Finding balance

Life is tricky. When the alarm sounds at 04:30 on cold, dark winter’s mornings, the urge to silence it and roll back over, snuggling deeper into the covers, is strong. Sometimes too strong. Life is hectic. With sick children (and sick selves), moving cities, changing jobs, new people and new (and old) stresses, it’s not always easy to manage the balancing act required to get out on the road. Or get to the gym.

Five months ago, we made the move from Joburg to Cape Town, uprooting our little family for a change of scenery (and more importantly a change of pace). We sold and packed up our house, drove two cars, a cat and a dog to Cape Town (and flew a kid – ain’t nobody got strength for an 18-hour drive with a 2-year-old), and took the “plunge”. I was lucky, I didn’t have to change jobs, but transferred to our Cape Town office – same work, same team, different (better) view – but Becs had to move to a new school, with new colleagues and new kids. Not just a new school to her, a start-up school! And like a start-up business, start-up schools come with all kinds of teething problems. Things no-one has ever done before uncover glitches no-one has considered. Kids with needs that none of the other kids have unearth a whole host of new hoops to jump through. New schools also need to ensure growth, meaning aggressive student acquisition strategies, and that translates into a lot of hard work for teachers.

On top of all of that, there’s Fletcher. I mean, he’s a gem, but he hasn’t exactly smoothly transitioned to the ocean air. He’s missed school 7 times since April, been in hospital with pneumonia, visited countless GPs, the allergist and the paediatric pulmonologist. He’s on asthma meds, antihistamines and a nose-spray daily, and does his own nebuliser. The poor kid is like a 2-year-old pharmaceutical rep.

Since my last post, a lot has happened. In October 2017, I ran Jacaranda Marathon (and had an absolutely dismal time, but that is a story for another day). I followed that up with Sasolburg Marathon in February 2018, where I qualified for Two Oceans. At the end of March that year I ran my second Two Oceans Ultramarathon. Crossing the finish line at UCT on 31 March 2018, I knew my decision to enter Comrades had not been an entirely foolish one. And on 10 June 2018, I completed my first Comrades Marathon. It was amazing. What a rush. Enough of a rush that I entered again, for my back-to-back.

My comeback from the post-Comrades rest was dismal, I was plagued with injury and illness. I had 5 failed qualification attempts and in the middle of all that moved cities. After Two Oceans this year, I decided to abandon my back-to-back medal in favour of quality of life. (I also managed to give myself micro-tears in my left calf at Two Oceans, so probably all for the best really.)

Since then, I’ve struggled to strike the balance needed to manage running, a full-time job, two dogs, and being a mom and a wife. Life has just been too hectic. Let me rephrase that. I’ve prioritised other things over running, and rightly so. I’ve now entered the Chapman’s Peak Half in October, so I’m getting myself back into the swing of things and I’ve been amazed at the muscle memory that exists in my legs. My muscle memory is far better than my actual memory! I’m never going to break any land-speed records, but I’m beginning to find my balance again.

And, we’re back

I’ve just had a look at when I last posted and it was a loooong time ago. So, first of all, let me catch you up on what’s been going on:

1. 21-day no bread, no booze, no sugar detox thing went pretty well, all in all. We didn’t quite last 21 days on everything, but for the most part it went well and we definitely felt a difference.
2. The commitment to training 3 times a week went less well. I took a tumble on the road and did some damage to the soft tissue around my knee and took a few weeks off to recover. Becs’s ITB (this time in her left knee) is still not right (and not just because it’s her left), so she also took some time off. There were other factors as well – work was mad for both of us, Becs was asked to participate in SA Champs for Irish dancing, so she had to focus on that and we went away. The net result, very little running for the last 3 weeks.

With all that in mind, on Sunday I decided enough was enough and committed to getting back on the roads this week (by setting a 04:20 alarm labelled Get up FATTY!), which we duly did. Becs did a speed session at Jeppe with the Fledgelings and I ran with (lagged behind) the B-School, as they did Dean Street rectangles (Hilary slept in and Jeanine did a power session with Murray and Happy, who by the way were not very happy with her having missed long runs last weekend to go away – naughty Neeny, naughty!).

Knowing full well that I wouldn’t manage four repeats of Dean Street rectangles I went in with absolutely no disillusions, completely happy to just do two. I realised on the ‘warm-up’ just how unfit I really am at the moment, 90% of the time I was too out of breath to talk, which made me ever-more grateful for Taryn and Shan yacking away merrily. We got to the corner of Dean and Kings and I found Sam who I had arranged to run “nice and slowly” with this morning and we set off.

