Joggie Rautenbach learned a long time ago that the worst noise in an ultra isn’t the wind or the chain squeaking—it’s your own head. David Goggins would call it the war within. Joggie just smiles and says, “Sit met jou rug teen ‘n windpomp se muur, kiep vir ‘n halfuur, drink water—en ry dan weer.” Same grit, softer edges, more Karoo dust.
He didn’t choose The Munga the way you choose a new bike light. He chose it the way men sometimes do dumb, brave things—langs ’n vuur, with Joggie telling a friend, “If you can do it, I can do it,” and the stars above nodding yes like accomplices. Five Mungas later, thirteen Comrades in the legs, he’s chasing a quiet, outrageous symmetry: ten Mungas and ten Comrades. No one’s done it. That’s partly why he must.
Then August came with a surgeon’s voice and a calendar that split in two: before and after. Three arteries, badly blocked. A Comrades marathon warning at 30 km—he stopped, which he never does. That pause may have saved his life. “Hart is belangrike dinge,” he says now, not as a slogan but as a man who’s been opened and stitched, from 1–14 August, then got back on the bike, not to defeat death, but to live better. He calls it a “second second chance,” a fifty-per cent-new upgrade to do the important things right.
His sixth Munga isn’t only a comeback; it’s a covenant. He’s riding for the South African Hall of Fame’s Legacy Project—thirty-three kids now, a thousand in sight. “This isn’t charity,” he says. “It’s an investment in South Africa’s future.” The Karoo’s old roads mirror those children’s days: long, hot, uncertain, and somehow still going. Every pedal is a little vote of confidence in a kid who just needs one door to stay open five minutes longer.
He prepares the way he rides: waterpunt tot waterpunt—never thinking farther than the next honest effort. Then there’s training, only 700 km op bene in a year, the kind of base that people will frown upon, only 700 km!! That is Joggie, and why everyone is different! He chuckles, don’t try this at home or if you want to do the Munga! Then, more seriously, the real plan is simple.
Don’t sprint your soul in the first hour. Moenie te vinnig begin of probeer bybly met die vinnige perde daarvoor nie. Eat, drink, greet the wind like an old opponent who knows your name. When the lights in your head start flickering, pull over, sit under the starry sky, close your eyes for twenty minutes, and give your nervous system a soft reset. Don’t make big decisions when you’re shattered. “Eers, rus, maak dan ‘n besluit.” Then ride again.
Fear? Sure. He fears not finishing. Everyone does. But his fear has a different timber since he buried two brothers lost to heart attacks. He’s already survived cancer; he knows the body can betray and redeem in the same year. “You can go on,” he says, “jy kan aangaan en dinge doen.” When he rides, they ride with him—two steady presences at his shoulder, reminding him to be brave and to be kind.
Night in the Karoo has a way of peeling a man’s ego from his bones. That’s when Joggie’s philosophy shows its teeth. He believes in joy as a strategy—laughing at the absurdity, stopping at a windpomp, maybe swem if the water’s good, talking nonsense with a stranger at 03:12 while chewing a stale koeksister that tastes like courage. He believes in respect—for teammates and tail-enders, for the farmers who wave from bakkies, for the land itself. “Ons ouens daar agter,” he says, “help mekaar uit die gat.” Back there, camaraderie isn’t a hashtag; it’s a handlebar quietly offered in a headwind.
Somewhere after midnight on Day One, with the road running away like a ribbon pulled by the moon, he remembers why he keeps coming back. Every year, die stress vloei uit, like the Karoo wrings the noise from him and hands back a person with simpler priorities. The math of his life resets: fewer headlines, more heartbeats; less spectacle, more soul. Hard things don’t make you hard; they make you honest.
He watches the youngsters—jongelinge—arrive with fast legs and faster plans. He likes them immediately. They’ll learn what he learned: you can’t bully the Karoo. You can partner with it. You can listen. “Luister, oordink, kyk.” Pace yourself so you still like who you are on Day Two. Protect your sense of humour; you’ll need it at 4 a.m. when the coffee is a rumour and the wind is a fact. And when you’re done—truly done—put your back against the thorn tree, close your eyes, and let the earth hold you up. Then get up and carry on.
He’ll tell you in one sentence what Munga is: “’n Awesome event—iets wat jy vir die res van jou lewe onthou. Die moeilik dele maak jou hart en siel wakker.” The hard parts are the ones that make your heart and soul pay attention. That’s why he rides. That’s why he’ll ride until the story is finished and then start the next chapter.
And the goal—ten and ten—sits on the horizon like a farm gate at the end of a long, straight road. It’s not a brag; it’s a compass bearing. He doesn’t want to be the first so much as he wants to be the sort of man who keeps going when the reasons get quiet. The sort who turns endurance into generosity, pain into prayer, miles into opportunities for kids whose lives will go farther than his tyres ever will.
Dawn spills over the veld, and the shadows tuck themselves away. Joggie clips in. The chain finds its rhythm. The dust lifts and hangs like a blessing in the new light. He thinks of his brothers. He thinks of thirty-three names he doesn’t know yet, and the many more he hopes to meet. He thinks of the vow he made to himself when the surgeon’s hands were done: to spend this second second chance well.
The road hums. A wagtail tilts across the fence line like a metronome. He glances back at a rider he doesn’t know and nods: kom saam. There will be time for speed later; now is for steadiness. The Karoo doesn’t ask for perfect; it asks for honest.
And if you ask him—out there, between wind and wire—how he keeps going, he’ll grin the way men do when they’ve suffered enough to be gentle and say, “Sit eers langs daai windpomp. Dan ry ons verder.”
https://www.givengain.com/project/joggie-raising-funds-for-south-african-hall-of-fame-trust-110157