Disclaimer: As apposed to my brother Dean, I should
be the long distance runner in the family.
I, in my callow youth, was short, wiry and ornery (but mostly just went
my own way). Suddenly one day in
standard 9 the ugly duckling became a ‘swan’.
From always being on the ground in the annual class photographs I
suddenly found myself in the second row – heady times. In Matric, I proudly took my place alongside
all those guys in the back row who had played rugby lock their whole lives –
traditionally reserved for the tallest while the coach struggled to find a
position where he could hide me. I might
have got tallish, but I never got broad, let alone broadish. I left Varsity a tad under 6 ft and weighing
in at 73kg. By the age of 55 I had put
on weight – I weighed 75kg. I was long
distance material – rangy and still a bit ornery. Dean, my elder brother by 4 years, was not
the archetypal long distance runner. He
was an inch or two shorter than me and struggled with his extra poundage for
his whole life. In addition, a very,
very septic burst appendix (caused by our sister Cheryl, a tough little shit of
note, giving him a voltruis skop in the right side when he was 10 or 11)
ensured that his 6- pack, if he could get one, was ripped to pieces by the aggressive
surgery resulting in a recurrent stitch when running.
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