OTTER / RETTO harder than you think!

Back in 2009 I was luck enough to get to run the 1st OTTER trail race, I didn't have a good run and after swimming the river I spent the rest of the race cramping...

Roll on 2012, with a little more training and a year without injury and again found myself on the start line of one of SA's favorite trail. OK we weren't in the Tsitsikamma National Park at the start of the Hiking trail, we found ourselves on the beach at Natures Valley, the end of the trail... We were running the RETTO, the OTTER in reverse!!!

An early morning gathering of the best of the best...

Let me just side track for a bit, The Otter Hiking trail is a 5 day hike along the coast, and with a waiting list of up to a year, it's a must hike for all hiker, but why hike when you can run.

The count down started and off we shot, OK not quite we had to plant our 'dibber' (the timing chip) before we could head off... The really fast boys were right in front and took off like they were running a track race!!! I took my time and soon found myself passing a couple of people on the beach heading for the first climb of the day!!!

THIS IS WHAT MOST OF THE CLIMBS LOOKED LIKE

NO I didn't run up those stairs, I walked and at the top I found myself in the 2nd group of guys, the quick boys were gone, and heading for DISASTER!!!

OK this is where I need to tell you another thing, at the start I turned Mr. Garmin on, and he turned himself off!!! I tried again and again, but nothing... I had charged him the night before and for the prologue he had worked just fine... I want to say I don't know what happened, but I think as I unplugged him from being charged he turned himself on (he does this some times, but I normally see this and turn him off) and ran the battery dry over night. So I had to run the race watchless!!! Now for a road race that is no problem, because km for km or mile for mile you can see how far you have run and how much longer you are going to be out there, Not so in the Otter!! First hour or 2 it was OK then but then hours 3-5, I just didn't know how the clock was going, was I need the finish? Just how much longer did I have to run / walk for? was that last hut the last hut, or was there one more!!! I had no clue...

I'm getting ahead of myself, After that climb it was "flattish" till the climb down to the last hut on the trail (our first hut of the day.) I was 2nd in our group behind Greg (who would end up 3rd on the day). My race was going well and when we reached to bottom Ian (the eventual winner) past us on the beach and danced over the rocks as if it was a dance floor. To let you know just how tough this race really is that drop was over 100m and after a short run on the rocky beach past the hut we climbed up the other side... (another 100m climb our 2nd of the day and we had only been at it for 40min...)

I lost a little ground on that climb, but Ian was a man on a mission! At the top I didn't rush, we were less than 10km into the race and with 4hours of running still to go I wasn't worried. Then between 10 and 11km we hit the Mighty Blaauwkrantz:

THE SWIM

OK So this is the swim!!! yes we had to swim about 30m before we could stand. That is Ian coming out of the water with Will behind him. The blur at the top right is me about to start my swim, Yes I was still in it...

the rest of the field

The water was beautiful

Straight after the swim, it's up the other side...

TOP OF ANOTHER CLIMB

OK this climb was 10km further on, and although it looks like another swim, we had crossed the river higher up and it was only knee deep for 10m. If you look carefully you can see the huts to the left of my head and the the path leading down to them. The race doesn't drop to the huts, but follows around the gouge before dropping to the crossing point. just before I started the descent I could see 3 or 4 guys crossing the beach of the river and it looked like Ian, Greg and who knows... So at half way I was still there and there about!!!

But the 2nd half is what sorts the men from the boys, and in my case the young from the old!!! With only 20km to go the front of the race was hotting up and I was cooling down, the endless up and down was taking it's toll. I think I caught another glimpse of them at about 27km the next big river crossing, and in fact as I crossed the beach Mike, the early pace setter was heading back looking to pull out, I think there was blood on his head and his spirit was also broken. He had set out to break 4 hours!!! Since you can't really just pull out he did end up finishing the race in about 6h40!!!

I was still moving, and I caught one of the English men, and together we headed on. Then with about 10km to go (this is all guess work!!!) I had a little crap in my left quad!!! I stopped and walked a few steps down!!! and it went, the English men was gone... I potted on hopping that we were almost finished.

I think I was mentally tired and the legs didn't really want to climb any more. I was walking strong and kept going. Then it happened, Bruce Almighty (Arnett) passed me and like a Duracell Bunny he bounced up the stairs ahead of me... He would beat me by 15min.

The last hut and the race home, I now knew it wouldn't be long now before we hit the rocks and the waterfall and that would signal 2km to the tar... my footing was bad and I lost time as I had to walk more than was needed and although I had caught the English men again, he got away. A couple of other guys also past me, and I know I really should be beating them, but today was not my day. I reach the tar with John and Victor, and the 3 of us jogged the last 1.5km to the finsh together finishing 15, 16, and 17th. 5h09:16.

