Move Jozi

October 12, 2013

R, G and I post race.

A 10km night race through the Johannesburg CBD? A cool shirt, a couple of great friends to run with, and a chance to run over the Nelson Mandela bridge in the dark? Not really something I would typically turn down, so no sense in starting now. And besides, wasn't it a goal of mine to run a race here? 

Apparently this Nike-sponsored night-race started a couple of years ago; initially the slogan for the race was "take back the streets"...As you might imagine, this didn't have the desired impact on the city that the American-based company hoped it would. Leading up to this year's race radio announcers were still making fun of the previous slogan, asking questions like "take the streets back from who?", "What gives one the right to take it back from someone else?", "Who had the rights to it in the first place?",  and "why can't we all just share the streets?". Nike has spent the last couple of years trying to change the image they initially created for this particular race, and this year's slogan was "Move Jozi". The idea being to ignite a spirit of excitement and movement throughout the downtown core. As such, the race consisted of two routes: one running downtown and the other uptown, with colour coded-shirts indicating your route choice (grey for downtown, red for uptown). As is expected with a fun-run of this nature, it was a very crowded run, but the energy was incredible. The runners were psyched, spectators were cheering all along the route, fireworks were set off during the race, and there were bands playing at the finish line to welcome runners in. 

Seeing children high-fiving the runners, hearing local drummers entertaining participants enroute, looking up to see groups of people crammed on balconies with inspirational posters tied to the railings and cheering everyone on, and running the home stretch of the race over the fully illuminated Nelson Mandela Bridge are a few of the moments I've committed to memory from this event. 

Moving Jozi: 10,000+ runners moving and being moved in this incredible city.