In the twilight of my years, when I reflect on all the daft things I’ve done in my life, I keep on coming back to The Great Jelly Bean Run. After several beers in the pub at Crossways Hotel in Hilton, I would often come up with crazy ideas about training for the Comrades Marathon. One of them was that to run the full Comrades Marathon distance three weeks before the big race would be a good way to warm up for the actual event. My theory was greeted with much disdain amongst my running (and drinking) peers except for one individual who, like me, displayed similar symptoms of madness, one Dave Cook. We decided that a good night to accomplish the deed would be Friday 10th May 1974 when there would be a full moon to guide us on our journey. We drove down to Durban in my car, following the Comrade’s route and leaving several cans of Coke hidden in the roadside verge for later consumption. I also had the foresight to buy a bag of jellybeans for a reward at the top of each hill on the run back to Pietermaritzburg.
Once in Durban, we left my car in a parking garage, and we walked to the City Hall to begin our journey. In Pinetown, the aroma of freshly made boerewors rolls halted us temporarily but fuelled us nicely for the slog up Field’s Hill. We stopped at the summit of every hill and gave each other a jellybean as a reward. There are a great deal of hills between Durban and Pietermaritzburg but I had wisely anticipated this by buying the largest bag of jellybeans I could find.
And so, after much laughter and merriment (not to mention getting sick of the sight of jellybeans) Dave and I reached the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg at daybreak where we came across Dave’s elderly father waiting on the side of the road to cheer us on. I’ve often wondered how he timed it! We finally reached the finish in a running time of 8 hours and 27 minutes and a total time of 9 hours and 25 minutes.
I had to then run to my pharmacy, have a wash in the basin, change into my work clothes and open the shop at 8am for business as usual.
P.S. I ran Comrades three weeks later in a time of 7 hours 20 minutes and 24 seconds. According to my diary, it was a painful run on very tired legs! Hmmm! I wonder why?
I have attached two photos taken around the time of the Great Jelly Bean Run. One is of me and the other is of Dave Cook and I skinny-dipping in a 'Berg stream suitably abridged. The unabridged photo of Dave and I received some fame at parties in Hilton during the 1970’s. At some stage during the party one of the girls would start a chorus of “We want the picture!” and it would duly be produced and passed around amongst the girls who would make derogatory comments about our male attributes. It was all good fun and Dave, and I encouraged the tradition.
Author: John Huber