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Yes that is a good time for 42km of single track with 2500m climb, but I feel I'm better than that and could have a 4h30-4h40 in these old legs, but that is a story for another day.

Now I really wanted to end with the picture of the 3 of us finishing together, but that is out there for me to show you guys...

OTTER WEEKEND

A pestie fly buzzed at the window breaking the silence, ok it wasn't quiet as the sound of the waves could be heard crashing on the rocks below. Don't get me wrong the sea wasn't rough but in the little Sea side "town" of Vleesbaai there wasn't much else to be heard. 

VIEW FROM THE PLACE WE WERE STAYING

Shandy, my little Jack Russell, lay in her basket feeling sorry for herself after a walk on the beach. We think she was stung by a blue-bottle.

NOT FELLING TO WELL

Peanut Boy was on the couch resting... 

YES NEXT TO ME

The 4 hour trip up was without incident, for a drive in AFRICA... We headed up the National Road and had to stop to take pictures of ELEPHANT!!! Yes from the National Road we could see Elephants...

WISH I HAD MY CAMERA

Soon after that we left the highway and headed for the coast, our eyes now peeled on the bush... We didn't see any other game, but did have to leave the road to let a heard of sheep go by... (sorry I didn't have the camera out.)

It was a good choice to take an extra couple of days off work and spend the time on the drive up and down. The truth be told our neighbor has always said we should visit his little beach house, and with a view like this, why not...

DAWN ON THE BEACH

The next day it was on to Plet, party town to the rich and famous... I was able to put in warm up run on the beach before the prologue on Friday. I drove through to Stormsriver and the race venue on my own, leaving Dawn and the puppies behind. 

WE ALSO WANT TO GO

The prologue was a little 4km jog through the forest... some 22:36 I was finished. It was twisty and turny through the forest and I had run hard enough to place in the top 25 (18th) and that placed me in the front group of the race... With the main event being single track from almost the gun (just a short run across the beach) they wanted to seed us. With my seeding done I headed home for the night.

OK this was home for the weekend...

IT'S CALLED THE TREE HOUSE

 Tomorrow was the big race...

ONLY ONE MORE WEEK

The days are ticking by and I am starting to feel the pressure of the race... This is the last week of real training and then it's taper week. I'm too old to take 2 weeks of taper, I feel I'll just get unfit... So how has this last week of training gone?

Let us start with Saturday 29 September, I had thought about popping out to Stellenbosch to run a 12km trail race... It was raining and the early morning didn't called for the bed... Dawn would have joined me if the weather had played ball and we could have spent the morning on the wine farms. Would have been fun, but that will have to wait for another week. Instead I headed out from home up the Green Belts on the left side taking me to the top of Southern Cross and Rhodes Drive. Now the forest and the mountain start the other side of Rhodes drive and I set myself up for a couple of single track intervals!!! The intervals were about 1.35km long taking me between 5:16 and 5:52 (call it down and up) I did 5 with 60 sec break before headed home down the other Green Belts, great session.

We had friends round for a braai that evening and I talked myself into running the half on the Sunday and organised a lift with them... Sunday was just a solid tempo run and a chance to steal a few seconds in my quest to bring down my average time for a half... Mission accomplished!

Monday started the week with and easy run up to the Block House... Easy well I didn't hammer it so the 500+m of climb did feel easy.

Good think Monday was easy, because Tuesday was not and we hit the track for a last real work out: 800m hard I was running them 2:35 - 2:38, here is the really kicker, 30 sec rest then 200m fast!!! I'm not that fast any more and was running 33s - 34s while the youngsters were knocking on the 30sec door!!! Then it was a 90 sec walk back to the start... 5 was enough for the day.

Wednesday was just a little forest and road run on about 12km before last nights hill session. Now as Coach I take my brief from the boy and they want to get fast this summer, the strength and endurance of the winter is over and they now want to run a quick 10km before we build for Oceans next year... So short hills was on the cards, call it 60sec, but we normally reach the speed bump in 55ish sec and turn there!

I started easy and ran on the single track next to the road letting Richard get away. Then after 4 reps I said to Mark, let's chase him down...I moved onto the road and start to run hard up and hard down, no rest for the wicked!  I lapped Mark on number 10 and if we were running 11 I might have had Richard... but that was not to be, 10 was enough for the day...

I don't know what week weekend holds, it only starts tomorrow!!!

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.