Contents: Introduction - Highs and lows - Running aspects - Was it worth it? 

The first four chapters of our full travelogue are also available online.

We also digitized part of our photo album.

WARNING! Running is addictive and WILL affect your sanity! They should have warned me when I started running back in January 1993. And I will be sueing the pants of FHAC, WPA and SARRA for indirectly causing a permanent mental disorder ... as soon as my training schedule allows for it. Why else would an otherwise normal and apparently stable person go and run the length of Europe, 5459 kilometres?

For that is what happened: on 13th September 1993, less than twenty months after innocently joining Fish Hoek Athletic Club "to get fit", I stood at the northern tip of Europe: North Cape in Norway. 129 days and five pairs of running shoes later, I arrived at Gibraltar, the continent's southern tip. Tired, poor, home-sick but still in one piece. And still married: Eva had seconded me all the way, in a leaking and invariably much too tiny mobil-home, with our two pre-schoolers in tow.

Perhaps inevitably, arriving in Gibraltar was a bit of an anti-climax. We had long since tired of media exposure - the run's ostentative objective was to publicize the problem of Tuberculosis in the Western Cape - so no one was there to welcome us. The glitzy and touristy Costa del Sol gave us culture shock after spending months in the rural country-side. It was raining buckets on my last run, the little "appendix" from Gibraltar to Tarifa (the continent's real most southerly tip). There was not even champagne to celebrate "the first recorded run/crossing on foot across Europe". And I had to rush home in time to start lecturing at the beginning of the new academic year.

Only now, a couple of months later, do things slowly start getting back into perspective. The video documentary and photo album are finished, the first draft of Eva's travelogue is taking shape, the Guinness Book of Records has accepted the Run as a new category, my body and psyche have finally healed enough to attempt a sub-three marathon again, and Eva is pregnant!

Scenically, both rural Spain (we ran through the non-touristy but beautiful interior) and the pristine nature in most of Scandinavia impressed us no end and we experienced innumerable moments and scenes of intense beauty which photographs and video can never really do justice. My personal most beautiful and memorable moments were the few times that I managed to follow off-road nature trails and tracks, although they usually entailed quite a bit of extra (and much slower!) distance. Of a completely different nature but equally intense was the two-week "high" from the warm, sometimes overwhelming, welcome by family, friends and the news media in both Holland and Belgium.

We obviously also had bad times. Our first spell of troubles was between Alta and the Norwegian-Finnish border when the car's gas heater gave in, my Achilles tendon developed a small but disabling tear and everything in the motorhome was wet, wet, wet. Fortunately, this period lasted only a couple of days. We rebounded through the miraculously quick healing of the tendon (do YOU know what six cross-frictions daily means? You don't want to know!) and the warm welcome at the Finnish border post (literally warm: they offered us the use of their sauna!). Much worse were the three weeks in France: continual rain and strong headwinds, leaks in the roof and a very bad bout of 'flu made those 900 km seem interminable. Eva had to give me continual moral and physical support (the latter by kicking me out of the car whenever it was time to run), whilst I had absolutely nothing left to support her. Only the weekend in Paris (some sightseeing and the reception at the "mairie") and some acts of hospitality stand out above those horrible times. Things finally turned better one or two days south of Bordeaux (where I had a collision with the motorhome!) with the runs on the long bicycle paths through the coastal forest and along the beach.

There were also other moments where things went "badly wrong", but those occasions were partly or completely overshadowed by the subsequent events. Eva got one wheel stuck in a ditch in Norway and the first car stopped to pull her out. When I lost my way near Kramfors (Sweden) and missed the meeting point by several hours in the freezing cold, we ended up enjoying the abundant hospitality of a local shopowner. Similarly, a compulsory, unforeseen additional detour of a cold and very dark 20 kilometres after running the days' 50 kilometres along the Swedish/Finnish border sees me knocking at a door around midnight to confirm the route and minutes later, when I'm back on the road, the people come after me (a complete and positively uncivilized-looking stranger) offering to drive me to my destination (then only 1 km away!). A German farmer finds our motorhome (again) in the ditch about 1 kilometre down in his field. Despite him having to get his tractor out in the late evening to pull us out, the night ends again in a very amiable and hospitable atmosphere. The horrible 'flu attack made us friends with family Béhin in Champigny (France); a missed rendez-vous in Ronda (Spain) led to a warm reception and (on the return trip) extended stay with Paco & Pépi of "El Sur" camping.

Although I am a very individualistic person and run almost always solo, this run really made me realize that one cannot attempt an undertaking of this nature on one's own strength. It was very heartening to see that, whenever we needed it, honest and abundant hospitality was extended by virtually anyone we met. And throughout the run, we were motivated and carried by the incredible sustained support from the "home front": our parents, Presbyterian Church, University of the Western Cape, friends and, last but definitely not least, the guys (I mean gals, too) from Fish Hoek Athletic Club! I almost got tears in my eyes when they met us at our arrival at DF Malan!

