When in Rome...

Puneet Goenka

In the two weeks that I have been in South Africa, without any exaggeration, every other person is training for a long-distance endurance event.  A PATH colleague will be running his tenth 90 km/56 mi ultra-marathon next weekend, while people I met in Cape Town were participating in a several-hundred kilometer cycling event.

A friend of mine introduced me to her South African friend that lives in Johannesburg and she invited me to join in on a hike with a group of friends this past weekend.  After hearing about everyone’s active lifestyles for the past two weeks, I decided to go ahead even though I knew the distance and terrain was slightly out of my fitness league.

I was in the company of ultra-marathoners, people training for a 500 km adventure race in Swaziland, people for whom running marathons didn’t require much thought or training, and people who couldn’t fit their overdeveloped calves and quads into regular sized jeans.  What could have been a weekend surrounded by intimidating people turned out to be a really good hike, getting to know fun people over an extended post-hike braai (barbecue), some nighttime milky-way gazing, and some much needed lazing in the sun.

The fitness and outdoor culture that is so prevalent among the people I have been meeting is amazing.  I really hope the inspiration and motivation I am feeling right now stays long beyond my time in proverbial Rome.

Num-Num trail in Mpumalanga (one of SA's nine provinces)