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Feisty 53-year-old Sharlene McGillvray celebrated a sporting milestone on the calm waters of Inanda dam on Sunday. With her peroxide white hair, she punched the air in delight as she finally qualified to take part in The Unlimited Dusi Canoe Marathon that starts on 14 February.
McGillvray is a legend in the BMX fraternity where she is the world champion in her Challenger class, and her trademark neon dyed hair, which ranges from pinks to green and yellows reflects her irrepressible bubbly personality. So how did she get lured into the process of starting canoeing and trying to qualify for The Unlimited Dusi?
A DTP graphic design expert, McGillvray shares an office with Shelley Bloy, the daughter of Dusi legend Lyall Wheeler, who had done more than 40 Dusi, and she tentatively approached the BMX star to see if she would be keen to try a new sporting challenge, and partner her on a Dusi.
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“I told her there was NO WAY that I was getting into a piece of resin and going down any river coz I have a fear of water,” recalls McGillvray.
“Then during the 2012 Dusi I got so wrapped up with her phoning to see where Lyle and his partner Billy were. She had printed out a map of the route on placed it on my desk -sneaky cow- so on the third day she asked me again, and before I knew it I had said “bring it on!”, said McGillvray. “Once I commit to something I go all out, so there was no turning back.”
Wheeler took McGillvray under his wing and the training started in the cold of midwinter on Camps Drift, before graduating to novice paddles on the Upper Umgeni. There were plenty of bumps and bruises along the way, including a serious accident on a flooded Commercial Road weir that left her with a badly injured knee and unable to walk.
The slightly built McGillvray is totally unphased about starting the sport at the age of 53. “Age is just a number – besides my ID book lies – I’m 18 till I die!”
“Nothing is impossible if you believe in yourself and work within your limits,” says McGillvray. “I cannot believe how much I love paddling and to think that the first time I got in a canoe (Feb 2011) I was so scared. That fear has been replaced with huge respect and I still want to do sections of river like Hella Hella on the Umkomaas!”
McGillvray changes her hair colour as often as most people change clothes. Her loud voice and colourful vocabulary have made her hard to miss at Camps Drift, with her neon hair initially reinforcing this impact on the canoeing scene. Suddenly the neon shades disappeared to be replaced by snow white short peroxided hair.
“We decided that we were going to change the colour but in order to do that we had to cut the old colour out coz it can’t be bleached out. So once that process started and Lauren had bleached it I told her to just shave it SHORT and now I really love it,” said McGillvray.
“It’s so much easier but the colours are my trademark so I’ll go back to them after Dusi for the MTB Masters World Champs. BUT we are planning something very funky and different for Dusi, so watch this space …” she added.
Competitors line up for the start of The Unlimited Dusi on the 14th of February at Camps Drift, and the race ends at Blue Lagoon in Durban on 16 February 2013. More information can be found on the Dusi website.
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