About Bo

Dog lover. Runner. Although very slowly. Keeping up with the stresses of running and life...

Wiehl’s on wheels

Posted on December 5, 2017 by Bo

I felt trapped. Nursing my sprained ankle meant I had been balancing my body on crutches for three weeks while holding up a heavy moon boot. My knee and calf muscle were crying. My hands ached. I needed to get out of the house and feel like myself again. So I sent an urgent WhatsApp to my sister, “Please take me shopping!”

I was caught off guard when she arrived to fetch me with a wheelchair on the backseat of the car. “I’m not disabled,” was my defense but she bundled me up and off we drove.

By the time we arrived at the mall, I had stopped fighting and climbed in the wheelchair. What a relief to have my foot up and my hands free!

I could finally whizz around Woolies and pick out my own veggies and fruit again. I could feel the fabrics of the new fashion displayed in the stores. And it felt so good to just slow down and be outdoors.

The wheelchair humbles you. I was worried people would stare (which they did). But it showed me a different view of the world.

I observed:

– that some shops are easier to maneuver around than others. You need quite a wide path for the wheelchair to drive through. Shops such as Typo & Cardies do not cater all that well for wheelchairs.

– trying on a pair of shoes was difficult. The bench in Poetry is positioned conveniently (for able-bodied people) right smack in front of the shoe rack on a lovely fawn and pink carpet. It was a struggle to get close sitting in the wheelchair.

– when paying for goods, I could not see the POS / credit card machine screen when I was promoted to input my pin. It’s a tad too high.

– people apologize to you all the time. As you pass them or come around the corner, they see you, they jump out the way and say sorry.

– the beautician in Dis-Chem was the most comfortable dealing with me and even gave me mini manicure.

– when we stopped for lunch, the waitress remove the able bodied chair and wheeled my wheelchair in. It’s cumbersome sitting in the wheelchair. The foot rests are in the way under the table. The arm rests stop you from pulling the wheelchair closer to the table. And the legs of the table are in the way of this huge wheelchair seat.

For me personally, I didn’t mind hoping out of the wheelchair into the restaurant chair & asking the staff to move the wheelchair away. I know this isn’t an option for everyone.

It was great to get out! But more than a shopping trip, what I observed and how I felt in that wheelchair gave me a lot of food for thought.

Is wearing a moon boot for x6 weeks really the end of the world? Being impatient not being able to drive and my irritation depending on others almost seemed ridiculous knowing that it’s temporary.

Most of all, spending time in the wheelchair reminded me of just how incredibly blessed I am to have the use of both of my legs, to walk, to jog and to run!

Teething problems of a new business

Posted on November 14, 2017 by Bo

To say that we’ve had a few “teething problems” running CW-X SA, our small business, would be a massive understatement. The definition of teething problems is: “short term problems at the early stages of a project.”

The night we signed the contract & loaded KK’s car full of stock. We were officially the owners of our own business!

I bet if you asked any mother to describe her child’s teething, she would mention the drooling, the irritability, the niggles, the loss of appetite, the red gums, the chewing of fingers and toys. Yeah, sounds familiar to us.

The teeth cut so far have been for the following reasons:

Delays in getting our payment platform up and running. And I’m talking months, not weeks!
Our stock was delayed at customs and then audited by SARS. Fluke, I swear!
Commitment from buyers but the orders don’t come through. Everyone promises to go buy, but then … don’t.
Orders for stock we didn’t think people would be interested in. Funky colours are not as popular as we thought.
Running social media campaigns is tough! Providing fresh content 24/7 and having minimal engagement is frustrating.

The challenge is also running the business after hours while we have our day jobs. It has meant a lot of late nights and busy weekends. We accidentally missed a failed order on the site last week. Thank goodness for our site developer Liza who has been absolutely amazing!

Through the drool and niggles, there are some nuggets that we’ve picked up along the way:

The personal touch is important. While I’m all for online shopping, there’s something about speaking face-to-face with someone. I totally get how retail giants such as Amazon and even Yuppie Chef are toying with bricks and mortar. Don’t underestimate the value in hand deliveries.
Runners are all so different but yet all so alike. Sticking to what we know has worked for us. Trying to be all things to all people is impossible right now.
I love these lava print tights! And everywhere I saw jacaranda trees, I would stop to take pics.
Knowing the stock makes all the difference. I have started running in different bras and running in various styles of running tights. It definitely helps knowing the product, but not only through the brochures, but from personal experience. I’ll tell you now (for free) that the racerback Xtra Support bra is not nearly as comfortable as the StabilyX Running bra.
They say you shouldn’t try anything new when running a race, but I decided to try out the StabilyX Ventilator 3/4 tights for Kaapsehoop half marathon. This is me and my dad 300m from the finish line. We were hurting! But the tights felt amazing!
Finding the right brand ambassadors who love your product and believe in your vision has been so motivating! Thank you Kirsty & Dan!
OCR & Trail running fanatic!