Preparation: Since I only decided on 1 May '93 to tackle the undertaking, my preparation up to that time was the standard preparation for a "good" (read "silver") Two Oceans and Comrades i.e. 65 to 90 km/week. I then cut out practically all racing and fast runs for the next three months, concentrating solely on distance, culminating in an daily average of about 25 kays in August.

Diet: Apart from a daily multi-vitamin, I ate no food supplements: I ate whatever I felt like (or what we could afford); I was frequently accused by my wife Eva that the Run was nothing but an excuse to eat copious quantities of chocolate and sweets! Despite this, my `diet' worked out to be fairly balanced in terms of carbo-hydrates, fats and proteins, albeit in rather big quantities.

Solo running: Virtually the entire run was solo. Just me and a lot of cars on the road. Only in Holland and part of Belgium was running support organized by local clubs. Although the running company was nice and welcome, it also tended to put pressure on me in terms of route, speed, and fixed times/points of departure i.e. I had to give up my freedom. I was quite happy running on my own, even after more than four months of it.

Psychology: I played many mental games during my run. These include the usual(?) runners' fantasies, mental games and day dreams - it still surprises me how few different ones I entertained (perhaps I am not very creative), and how little I would change or vary their content as the months went by. I find that the famed "runner's high" doesn't come easily to me when I am running slowly. I personally only experience it when I am in a period of serious training, going out for a 15 to 25 km run at 4:30 speed or faster (though not at close to racing speeds!), and even then at most once per week. However, when running well, I would also be taking in the scenery along the road and, often, after a while it would seem as if I was staying (hanging?) in the same position with the world slowly moving underneath and past me, requiring no perceivable effort from my part. This feeling would come after about 5 kilometres of running, and persisting for quite a few kilometres, usually 4 to 8 kays, but occasionally for the entire remainder of the run. This mental state is distinguished from the "runner's high" in that it is merely a state of effortless movement and relatively passive enjoyment, whilst the latter has a more active component to it: you feel positively strong (springy) and you have much more creative thoughts.

Apart from the last two weeks, I would/could never really envisage myself arriving at Gibraltar. My longest term goals would typically be no more than a week into the future : the "next major city" or the bottom border of the local 1:200 000 map.

Running equipment: I ran in a bottom-of-the-range running shoe (Saucony Freedom 2000) although I did feel the need for better shock absorbtion. This I achieved through a layer of THREE inserts, two heel pads of Sorbotane-like material and one full length foot support. The advantage of the heel pads is that they can be shifted slightly to make up for uneven wear of the shoe's heel. In fact, I must thank a chance encounter with Johnny Halberstadt for this idea which cured my ITB just before my first Two Oceans; without him I would not even be running today. Despite the cool (for South African runners: cold) conditions, i.e. freezing point plus or minus three degrees Centigrade prevailing during 70% of the run, I only needed one pair of cotton thermal wear and a nylon neon-yellow tracksuit, the latter mainly for visibility and drizzle conditions. For the warm-up stretch or colder/wetter conditions, I would also have gloves and a ski cap. When going off-road, I would take an additional "Lepping-squeezy belt" filled with all kinds of emergency kit, from space blanket to water-proof matches and disposable camera.

Injuries: The single biggest factor contributing to the successful run was to be almost completely injury free. I only had a tiny but disabling painful tear in my Achilles tendon during the second week of running, but expertly applied cross-friction made me lose only half a day's distance. I also cought a horrible 'flu just South of Paris, which forced me off the road for one and a half days, but it took a full two weeks before I started enjoying my runs again.

Warm-up and stretching: I did virtually no leg stretching for the entire run. A slow warm-up run was forced on me naturally, since it always took about 3 to 5 kilometre before my blood started pumping, and my muscles in general (including the brain) started responding to "orders".

Financial Cost: All in all, this expedition cost us about R 50 000: airtickets (R10000), rental of mobil-home (R15000), fuel (R6000), food (R15000) and another R8000 for maps, ferries, running equipment, photo & video. Although we tried very hard, we did not manage to secure any meaningful cash sponsorship, apart from a R250 from the chairman of a leading retailer (also sponsoring the Olympic Bid). We did receive quite a few sponsorships in kind from local businesses (MMI Porter Muizenberg, K Reid, Al-Ann Print, Univ. of the Western Cape and many Fish Hoek organizations).

And now for the big question:

YES! DEFINITELY! Although we experienced some very tough times, on the whole it was an unforgettable experience which provided us with memories for the rest of our lives. It also reinforced some of our perspectives on life: what really counts in life is your family, friends, love, hospitality, motivation and some sense of adventure. In fact, replying to a question from a reporter, I could not really think of anything that I would have done differently, given the available time and resources.

As many people know, the real glory and honour should go to Eva: her task was much harder than the "running, eating & resting" regime which I "enjoyed" (at her expense!) I definitely couldn't have coped with her job: logistics, household, kids, moral support, emergency situations etc. She wasn't my second, she was (and is) my "first"!

And of course, to answer the inevitable follow-up question: NO, I will NOT run across another continent... but I don't think that we will start writing our memoirs yet; there are still far too many other exciting adventures waiting out there, for us ... some time.

The first four chapters of our full travelogue are also available online.

We also digitized part of our photo album.