The long run

Posted on 30 November 2015

He’s a conservationist, an adventurer and a motivational speaker. But Braam Malherbe is also living, walking – and running – proof of a patient’s power to heal himself. A decade ago he suffered a potentially crippling knee injury and was told he would never run again. Since then he has completed the equivalent of hundreds of marathons, in some of the world’s harshest terrain, in his quest to raise awareness of social issues. Here, in his own words, is the story of how – and why – he did it.

I was rescuing a Cape cobra from somebody’s home in Camps Bay. The cobra was hiding in a dark space and it suddenly came at me, so I jumped backwards – and the way I landed, I snapped the cruciate ligament. That was in about 2003, and it was the first time I injured my knee.

It wasn’t a big issue. Every now and then when I’d go trail running I’d get inflammation in the knee, but then it would be fine. At the end of 2005 I had it checked before I left for China, and my knee surgeon said that if I had it treated then, it could compromise the expedition. He said: ‘Just run carefully, watch your foot placements and avoid lateral movement, and we’ll fix it up when you come back.’

In China, we ran at the pace of a marathon a day. We called them the Days of Pain. We averaged 43km a day for 98 days, over some of the harshest terrain on Earth. I lost all my toenails in the first three weeks. It was undulating ground, with high mountains, up and down… So there was a lot of load-bearing on the knees. Those back-to-back ascents, according to our GPS records, were the equivalent of running up Everest 14,8 times. Turn that around, and you’re going down Everest 14,8 times as well! That pressure on my knee eventually took its toll.

I was confident going into the surgery. It was a simple anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. It was going to be fine. But when I came out of theatre the surgeon said he had some bad news. The cartilage was worn down to the bone. The word he used was ‘uncontained’, which is a bad prognostic sign. He told me right there and then, in my recovery bed, that it would be not a good idea to attempt running ever again – at all.

Negativity germinates and grows faster than positivity does. I was scheduled to run around the South African coastline for Operation Smile, so I said: ‘Look, I have to run again! And if I believe you, that belief will sit in my head and it will become a reality.’ My surgeon, Dr Willem van der Merwe, instructed me to go onto crutches for six weeks, with absolutely no weight-bearing on the knee. So that’s exactly what I did. Part of my recovery included using the Grucox Eccentric Trainer (an interactive leg training machine). Just prior to the expedition, he did an MRI on my knee in the operation room and he said: ‘I can’t believe this. The cartilage has almost regenerated to the same extent as the other knee.’ So I ran the coastline and I never had a day’s problem with that knee. You see, theoretically, stem cells don’t know what they have to become. If you put weight on them, they become bone. With no weight-bearing, they become cartilage. I personally think that’s what happened.

We were running along the Garden Route when Dr Van der Merwe called me. He was at an orthopaedic conference, and had shown my arthroscopy to 50 top knee surgeons. He put me on speakerphone.
He said: ‘We’re at this convention; can you tell us where you are?’
I said: ‘I’m in Wilderness, near Knysna.’
He said: ‘How did you get there?’
I said: ‘I ran. From Namibia, Oranjemund.
At the pace of a marathon a day.’
All 50 knee surgeons thought it was impossible.

How did I do it? By not believing the prognosis. My surgeon put up a slide in his conference presentation that said: ‘Because of our experience with Braam, we are embarking on new research to try and explain what we found in his case. I now believe that the mind can heal the body.’
What sits in your mind becomes your reality if you live it and believe it long enough. I subscribe to that doctrine. Just because something has never been done before, who says it can’t be done?

I believe in intelligent training. Whenever I prepare for an expedition – and this was especially true during my recovery – I’m not going to overtrain, pounding my knees. I’d rather go mountain biking, which puts no load on the knees.

I’m absolutely convinced the mind can heal the body if you have a great enough purpose. Take my expedition to the South Pole. Why did I do it? To make a movie on climate change.
Now picture this scenario, from a physical and medical perspective: I was pulling 85kg behind me, on skis, with two trekking poles, leaning forward all the time, sliding one foot ahead of the other. Now
let’s say it’s my right knee: as I pull my left leg through, all my weight is on that right knee, which is bent at 45 degrees. That’s the knee that had the operation, and this is all at -45°C, at the South Pole.
And I never had a problem.

I had another op on the same knee last November. I snapped the same cruciate… again. This time it was a stupid mountain-biking accident. I came off the bike, and as I put my foot down it landed between two rocks, and I went the other way. Twang! But with intelligent training and recovery it’s now fixed again, and I’m preparing for the DOT expedition, circumnavigating the globe along the Tropic of Capricorn.

You don’t have to run the Great Wall of China. There are many simple choices you can make in your daily life to have a positive impact. DOT stands for Do One Thing. Many small acts add up to one massive change.

Everybody wants to be successful. But the general idea of success is money, a fancy car and home, private schools, holidays, a nice retirement. And that’s good. But is that person significant? I try to lead a significant life. Ask yourself: am I empowering other people? Am I leaving this world a better place? I can say, emphatically, that I would not have finished that coastline run – and certainly not the Great Wall of China – if it were not for a purpose beyond my ego. That purpose was to put smiles on children’s faces through Operation Smile. When you live a life of significance, success goes way beyond just the pat on your back. And that’s why I did it.

Braam’s long runs
Despite a potentially crippling knee injury, Braam Malherbe has completed a series of extreme adventure challenges.
2006: CHINA
4 218km, 98 days
With David Grier, runs the length of the Great Wall of China to raise awareness for Operation Smile.

2008: COASTAL CHALLENGE
3 300km, 80 days
Again with David Grier, runs the length of the South African coastline from Oranjemund on the Namibian border to Ponta do Ouro on the Mozambican border to raise awareness of Operation Smile.

2011: ANTARCTICA
888km, 40 days
With Peter van Kets, completes unassisted race to the South Pole to raise awareness of climate change.

2016: DOT EARTH CHALLENGE
36 768km, 15 months
Again with Peter van Kets, aims to circumnavigate the globe along the Tropic of Capricorn, using only non-motorised means, to promote the DOT (Do One Thing) campaign.

The information provided in this article was correct at the time of publishing. At Mediclinic we endeavour to provide our patients and readers with accurate and reliable information, which is why we continually review and update our content. However, due to the dynamic nature of clinical information and medicine, some information may from time to time become outdated prior to revision.