The trip

After Botswana, the next stop on our overland tour was Namibia. But we were only there for a day in a tiny campsite with no open space, so I just couldn't run. The next day, we headed back into Botswana to Chobe national park. From there, we continued the loop into Zimbabwe with two nights at Victoria falls. This was one of the shorter drives and we got to Victoria falls fairly early.

We drove straight to the tourist centre before the campsite to decide what activities to do whilst we were there. After lots of everybody talking over eachother in the sam ecramped room we eventually managed to line up a few different activities for a few different people and a 'booze cruise' for the following evening for everyone. First on the list for me and Ciara was a helicopter tour in the early afternoon. This was amazing. We flew over and around the waterfall, watching the water and the animals crossing it, and it is probably one of the best helicopter rides you can do anywhere. After this, we got in a cab with the others from our group also in the helicopter and went straight to the enterance to the bridge. I went up in the helicopter in my running gear and had my bag with some water with me because it was stright to running as soon as we got out of the cab.

The run

Well, not straight to running as there was a little bit of paperwork to sort out first. The bridge connects Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe with Livinstone sat just on the other side of the river. Just before the bridge, there is a border crossing that allows you to get a sort of temporary entry / exit pass to go across the bridge and get back into to the country.

Once we were through, I started my watch. I walked with the rest of the group who were doing a zip wire and / or bungee jump. Unfortunately, I had to make a call and decided not to do either to prioritise getting the marathon done. The day was disappearing quickly and I wanted to start working through the miles. The Zip wire was based on the Zambian side of the river and the bungee jump was right in the middle, just across into the Zambian side. I wasn't sure what time I'd be able to do either and how long I'd had to wait so decided to not do either.

I walked with the others up to the midpoint of the bridge through a very slow first mile. I explained that I would be supporting from a slight distance back after seeing the Zambia sign and Zimbabwe sign pointing the other way on the other side of the bridge. The next hour or so consisted of running up and down half of the bridge, careful not to cross the half way line with ocasional stops to take pictures or chat to any of the group that wandered back into the Zimbabwe side. As expected, I got a few weird looks but luckily nobody told me to stop.

After an hour or two I had racked up a few miles and the last few jumpers came back up to the bridge. We began walking back through the border crossing and towards the hotel. It was probably about a mile's walk in total so I decided to run ahead of the group, then back to the group then ahead of the group then back to the group to squeeze a bit of extra distance out of it.

We were staying at Shearwater Explorers Village which was one of the nicest camp sites on the trip with small concrete foundations for tents and a fully concrete block shower room. Abslute luxury compared to some of the other sites. There was also a nice restaurant, a pool and some actual cabin style hotel rooms. Two of our group were on their honeymon, decided to upgrade to one of the rooms and had a baby 9-months later, so money well spent. There was a path that winded from our tents round the pool and restaurant and up to some of the cabins. This would be home to the rest of the run.

I strated running up and down and just kept going, there really wasn't much too exciting about this section. This campsite functioned as the halfway treat and we got a new tour guide for the rest of the trip. The dinner planned for that evening was an introduction to the new guide and the four new members of our group. I kept running up until peoploe started to take their seats in the restaurant. I popped in quickly to take a break, order my food, say hi to the new faces and explain what I was doing. I kept running, then came back for a bite of the starter, continued running and then took a seat properly for the main course to try and be slightly social.

After the food had settled, the rest of the run was much of the same. Darkness descended much like Botswana I ran late into the night. The walking and breaks meant that this was the longest marathon to date, over 7 hours. Once again, there was one more empty chair at our circle every lap or two as people turned in and once again I had a stupidly late shower after finishing the 26 miles. We had a nice time around the town the following day topped off by a great evening boat ride and many drinks. Perfect marathon recovery. After that, it was down through Zimbabwe and back into South Africa.