RESTING IS OVER !!!

Yes I've take the last 2 weeks easy, OK not so easy that everyone would call them easy, but easy for me... I did have a very hard January (1st weekend in Feb) which saw me running 5 trail races in the Summer series and 4 Road Races including a fast hard half...

With the rest behind me I'm looking forward to the next 5 week as we build for Oceans and I attempted to do well in the trail race. Now if I plan to be strong for 2 hours of hard, technical, trail running I had better head for the mountains, so on Saturday I met the 'Boys' in Tokai!

Driving to the start

It's not a long drive and I have run there when I was fitter...

We park just behind this house

And yes you are right we were heading up the mountain, all the way!!! We left the car park at 07h05 and headed up the gravel road (yes gravel road no single track going up this time.)

The car park was full, but must on the people in the "mountain" were on bikes and we slowly ran them down... They don't stay on the road, they spend the day on the single track between the roads. We ran together chatting for the first half eating up the gravel road... Then the gravel ends and the 2nd half is tared as we climb from the saddle round the back to the top.

Jayde pushed ahead and I soon followed (make that very soon), now being a man of habit I took a split as the surface changed 31:30, Will, the walking (OK running) calculator, wasn't with us this morning, but I could do the maths myself, 28:30 to the top would break an hour... As I pulled up with Jayde I told him to be careful or he might pop! (He said he was fine...) Ake joined us, leaving Roger, Roger and Richard behind... If you haven't run up to the mast you won't understand how that tar road just climbs and climbs... I kept the tempo up, I want say I was taking it easy but... (I do think there was a little I'm the tank). I soon found myself on my own pounding the tar, focused on the road ahead. I had my pack on with 1.5 l of water, a towel and a few other things. My pack was heavy the right weight for training... I am hoping to get strong. I'm going to have to do a bit of training if I'm going to kick butt come race day... This little run up is just over 10km (Mr Garmin calls it 10.3km) and with 800m of climb it's like something out of the Tour de France!

I reach the top and had to stop

I touched the fence and stopped the clock 59:30. (once I didn't break an hour, so I came back the next day on my own and run up in 58min!!!) So I'm mad...

Ake and Jayde climbing the last section!

Richard was in a rush, and headed straight down, while we turned left at the gate!!! This took us over the top and down to the top of Blackburn. It's a great single track and Roger (one of them) felt a little out of it as the others disappeared over the side, I hung back to take a couple of pictures...

Over we go...

There is a path there!

The view to the see, and Hout Bay.

In the saddle we regrouped for the next leg of this run...

Roger and Roger

Yes that is the mast in the back ground... from here we headed to the dam for a swim, it was perfect there without a breath of wind, in fact it was such a perfect morning that a couple was having wedding pictures taken! I know I should have taken the phone out and caught the action, but I ran on to the other side for my swim. It wasn't a rushed affair, we stood in the water for a while before our swim and the run down to the cars.

Our run was, wait for it, 21.1km Yes that's what Mr Garmin called it and we were just under 2hours running time, so it was a little short, but I did get out on the bike on Sunday for 2h42:21 for a little ride before church!!! Don't worry I don't really call that training so I went for an easy 10.1km run after lunch, in fact that was a nice run, Dawn and I had popped over to join her mom for lunch and then as we left I hopped out the car and ran home in the heat of the day, 30+ degrees. We have a swimming pool, so I was straight in after the run to cool off.

Let the training start...