Half way up the first hill my lungs were starting their protest and by the time we rounded the corner at the top of the hill I was almost in full vomit-cough mode. I had a brief pause, took a few deep breaths and we set off again (although I had resolved to give myself a rest while everyone else did repeat two and I would join them for number three, which I duly did – yes Murray, I know, I’m lame and fat and lazy, get over it).

While waiting, I was joined by Pippa, who had overslept and decided to join us on Dean Street (high fives all round for that show of dedication), and when the others came down the hill on their second repeat, we all fell in line. We were completing repeat number two and heading down the hill, when Taryn suggested doing one more hill section (i.e. up Dean to Bowling) and then instead of turning right, turning left and going along Bowling and heading back to the club that way, instead of going up van Buuren. I’m really not a fan of that section of van Buuren so I was all for the change (even though it involved another hill repeat), so off we went.

And that’s where things went wrong. We headed down Bowling and when we got to the first four-way stop (which our brains told us was Kings road) we carried on straight, intending to turn down Florence and head back to the club. Only we’d started at Kings road, so the first four-way stop (you remember the one we went past?) was Florence road and by the time we realised our mistake we were nearing the bottom of Pine road. So instead of saving ourselves having to come up van Buuren, we ended up having to backtrack down van Buuren all the way back to Harper and the bridge and added ±2kms to our run.

So much for the shortcut. By the time we got back to the club I was about 1000˚C and totally buggered!

The plan at this stage is to run tomorrow and (possibly) Thursday. It depends how late tomorrow night’s work function finishes whether or not I’ll be up for an 11km tempo run on Thursday morning… my spider senses tell me I won’t. Maybe I’ll try and catch it up on Friday… although we’re going to Pippa for dinner on Thursday so the chances of that are pretty slim too. Dammit! So much for good intentions.

Getting back on the road

Almost 7 weeks after Two Oceans I’m finally getting back on the road a bit more seriously. My first run after Oceans was very uncomfortable, I experienced quite a bit of pain in my operated hip, which concerned me. I cut my run short – only managing 7-odd kays instead of the 15 or 20 that the rest of the club was doing. Given that I hadn’t signed on for Comrades I wasn’t too stressed about taking the time off and have been diligently going to physio for the past couple of weeks, finally getting the all-clear to (gently) get back on the road a week or two ago.

The physio was very worried when I first came in because my hip was completely impinging again, not to the extent that it had originally, but still quite a significant impingement. Through a combination of rest, stretches, exercises provided by the physio and deep tissue massage the impingement has released and I have (thankfully) been able to cancel my appointment with Dr Chuck.

Now that I’m getting back on the road the critical thing is to maintain the strengthening exercises the physio gave me (as well as picking up on a few of the exercises the bio gave me last year). He said that when I started running last year, by dropping my exercise programme I jeopardised the hard work I had already done, reversing the strengthening exercises and setting myself up for issues.

The problem is I have a lazy bum – literally. My glutes don’t fire when I’m running (or walking for that matter), leaving my hamstrings and quads to do all the work. Consequently, they get overworked and tighten up, which pulls my hip into a position where it impinges. So the remedy… Long-term exercise programme designed to get my glutes firing to try and take some of the pressure off my hammies and quads.

So far, since Oceans I’ve run about 26kms – much less than all the legends who are running Comrades next weekend. Good luck to Shan, Bridge and Andrea, Ta, Neen, Jado, Helen, Phillipa, Pete and all the other legends who will be (in Ta’s words) “f*cking up the roads at Comrades” next Sunday.

What actually happened…

I received an email the other day from a reader requesting a bit more information about my injury, because he thought he might be suffering from the same thing and it had been misdiagnosed or missed over the years. He mentioned that he looked on a number of running sites, trying to diagnose the injury himself, and they all mentioned the usual suspects: ITB strain, knee and ankle niggles, plantar fasciitis, etc. but none really went into any detail about hip injuries and the symptoms thereof. He suggested that I give a bit more history on my injury to help others potentially diagnose it earlier. So here is it…

The history

I’ve always been a relatively inflexible person – not from the point of view of being accommodating, but in like a “yoga” way. I think the last time I touched my toes I was in primary school – we have a family history of notoriously short hamstrings. I wouldn’t say I’ve been particularly good about doing anything about it over the years – I didn’t, for example, sign up to a yoga or pilates class with the intention of increasing my flexibility (does pilates even do that?) – but I have been relatively good about stretching pre-exercise over the years (less so about cool down stretches, but that’s what a foam roller is for). Despite stretching with a degree of regularity I have never been able to comfortably touch my toes, or do the splits, or anything along those lines.

