Culture
City Guide: Johannesburg, South Africa
Take on 21km of summer in Jozi with Braamfie Runners
For our latest City Guide, we teamed up with Stuart Hendricks of Braamfie Runners to get the low down on running Johannesburg.
Few cities encapsulate contrast like Johannesburg. Sprawling in its scale, the metropolis effectively spans 1,600 square kilometres, home to some 10 million inhabitants.
Braamfontein as an urban hub may have lost some of its sheen as the poster child of a resurgent Joburg to younger upstarts like Maboneng, but still serves as a prime location for many aspiring creatives and business people. Venues like Great Dane and Kitcheners host some of the biggest parties anywhere in the city, week in and week out.
For Braamfie Runners, however, Joburg is more than just an address.
Formed in 2012, their location allows them to effectively explore areas to the north, east, west and just south of the city.
For the runners that set off early, the streets are strewn with bottles from the past night’s revellers. By the time day breaks, most of the debris is cleared up.
Today we’re exploring a 21km route which effectively covers two areas of the city, snaking through the opulent locale of Westcliff, then cutting back towards the base and then heading into the CBD.
The route down towards Westcliff is fairly gentle, a downhill canter until we reach a few rolling hills that lead us toward the Westcliff Stairs, a favourite amongst fitness enthusiasts in Joburg. The stairs boast an elevation of 60 metres, the first challenge on our expedition. From the top of the stairs, you can just about see out west towards the Northcliff Hill. At about 6km in, this is our first water point along the route.
The suburb of Westcliff lies adjacent to what are colloquially known to most Joburgers as The Parks; the suburbs of Parkview and Parkhurst, some of the most desirable addresses in the city. The sweeping greenery provides respite from the unrelenting summer heat.
Once at the top of the stairs, if we’re looking to add on mileage, we continue down the main arterial road (Jan Smuts Avenue) towards yet another lush, leafy suburb – none other than Saxonwold, home to the infamous Gupta compound. From there we can cut back along Oxford Road back up towards Parktown until we get on to Empire.
Today, however, we’re moving southwards through the inner city, going back past the base and crossing the unmistakable Mandela Bridge as we meander towards the inner city. We're turning right once we’re in Newtown, largely to avoid the hazards that are Joburg taxis, running underneath the M1 highway that connects the south and north of the city.
We continue our trek, skirting the borders of the Newtown Precinct and the predominantly Indian suburb of Fordsburg until we reach the iconic Shadowboxer statue of Nelson Mandela. Here, we refresh, rest and hydrate before we continue to traverse the city sidewalks, doubling back once again towards the base. The shade from the high-rises provides some respite from the Joburg summer heat and makes this the ideal time to soak in the inner city architecture.
Most businesses now choose to call the trendier, more upmarket northern suburbs of Joburg home, but this part of the city is still home to key institutions like the Johannesburg City Library, along with various government departments.
The contrast between the swanky suburbs and the grime of the inner city is nowhere clearer than our penultimate pull, up towards Park Station. Runners are forced to carefully survey traffic lights for obstinate taxis and hurdle between inanimate commuters as they chug up the approach to Constitution Hill, a former prison and military fort, and now the site of South Africa’s Constitutional Court. Safety is a key tenet when running with Braamfie, and the crew ensures that absolutely no-one is left behind or feels unsafe, particularly when traipsing through the more unsavoury areas.
It would be remiss to not mention a very special hill that we aim to include on each and every run that we do. The National School of the Arts is a campus for creative students, located about 800m from our crew base. Leading up to this campus is a hill, about 250m long with an elevation gradient of 20m. On paper, that might not sound like much, but it only takes one attempt at running this hill to realise that it poses a stern test of fitness, even for seasoned elites. We have a crew saying that goes: “It’s not a Braamfie run unless it includes NSA.” It’s clear that the crew has forged bonds and strengthened friendships as a result of this hill. Without fail, it falls towards the tail-end of every run; a mental hurdle that the Braamfie Runners are conditioned to overcome.
Once the runners have warmed down and stretched, they’re spoilt for choice when it comes to refuelling options, with the ever-popular Neighbourgoods Market a mere few metres from base. Most times, though, Braamfies can be found enjoying a coffee, breakfast and some banter at the Bannister Hotel.
True to the culture of crew running, BR is a collective moulded from many different backgrounds and circumstances. They’re accountants, engineers, photographers, marketers, living and running in a city that holds so much hope, yet so much uncertainty.
Running in Joburg can be downright frightening, but with a crew like Braamfie Runners it can also be liberating and emboldening. It offers you perspective that you wouldn’t normally get when you drive along the roads that they run.
