In a time of war and madness, I asked Joel Smith what a miracle felt like.
He ran for three days for children, in a society where infants are starving to death amid grotesque wealth and thousands have perished in the Middle East in war whose only rationale appears to be oil, megalomania and bloodlust.
But Joel, an integrated East Coast man with God and protecting children on his mind, had one thought as he crossed the 60-hour and 270km line: “This is a miracle!”
A bright, energised young Christian, he and his family have a close relationship with 60 children who have found their way through tragedy and trauma to the King’s Children’s Home run by his church.
He had planned 60 5km laps on Emerald Vale Brewery’s trail run — one for each child.
The fundraising target of R100,000 was his highest in this, his third extreme endurance event.
Sixty 60, he called it.
So let’s do the run with him — in his words: It is Friday 4am and dark, with about 45 minutes to sunrise.
He had expected the usual lonely, solo experience, but this time with family and a few friends. Wrong!
They came “in waves ”— a huge bouquet of humanity was by his side for 53 laps out of 57 he completed.
He was stunned.
“One random guy just rocked up with his family and did eight laps and he was not your typical athlete kind of guy. He was out of his comfort zone.
“Then he donated R5,000 in cash. The generosity …. ”
And so it began. People arrived and did not stop until he crossed the line on Sunday at 3pm.
His first run companions were his friends, and as the sun did its arc he was joined by people he knew in Nahoon Valley when he was seven.
“One random guy who ran with me told me all about a ship that had wrecked on our coast and only one person, a little girl, survived.
“She had swum to shore and when she got tired she would tell herself, ‘just one more stroke’.”
A teacher from his Lilyfontein Primary school also joined him.
Two companies, Salt & Surf and RBI Africa, sponsored 10 runners and made donations.
Five of the runners did 12 hours with him, and five did 24 hours.
A highlight was running with adventure and writing legend Kim van Kets, who told him “weird and wonderful stories of her adventures and how to suffer and persevere. She said it was 80% mental, 20% physical”.
She was right.
The sun set, night set in. At 10pm three ballies aged 65+ appeared in the dark. All had done some kind of endurance feat, and they settled in with him for a two-hour stint to midnight.
He had never really met them, maybe knew them on the periphery, but, as it turned out again and again, everyone who ran or walked with him “bonded ”— they knew each other by the time it was over.
The ballies — “Roland, Uncle Charles, Brett? ”— spoke to him a lot, regaling him with their stories of their feats and their “wisdoms”.
“Those were brutal hours, but they said, ‘keep on pushing, keep moving forward!’”
And in the loneliest hours of the night, from 2am onwards, it was his dad Martin by his side. Father and son, pushing on, holding on.
And so the days passed, people arriving with help and love.
As he sat slumped in his chair, they washed his feet, then powdered them. He felt gross and stinky, but there was no hesitation.
His gran, Paula Richardson, 83, also an endurance runner, was there sweeping up his laundry and rush washing and drying six loads.
Two couples each did 12hour stints of “crewing” for him.
Finally, on Sunday night, he took a four-hour nap.
He woke hoping to feel refreshed but it was the other way round. He was stiff and every fibre of his body ached.
“I had nothing.”
At 5am his closest friends showed up.
“I did not go out into the cold and dark on my own!”
Struggling to rise from his chair at one point, a young boy of 10 or 11 stood up too saying: “This is my lap!”
Each lap was dedicated to a child at the home and many walked with him. “Some of the youths at the [King’s] home walked many laps with me!”
Joel says he ran about a third of the time. The rest was spent walking with two trekking poles.
“I was starting to turn into a question mark. Those poles kept me upright.”
And while the run was also a test of his faith, he said it stunned him how the community had come forward so powerfully.
From young to old, many with no “frame of reference” when it came to extreme events, or just getting out on the trail, had appeared.
“They all came together. Strangers came out. This was a first for me. It was awesome meeting new people.”
This had turned out to be a “community effort”.
“Without people, without the community around me, I would never have reached the end.”
So how were those last few hundred metres?
At 1pm on Sunday, with a couple of hours to go, “my body was saying ‘you are never going to do it’, but my mind was saying ‘you are almost there!’”
The last 200m were a mixture of “relief and disbelief”.
“There was a human tunnel I had to run it.
“I thought my legs would give out.”
As he crossed the end, he was overcome with emotion — and “knowing I could go home and sleep!”
He speaks with amazement about how he did not suffer a single blister, lost no toenails, had not one cramp and the weather was excellent, sometimes a warm 28°C, with a gentle breeze, and at times a cooling light rain.
So yes, Joe felt “joy, release and awe” at the miracle sent down by his Lord.
“Why do we often look back and doubt the Lord?” he asked.
Donations can be made to the King’s Children’s Home, Nedbank account 100-2487722 branch code 198765.
The final amount raised by Joel’s Sixty 60 run will also be announced. Call 083-294-4019. Daily Dispatch
