For most elderly people, relaxing and enjoying retirement would be their main priority, but for this couple, who have been married for 58 years, relaxing means keeping fit and they just reached their ultimate fitness goal when they completed their 100th Sardinia Bay parkrun at the weekend.
Jeanie (79) and Seymour Marais (83), who do everything together and even complete each other’s sentences, have been waiting for two years to reach this milestone, because they weren’t able to do park runs for the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before the pandemic hit, the couple made it to 97 park runs, which consist of 5km each, something they had been participating in for five years.
Despite Seymour having a rare blood disease and even breaking an arm during one of their previous park runs, the couple stays consistent by participating in the park run every Saturday, and taking walks at Grass Roof every Tuesday.
“The two of us have always had a love for walking together. We don’t do races or marathons, but just like to keep reasonably fit.
“For two years we have been waiting to do our 100th park run, but we have kept on walking. We walk twice a week. We usually also do 5km at the beach and walk from King’s Beach to the harbour wall,” Jeanie said.
When asked whether they thought that they would actually reach 100 park runs, Seymour said that when they first started walking, they didn’t even think about that.
“We just started walking and when we got to 50 park runs, we thought, oh well, we might as well just go to 100,” he mentioned.
“I do the walks mainly for my blood disease because the haematologist said that it would help and Jeanie always walks with me and is happy to walk with me,” he said.
“We enjoy each other’s company and we are so glad that we are still together at this age,” Jeanie added.
“We just thank the Lord that he has given us the strength to do this at our age and we praise the Lord because he helps us.
“We walk together and we always hold hands. We support each other, we keep walking and we know that the Lord walks with us.
“There’s a verse that says: ‘I will hold up your goings that your footsteps slip not’ and that is a little verse that we always say when we’re walking because we know that the Lord is looking after us,” she said.
The couple feels blessed to be doing well, since things were not always smooth sailing for them.
Approximately three years ago, they lost everything, including their home, due to unfortunate circumstances.
Not only have they managed to turn their circumstances around in the meantime, but they also started a successful baking business, selling rusks, cookies and fudge.
Their advice to others their age who want to get fit, is to start 1km at a time and gradually build up from there.
