OPINION
ON MY MIND
THE PAIN CAVE
“I
thought I knew the pain cave … even visited it a few times. As enthusiastic amateur cyclists, my mates and I would often talk about those times we’d wandered miserably through its dank recesses. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s a metaphorical place of physical pain and mental anguish that participating in endurance sports can sometimes route you through. Usually you’re there paying the price of over-fuelled ambition and under-prepped training. Having bitten off more than you can chew, it requires digging extra deep and suffering through anything from cramp to nausea in order to finish whatever adventure had promised so much fun only hours earlier. The thing about the pain cave though, is that only survivors talk about it. If it had all gotten too much and you’d dropped out of the race, then, well, you might mumble something about ‘having a bad day’, or something equally vague that we’d all know is code for ‘please don’t ask me any more questions’. If, on the other hand, you managed to guts it out and make it to the finish, then experiences in the pain cave are shared with pride and acknowledged with nods of approval from other cave dwellers. And ours were real tales of endurance … we’d done everything from mountain bike races like the Cape Epic, to 180km+ one-day races on gravel bikes, and adventures through the Lesotho highlands. There was proper suffering involved, paying our dues in the cave before finally emerging battlescarred but triumphant. A testament to the human spirit in the face of crushing physical and mental fatigue. Or so we thought. Then I met Ryan Sandes … and realised the cave I’d been frequenting was more like the Spa and Health Resort Cave. Having first connected with this ultra-distance trail runner in 2016
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THE PENGUIN POST VOLUME 32
A place of suffering and misery, The Pain Cave is a place author and magazine editor Steve Smith was familiar with. Turns out this amateur endurance sports enthusiast had no idea.
These guys literally ran across, and around, whole countries.
Run. Risk. Reward. is on shelves now.
we embarked on our first book together called Trail Blazer. It chronicled Ryan’s remarkable rise to international fame when in 2008, out of nowhere, the unheralded South African won a gruelling six-day race across China’s Gobi desert. He’d become the first person to win all four races in this 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series, including one in Antartica. Then, switching his attention to single day ultra-distance trail races, he’d win several high-profile events, including the Leadville 100 and, most prestigious of all, the Western States Endurance Run. Sitting and listening to him describe what he went through to win those races was both fascinating and severely disheartening. You could pretty much hear the gentle hiss of my ego deflate as he’d humbly described exploits overcoming brain-broiling heat, extreme cold, and the kind of bone-deep fatigue that reduces your cognitive ability to a narrow band of onefoot-in-front-of-the-other. Frankly, it made my heroic exploits in conquering adversity look like a day spent lounging about the hotel pool. And then it got worse. We’ve just done a second book. Among other things, Run. Risk. Reward. chronicles Ryan and running partner Ryno Griessel’s exploits traversing the Himalayas and then, the circumference of Lesotho. These guys literally ran across, and around, whole countries. Alongside the extreme endurance – like running 1 500km across Nepal in 24 consecutive days – they found themselves in actual life and death situations. From desperately trying to find shelter in the middle of the night in the world’s highest mountains, to fending off an attack by herdsman in the Lesotho highlands, they were not only in The Actual Pain Cave, but had booked in long-term. The Actual Pain Cave has gallery seating for guests. It serves beer and snacks. Book your seat.”