The Florida Lake Canoe Club hosted a 30km river race from Daleside to Meyerton with a three-kilometre portage in December. It was a training race for the Dusi Canoe Marathon set to take place in February.

The portage is an essential part of the Dusi training as paddlers have to get out of the river and run with their boat for up to 18km during the endurance event. Krugersdorp residents, Marius Morgan and Hermanus Lombard partnered up to test their paddling and endurance ability as they work on improving fitness and stamina by doing running and canoeing training. They finished the race in two hours 56 minutes.

As the world’s toughest canoeing endurance event, training provides excellent practice for paddlers to speedily and efficiently get out of their boat, grab it, pick it up, run with it for a distance, climb up or down a river bank with it, and put it back in the river to continue the race paddling in the current, white water and through the rapids.