Kirsty just had to try out a couple of handstands in her new Generator Revolution Trailprint tights. Gosh, they fit her like a glove!

The snag of spraining my ankle and KK traveling for work during December is yet another teething problem for us – something we need to work around. You start becoming incredibly solutions-focused and agile.

The running injuries come & hopefully will go. The projects at work should come to an end. But runners don’t stop running. And so the sales must go on!

Get to CW-X SA and find out why we’re committed to sticking through the teething problems!

That’s it. I’m out!

Posted on November 12, 2017 by Bo

I’ve sprained my ankle. I wish I had a more elaborate story as to how I managed to sprain it. I wasn’t saving a kitten up a tree. I didn’t fall off my bike. I wasn’t even participating in a trail run. I simply stepped off the patio onto the grass on my way to pick up dog pooh. Yeah, that’s it.

The timing is actually perfect. It’s year-end and the race calendar has run out. Spraining my ankle has forced me to go into a phase of forced rest without having serious FOMO about any races I’m missing.

Come to think about it, I have missed quite a few races this year. Not entirely out of choice, but because they’ve sold out so quickly. I blame Discovery and their ridiculous point system. Since they entered the game with their Vitality Series, things have been quite chaotic at races.

The entries have sold out fast. The fields have become bigger and bigger resulting in gridlocked traffic on the road as well as huge congestion in the race. I’m seeing an increase in litter at all the water stops from mainly inexperienced runners.

Running a race in Jo’burg has become quite painful. And the last time I checked, old favourites such as Om Die Dam and Oceans were already sold out. We used to have a few months to plan and think about the races we’d like to enter. Not anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. The increase in the number of people running and getting fit is wonderful. It’s positive. I mean, WTH! Sell out races is great. But the vibe has changed. I’ve started to choose an afternoon run around my neighborhood and the occasional run with Graham Block’s group over the stress of an actual running race.

I might feel different about the whole situation next year. Things might have changed. Maybe I’m just tired and winding down. Maybe I’m just really miserable and yes, maybe it is FOMO. With my ankle injury, I’m going nowhere fast and putting my ~~feet~~ foot up has left me with lots of time to think.

I’m doing a lot of that lately.

Behind the Dassie lens

Posted on October 30, 2017 by Bo

As we headed back to work after a thrilling weekend down in Nature’s Valley, I was swiping through a couple of photographs on my iPhone that KK had taken from the Otter Trail Dassie 10km trail run.

The mixture of pics show me as a bag of nerves before the race, my daring efforts during the middle of the race (just after I ran into a tree), followed by hilarious pics of me gripped with fear as I crossed the balance beam over shark & piranha infested water.

We had made the decision to go down to Knysna even though KK had pulled out of the Otter Challenge race due to injury. We had already booked flights, accommodation etc. and we thought we’d go down to support friends running the race and just enjoy a weekend away.

It’s not what KK had originally planned for his Otter 2017 trip. But his injury had forced him to drop out. Not being able to run, missing out of the hype, the registration, race number collection and then the race itself wasn’t fun. Playing the supporter role is not what he signed up for.

But when I see the photos, I realize that throughout the entire time, not once did he make others feel bad or guilty. He didn’t sulk or get irritated by our excitement.

But his weekend revolved around me. He helped pick out my new hydration pack, thank goodness, as there was no water point on the Dassie. He nudged me every morning to go for my morning runs and there would always be cups of hot tea when I returned.

And on race day, he was there. He gave me his usual prep talk when I got my nervous running cough attack, he made sure I had all my kit and he popped up at every possible moment to take photos of me during the race, cheering me on, at the start, during the middle of the race when I wanted to quit, and at the finish line. KK was present.

His happiness for me finishing my race shines through in the pics. I can still hear his cheers from the side of the road and he was genuinely interested in my ~~over~~-analysis of every step of the race.

Sometimes it’s how you show up to a race, more than crossing the finish line that shows what kind of athlete you are.

I know you’ll be back to run your Otter, but this ones for you babes!