Despite my inflexibility, I have always been an active person. I played hockey, did athletics (track and field), participated in swimming, triathlons, touch rugby, softball, golf and few others during school and since matriculating I have continued to play club hockey and indoor and outdoor football. I have also (obviously) in more recent years taken up longer distance running more seriously. This activity has often been to the detriment of my body, having broken a few bones, torn some ligaments and strained some muscles and tendons along the way. When I was in grade 11, about 16 years old I slipped, playing touch rugby, and landed awkwardly on my hip. I didn’t go to physio or anything smart like that, because I was a teenager and I figured I would recover soon enough. And I did. Mostly. The pain that I felt in my left hip got to a point where it was “ignorable”, flaring up occasionally when I did something else silly. Even though I could ignore the pain and carry on it has pretty much always been there, just the severity has varied over the years.

The straw that broke the camel’s… uh, hip?

In 2013, when I fell at soccer I tore the labial cartilage in my hip, which I probably did in grade 11 as well, although possibly to a slightly lesser degree. The pain and symptoms of both injuries were pretty much the same (although time has quite substantially dulled my experience in grade 11). A constant aching in my hip joint – that’s in the groin area and in the glute, not on the side of the hip joint – and significantly reduce mobility and flexibility.

But why was it so severe?

Although my injuries were exacerbated by a sporting trauma, that is not what caused them. My injury was caused by Femoral Acetabular Impingement (FIA), which is essentially a genetic trait (passed from the mother) that results in an additional bony mass on either the top of the femur (the cam) or the edge of the socket (pincer), and in some cases both. What this extra bony mass does is cause additional wear on your labrum, the fringe of cartilage that helps to hold your femur in its socket. The bony mass can eventually wear through the cartilage, as mine did. This in turn can allow the fluid that lubricates the joint to get in underneath the cartilage that lines the inside of the socket, which causes a blister under the cartilage. This blister will eventually be worn through by your femur, leading to bone-on-bone contact, which can ultimately necessitate a hip replacement.

What were the options?

There are a number of options once FIA has been diagnosed, usually by a series of tests performed by a biokeneticist/physio or orthopaedic surgeon, or a combination of the two. Options include:

• Invasive surgery, i.e. they cut you open and fiddle around in your hip
• Non-invasive surgery, i.e. they cut a few tiny holes in you, stick some cameras and other goodies through the holes and fiddle around in your hip
• Non-surgical treatments like given up sport in favour of knitting are also available

The path I chose

It’s important to mention that there are only about 14 surgeons in South Africa who perform the non-invasive surgery, known as a hip arthroscopy and the one that I went to is reputably one of the best. Dr. Cakic, or Dr Chuck as he is more commonly known by his patients and colleagues, is one of the best orthopaedic surgeons in Gauteng, specialising in hip surgeries. He does arthroscopies as well as hip replacements using this technique, which I think is a-flipping-mazing! My journey with Dr Chuck started when I was referred by my bio to a physio at the Rosebank Centre for Sports Medicine, Barry Getz. He took one look at my x-rays and referred me to Dr Chuck, who managed to fit me in a week or so later (a miracle considering he is usually booked about 4 months ahead). Chuck was so concerned about the damage I had done, he recommended as close to immediate surgery as possible, fitting me in to his first week back after December leave (not bad considering it was mid-December when I went to see him).

My surgical journey was an interesting one, as was the early part of my recovery, but I’ll do a follow up post with more info on what the surgery and the resultant recovery entails. My advice to anyone battling with “short hamstrings” and groin pain is to ask your physio/bio to test you for FIA and take it from there. Often FIA can manifest elsewhere – as sciatic pain for example. The inflexibility can be attributed, at least in the beginning, to your bones literally stopping you from being able to bend any further. After a while, you hamstrings begin to shorten because they are no longer pushed beyond a certain point, thus exacerbating the problem. I advise anyone who thinks they might be suffering from FIA to get it checked early, it’s not a fun recovery but it’s better than having a hip replacement at 50 (like my mom had to do) or before 40 (like my brother almost had to do).

