s infrastructure is neglected and broken.
Johannesburg is the poster child of a socialist, thieving, incompetent mafia government that is either trying to take your money or steal your money.
You have got to ask why anyone would spend time in this awful place?
Who put this rock in the middle of the street?
Today the Tyrone Harriers Red Hand A Team ran the Quartz Street route into the Johannesburg city centre.
We don’t have a mountain or a beach to run on. We have our beautiful city.
To get into the city, we grind our way up and over Westcliff ridge.
Today we entered the city via the iconic Nelson Mandella Bridge.
We had our sights set on two of our favourite and most grimy streets in the city.
Noord Street and Quartz Street.
Running through the Noord Street taxi rank is like playing a live version of Taxi Tetris, where you have no control over how the pieces move.
Taxis move in all directions without warning.
In amongst the taxis, people drift around as if they are high on crack and oblivious to the world around them.
The key is to run like water.
To be fluid and to flow through the mass of unpredictability and emerge on the other side unscathed.
On to Quartz Street. See the insert picture with Alastair and Marijke holding on for dear life.
Quartzite gold-bearing rock was the holder of the original riches of the city. Johannesburg’s distinctive rocky ridges that run east–west are the hills we have grind over to run in the beautiful city centre.
Getting caught up moaning about the grime of the city is to miss out on the joy of running with a crew of what is Johannesburg’s most beautiful asset.
That is its people — especially the regular grinders who run at the Tyrone Harriers.
Cape Town’s Sea Point promenade is littered with hundreds of runners. They are all running alone.
In Johannesburg, you might not get out alive if you run alone in the city, so come and run with us.
At the Tyrone Harriers, everyone is welcome, even Capetonians.
The irony is that you might have to up your game if you want to come on a city run.
That should be an incentive to visit our beautiful city.
#runeveryday
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