Cape Town Marathon 2012

The morning started very slowly, without the normal pre-race rush, so much so that I only got into the start pen 2 minutes before the gun... I was still a couple of rows from the front, but that was fine as I didn't have any plans too set the route alite. I could see a couple of friends just ahead and it didn't take long after the gun for us to form a nice little bus...It didn't take us long to settle into a nice pace around 4:05 / km . We headed down the Main Road with the wind behind us, foot note here: Friday was the start of Spring, but the weather gods didn't get that memo, and remember that Cape Town was always known as the Cape of Storms in years gone by... We past 5km in 20:17 and the bus looked solid, but then so was the wind from behind... I looked up at my mountain, and, maybe because I had left her for tar today, she was gone!!! A lot on runners had set out to hard and all along the Main Road we were catching guys. At about 8km we turned of the Main Rd and headed for Ronderbosch common and the 10km mark 40:29... 2 or 3 km later we turned... Into the wind, I did the clever thing and moved to the back of the bus, but something went wrong after a water table and a gel... I was now in front with Will and the pace once again moved close to the 4min mark... Turning in to Pinelands was great as the wind was helping us again, and Damian shot to the front, he's from Pinelands and wanted to be seen. He did get the biggest cheer of the race as we ran through a water table (ok his dad was there..) With Pinelands behind us we cossed the half way mats in 85:30 and now it was time to head back to Town... Wind wind and more wind... Will set the tempo, I set the tempo, Bruce set the tempo and some guy from Bellville set the pace. Wait for it, the 10km from 20 to 30 km, most of it into the wind, was the fastest of the day 40:09!!! We were now in Town and we caught my friend Eddie and had closed enough to see the leading lady. 10 km to go and and 50min needed to break 3 hours. Bruce was now chopping at the bit and set off like a man possessed, ok not really, but he did hit the front and hold the pace as close to 4 as he could... Will did the wise thing here and let us go. I often tell my ultra runners who are using a marathon for training to run hardish for 30-34, then back of and take it easy to the end. This let's you recover fast enough not to loss any training. Maybe I should have joined him... I tried to back off at 36, and even run with the 1st lady, whom we had just past, but that only lasted about 300m... A little surge took me back to Bruce and Damian. Bruce still had the hammer down and was gunning for 2h50 ( he would miss it by 11 sec!) Finally with 2km to go I stopped fighting to stay with them (ok only Damian was left as Bruce was off the front.) I just jogged in, that is untill the final turn when the lead lady was back... I sped up to run in with her, but when I saw them putting up a finishing tape for her I backed off finishing in 2h51:43. Race done, and boy were we lucky as the weather was getting worse and worse... Would hate to have been out there for 4+ hours... Thanks for reading, and sorry there are no pictures.