Last long club runs before oceans…

This weekend was pretty hectic, not only from a running perspective but from a wedding-and-life-in-general perspective too. Saturday was a mad rush, we had an appointment at the hairdresser at 09:00 to do our highlights and for me to have my extensions fitted for the wedding. At 13:00 we had to be at a one-year-old’s birthday party in Primrose and at 14:00 we had Becs’s niece, Harper’s 2nd birthday party in Bedfordview. Murray said I had to do the 18km on Saturday, and I was worried I would run out of time to shower before the hairdresser if I started at normal time (06:00), so Jeanine and I met at 05:30 to do a quick loop around the Virgin Active block (±4.4kms), before meeting up with the rest of the club to start the run with them. Having done the extra loop, we were able to cut off early and head back to the club by 07:30, having done 18kms. Great. Weekend on track.

I got up at 04:30 on Sunday morning to have breakfast and get ready for our 30km club run. By 05:00 it was pouring and the wind was positively gusting and, even though I desperately wanted to crawl back into bed and return blissfully to slumber, I dragged myself up and got dressed. I was supremely useless – leaving my watch behind, despite the fact that my heart rate monitor was firmly in place around my chest, I also left my water and juice at home, as well as my long sleeve top, sunglasses and sunblock. Like I said, supremely useless.

I was quite surprised by the number of people in the parking lot when I arrived, despite the ongoing drizzle and generally miserable weather. By 06:00, the sun had mostly risen and we could see that the cloud cover wasn’t too thick, so we decided to set out regardless. One small problem: with no Derrick, no Eamon and no Pete, no-one knew the route. So Ernest pulled out his phone, found the email and we went through the route quickly. Knowing we would never remember all the details of the route, Ernest took his phone with him and checked the next stage of the route at each water stop.

The first 10kms were great, I felt strong and everything was going well. By the time we stopped at our second water point, half way up Big Fred, I was shattered. I had forgotten to take an Ener-Vit tablet at the first water point and I think I was feeling a bit drained. I had my 32Gi Chew and off we went to the third water point, the Sasol on Louis Botha near KES. I felt a bit better in this section, but was still seriously considering calling Becs from the petrol station to ask her to fetch me from the next stop. But I didn’t. I had an Ener-Vit tab at every stop and despite the fact that I was seriously thirsty and my knees and hips were achy, I was OK.

At the fourth water stop near the Victory Theatre, Paddy broke the news to me that the end of the route was not the same as the end of Big Fred, through Senderwood, past St Andrews and home, but rather down Linksfield, into Dunvegan and then home. I was heartbroken and by the time we reached the fifth water stop, at the Engen near King David, I had made up my mind: I was cutting short. Despite turning off Club street at Civin drive and heading back to the club past Saheti instead of continuing to Dunvegan, it was still 27.7km so I wasn’t too upset about cutting short.

Because of leaving next week for honeymoon, this was my last long run with the club before Two Oceans and, all in all, it wasn’t too bad. Tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day hill repeats, which basically means we are supposed to wear green. I don’t think I own any green running kit, so luminous yellow may just have to do. Unless I hear from Murray before bed tonight, in which case I may be running somewhere else.

Hilary tried a run this weekend and it didn’t go very well. 😦 She said she managed 6kms and was eina, which doesn’t bode well for 18 days time. Hopefully, she’ll be OK for Oceans.

Sometimes you just need to NOT run

I know Murray will probably give me an uitkak of note, but given the awesome lump that has decided to take up residence between my ankle and my Achilles tendon on my right leg and the persistent and increasingly attention-grabbing pain that is my right foot, I decided to take an additional rest day. Well, technically, it’s not even an additional rest day, it’s just moving my rest days around because I don’t normally run Wednesdays, but I did Big Fred yesterday, so I shifted my rest day to Thursday. And you know what, I don’t even feel bad about it. I didn’t even punish myself by making myself walk up the four flights of stairs in our office this morning, like I normally do when I skip a run. I took the elevator. Happily. Smugly even.

I don’t know what to expect at Oceans, I’ve never done it before. All I know is that it is going to be kak hard and possibly the most horrendous thing I’ve ever experienced, but that doesn’t mean that I have to hate every second of the build up to it, it doesn’t mean that I have to kill myself (and possibly injure myself) trying to prepare. I mean look what happened to Hil. 😦 She worked hard, she did all the prep she could do and she has just been plagued by injuries from day one. Her ITB has caused her issues all the way through our training, she was out for a month towards the end of the year, missed Tough One, missed the whole of November and only started running again, and only short distances, in December. And now, she’s out of the 56 completely. Sometimes you need to just take it a bit easy, give yourself a break and then come back harder, stronger, ready to dominate.

