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.

TEAM CONTEGO

Back in 2005 I ran the first The Crazy Store Table Mountain Challenge and since then I've run the race a number of times (4 times). This year I wasn't up for another 4 hour race at this stage in my training, so I spoke to Eddie and he put together a CONTEGO team...

All to soon the lead Solo guys came through, OK only Mike Baily came through, he was miles ahead... If I remember correctly something like 7min ahead of Cain and AJ (I hear they took a detour in to Kirstenbosh to look at the flowers). Next in was Will and Nic, then Andrew on his own.

The relays had started 15min after the Solo's and Bernard was next in, I was about 15min behind Mike and I didn't know who was chasing me (solo or team). I didn't need to catch the Solo Guys, but the truth be told I'm not the best relay runner in the world, I can't just lay my body on the line for nothing, so I set my sights on chasing down the solo guys...

Leg 3 of TMC is only 17.5km but with 950m climb it has reduced grown men to tears... and today it was going to be hot!

I took off down the gravel road and as I ran alone, I start to think, "Hay these legs are working" from the start we drop for about 2km then, still on the gravel roads we start to climb, and there ahead I could see the orange top of Andrew. I didn't catch him till we were on the contour path to Llandudno corner.

CLIMBING LLANDUDNO CORNER  (Jacques takes the best pictures)

I took a split at the bottom and after passing Will and Nic on the climb I took another split, I was fast enough to break 2 hours...

Old Man Running along the Top

Oh it's me...

Running along the Twelve Apostles is not flat and on one of the big climbs I saw my next target, I'm not a great relay runner and I need something to aim at, It was AJ he was alone on the hill... (or should I say Mountain)
By the time I got there he was long gone, but I heard voices and looked around to see who was chasing, NO no-one was chasing, it was Cain, he was lost in the bushes, he had turned right at a large rock and was now not even close to a path!!! I whistled and called him telling him the race went this way... (he was shattered and after getting back on track and in the race he didn't last long before he called it a day with less than 3km to the end!!!)

I was going nicely and again I saw AJ and it didn't take long to catch him...

Stealth Mode

Next split Kasteelspoort before the descend, only Mike was left ahead and I would have to have fleet of foot if I wanted to catch him... Kasteels is only 1.5km long, but you drop 432m so it's not for every one!!! Lucky for me it was dry and wind free, and with fresh legs (only 90min of hard mountain running) I made good time and 12:13 later I was on the pipe track... And wait for it there was Mike. He let me pass and I put the hammer down for the last 3.2km.

1h59:53 and I was in, the team's time of 3h33:53 was 5min off the record, but still a good time.

Thank you CONTEGO I had a good time out there, it is good to run in a team from time to time. It's also nice to win!!!

Sunday, a day off, NO! I headed to the 10km race to ran with a friend who wanted to break 36min... We ran nicely till 7km then he slowed and just couldn't hold the pace, I think he legs are a bit tired from all the marathon training. I keep with him till 600m to go, then went for it... 35:57. I hope he listens and takes this week's taper for the marathon seriously we are wanting to run 2h59:59 or 2h54:59 or we go big 2h49:59.

But that is next weeks story...

MARATHON No 61

This weekend coming I will line up for my 61th Marathon and like all of you know, with a week to go you have a little look at the log book and see how things have gone:

1. Weekly mileage: Over the last 15 weeks I've averaged 94km, but more importantly the last 5 weeks is only 89km, so I've lost a bit of distance...
2. Long runs: Looking at them now I don't think I've done enough to 'race' a marathon. Things started well 5 weeks ago with 30km on the road at a good pace, but since then, it's been just to short... So the week after that 30 I only did 22 on the road on the Sunday and Saturday trail was only 2h13, the 20 on the road would have been enough if I have put in another half hour on the Saturday. Now that sort of thing has been happening week in and week out...
3. Sessions: I think it looks OK so running at our 4min pace should be no problem...
4. Rest: well that is down for this week, well it would be if I didn't have another race to train for... The marathon is really just a training run for a race on the 13th of October!!!

Any one else running a marathon this weekend?
Hope you are resting well...

Mountain Warrior Trail Festival

When I saw this I thought: sounds like fun... and fun it was. On paper it was a 2 day trail race 36km on the Saturday and 30km on the Sunday, so nothing stupidly long and over a weekend I needed to get a bit of running done!!! There were also 2 shorter routes for the less adventures, and then and evening run on the Saturday of 10km!!

When I first saw this advertised I thought: I'm in, but then with Dawn's op and blood clot trouble I put those thoughts on the back burner... Now Eddie asked me in the week if I was running and I popped back to the web sight and dropped them a mail: Can I still enter? Yes Yes Yes

Saturday then called for an early start as I headed out to Stellenbosch and the Rustenberg Wine Estate to enter and register...

The race only started after 9 and at 08h30 they bussed us to the start at Jonkershoek. (Yes the same place as the 30km earlier this year). The race was a little different as we kept on the gravel road for the first 3km before climbing up the single tracks that would take us round the horse shoe shaped mountain...

NOT FAR INTO THE RACE

That is me setting the pace on the left, Nic is behind me in white with a black face!!! And Dawid is on the right in blue (Oh that is my team mate Eddie in the middle).

I tell you this because as we turned right off the 'highway' onto a little single track it was only the 3 of us with Eddie in 4th and a couple of guys following him. Knowing that the race was single track for the next 2+hours I took the lead to set a steady pace and run within myself...

I didn't want to blow by running on my limit So being in front and setting the pace was the best place to be. I was also hoping that my pace would hurt the other guys as we started to climb... not some Micky Mouse climb you might find in a road race, this was the type of climb you would expect to find sir Edmond Hillery on!!! We climb 809m over the next 5km taking us into the SNOW!!! yes SNOW:

Dom Wills took this pic.

A cold front had come through the Cape over night and dumbed rain over the city, but on these higher mountains it was snow!!! It's not every day in the Western Cape that you get to run a race in the snow.

Now for those of you who haven't run in snow, and for those of you who only know the really stuff, as much fun as this was it was cold and not fun!!! the paths were rivers of slush and yes I was out front and there was almost no-one but us on the mountain. So at times I was making footprints in the crisp white snow, most of the time the paths was little ice rivers. Now with snow on the edgers on the path you couldn't leave the path as you didn't know what you would be standing on and you just couldn't afford to go down in the middle of no-where...

We left the cold and snow behind us and headed back:

Still leading on the lower slopes

With about 10km to go we joined the short route (they were long through) and headed up the next mountain. After 3 hours in the lead the boys come past, we were on a gravel road and I could get my Heart Rate down (I was a little sick and almost stayed in bed, I had run an easy 5km the day before and my HR stayed down so I thought head cold, good to run) so I had to walk.

Look this was a forest road and over the next km we climbed 186m (Mr Garmin) so running wasn't much faster, but both Nic and Dawid pulled ahead.

Over the top and down (rock faces I tell you, rock faces!!!) we had left the road and were on an old, or should I say new not yet made path... from time to time I could see Dawid ahead, but as the running come back and we hit the farm roads that would take us to the finish I tried to close the gap, but at 4:00 / km I wosn't really catching.

It was a great race and Nic had won in about 4h18 with Dawid 2nd in 4h22 and me 3rd just under 4h23...

Shoes took a pounding...

I wasn't up for Day 2, but slept late and went for a little 5km from home to stretch the legs.