Salt Rock twins Andrew and Steven Erasmus are flying the North Coast flag high after their recent success in the world of trail running.
The brothers, who originally hail from Johannesburg, moved down to Salt Rock three years ago and work full time as landscapers at Palm Lakes.
When they are not helping plan and manage gardens, they are out trail running.
Their most recent race was the remote Fish River Ultra Marathon in Namibia. The brothers ran together and came in second place, behind highly experienced runner AJ Calitz. The race takes place in the massive Fish River canyon which is the largest in Africa.
“It is a small event and difficult to get to. It’s well known but not too many people run it,” said Andrew.
The 2000 kilometre trip to Fish River was “a marathon in itself” according to Steven but was well worth it..
“They set up a race village on the edge of the canyon. It was very well put together. The logistics must have been difficult, it really is in the middle of nowhere,” Steven said.
“It was incredible, you hear about it but you do not realise how big the canyon is,” said Andrew.
“They say you just follow the trail and you cannot get lost but the reality is that its huge.”
The brothers made a decision to run the whole race together after Steven’s GPS packed up the night before the race.
“You usually try and run together but on the day someone is always feeling a bit stronger on race day. We had no choice this time but to stay together,” said Andrew.
A lot of the race consisted of running through soft sand and rocks. However the difficult terrain is made up for by the remote, untouched wilderness that runners experience.
“One guy saw a leopard along the way, we saw plenty of baboons and there are loads of wild horses out there as well,” Andrew said.
Despite the distractions and getting a bit lost, the twins finished the race in 10 hours in 26 minutes while Calitz won the race in 8 hours and 4 minutes.
“We were disappointed to be beaten by so much. We wanted to keep it a close race and should have stayed with Caliz a bit longer,” said Steven.
Looking ahead, they are excited to do the race again and want to be more prepared. They plan to map out better lines and trails to cut down on their finish time.
Their next immediate hurdle is the Sky Run in November.
The highly competitive runners are sponsored by Salomon and train six days a week. mostly at Holla Trails. On weekends they run up to 60 kilometres on Saturdays and Sundays.
At 32 years old, both brother have plenty of running ahead of them and plan to have a shot at making the SA long distance trail champs team.
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