His and hers record breakers

Newly engaged Tinley Manor running couple Steven Erasmus and Tarryn Lopez recently made their mark by both winning and breaking the record of the prestigious Mighty Mutter Mountain Mania trail run in the southern Drakensberg.

This annual, self-navigated trail run race is made up of two journeys – 35km and 65km – and you can only compete if you were invited to take part, making it a rather exclusive race.

Steven started his 65km run with 24 Mighty Mutterers at 4am, motoring through in a record breaking 7:58:20 while Tarryn started at 6am with 36 runners and cracked the 35km in a record breaking 4:44:40.

While this was Tarryn’s first Mutter, Steven won it last year.

“My goal was to break the record this year, as I was 15 minutes slower than the record last year,” said Steven, who works at Palm Lakes Family Estate and has been running and winning various extreme races, often with or against his twin brother, Andrew.

“I had a bad race back then, because I got lost and could not find the checkpoints and I had no water for the last 30 kilometres or so.

“There are five checkpoints where you record your number, but there are no water points, which I didn’t realise. You have to navigate your way to an old wheelbarrow, which leads you to a spring where you get some fresh water,”

As a newbie to the Mutter, Tarryn was worried about getting lost, but luckily stuck to a group of runners from the start and navigated with them until she broke away in the last five kilometres or so.

“I am very bad at navigating, so Steven actually took me up to the trail two weeks before the race to help familiarise me with the environment. You run on cattle trails mostly which is quite fun,” said Tarryn, who has been running for most of her life and is a pilates instructor.

“Before we started the race, we were told that we are the lighthouse in a storm for people in this adventure and that the point of the Mutter is to help each other out.

“It is a great way to meet people and work together.”

The lovebirds will be swapping their running shoes for bicycles in December, as they will be cycling about 500km from Christchurch to Queenstown in New Zealand during the Christmas holidays.

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