Running Honour

Two women ran the 2021 Otter African Trail Run to commemorate the life of someone special.

They had different journeys, but the same reason: Love.

WESTERN CAPE

6-9 October 2021

Trail running was one of Werner Daniel’s passions. Then one day he went on a training run and didn’t return. To his loving family and friends, he’d been stolen from them.

Five months later, his wife Chantal took on an epic challenge to make sense of his death and to celebrate his life.

Her friend Tracey Randle tells the story.

The speakers were pumping high octane music with words you couldn’t make out. The race commentator was enthusiastically blasting out: “Congratulations on what you have undertaken to get here, over the last year, the last two years… the Grail of Trail 2021!”.

Out on the water, Chantal Daniel was striding across the last obstacle for runners, a floating bridge on the lagoon. It floats – but only just. Runners need to keep moving or else the panels sink into the water.

Then she approached the notorious balance beam, a six-metre long beam only 10cm wide. Almost everyone who tried crossing it earlier failed, and had fallen into the bracing waters of Nature’s Valley lagoon. Her family and friends were screaming at her from the finish line, “Come on Chans!”.

She looked up apprehensively for a second and then dove into the refreshing brackish water. She swam the short distance and pulled herself out, back onto the floating platform on the other side.

A whisper away from the Otter Challenge finish line, did the commentator know what she had gone through to get to this point? It was not just