So Saturday is a 15km and Sunday is a 30km – our last weekend runs with the club before our wedding, which means our last weekend runs with the club before Oceans! Scary how time flies…

Nothing like your first run after a marathon

Today is Becs’s birthday and it was also my first run after my marathon on Sunday, I have to say, that sh*t does not get easier! You’d think that if you can run 42.2 kilometres, a simple little “easy 10 kay guy” would be a walk in the park, right? Eeeeeh! Wrong. (That was the sound of a buzzer giving you the boot, in case it wasn’t clear.) I didn’t feel too bad when I arrived at the club this morning, I was actually feeling fairly confident that I’d have a pretty good run – my legs were a bit fatigued, but nothing I couldn’t manage, I’d got a great night’s sleep and I was ready. When we set off from the parking lot however, the reality began to set in.

My legs felt like led and my feet felt bruised, like I’d been pounding on them with a 67kg hammer. Oh wait, that’s pretty much exactly what I was doing for four and half hours on Sunday. Except the hammer wasn’t just 67kgs. I read somewhere that the impact on your feet while running is the equivalent of four times your body weight, so I was actually pounding on my feet with a 268kg hammer. Repeatedly. For four and half hours. I would estimate, based on my gate, stride and estimated cadence that each foot probably struck the tar at least 45,000 times during that little adventure. 45,000 heel strikes with 268kgs of force is bound to take it toll on one’s feet.

The other moderate complaint I experienced this morning was the feeling that my left leg was like one of those wind-up toys you used to get as a kid, except someone had wound my leg up too tightly and the springs were in danger of shooting out at all angles and injuring my fellow runners. I occasionally had a sharp pain in my groin, which I would assume is a left over niggle from my dodgy hip. Anyway, that’s enough about my troubles and strifes.

Although the run was tough, I managed it in a fairly good time, running a nice consistent pace with the faster of the 2 B-School groups. Of course I forgot to bring my watch to download the run, but I did just over 10km in about 1:04 – there or thereabouts – so it wasn’t all terrible. My legs are a bit achy now and my hip is causing me moderate-to-significant discomfort, but I’ll get over it (with the help of some birthday wine with Becs).

The club is resting this Saturday because most of them are running Sarens on Sunday, so it’s up to us to sort out our own runs on Saturday, so I’m thinking of doing a Boys’ School from home, which will give me 20kms. I don’t want to overdo it on Saturday and injure something but I know I have to do a decent distance because I won’t be running on Sunday. It’s Becs and my bachelorette jols on Saturday, so I’m fairly confident that I won’t be in any state to run on Sunday…

In other news:

Hilary has managed to do some serious damage to her knee and has been advised by her biokeneticist to take it easy. In light of the fact that the injury seems to have grown from being a painful but treatable ITB strain, to something more sinister inside her knee joint, she’s decided to forego the 56km this year and live to run another day. Instead, she has managed to source an entry into their ever popular 21km and will be doing that instead. This means she will live to run another day and it will give her a better shot at recovery, because she’ll have less training to do between now and 4 April, and she will have a slightly less gruelling task ahead of her on the day. Personally, I think it’s the right decision and I salute her for having the balls to make it. It must have been an extremely hard decision to make given the reasons we are running in the first place and the amount of kak that will no doubt be flung her way by certain people we have come into contact with during the course of our journey. They know who they are, and if they’re reading this I hope they feel my judgement being rained down on them.

In other, other news:

My submission to Modern Athlete Magazine won the letter of the month this month, so I’m getting a brand new pair of Adidas Boost Supernova running shoes! Thank you Universe! I am starting to need new shoes and I definitely do not have the requisite funds to procure said shoes, so this is truly an awesome turn of events.

Vaal marathon physical preparations and mental destructions

This week has been a total balls up. After far to much wine and not enough sleep on Monday night, Tuesday’s hill session did not happen, nor did Wednesday’s make up run thanks to all the water descending from the heavens, but Thursday (thankfully) was slightly better. Murray said to run with the club (thank the gods because I did not feel up to a repeat performance of the ‘Power Session’), so we set off for an easy 10km with the (rather large) group that is running at Vaal on the weekend. It was a pleasant run, without incident and I felt pretty good throughout, running a bit with Jeanine, a bit with Gav and a bit with Jeff (all of whom are faster and stronger than I am).

Apart from my tight ITB, which I am foam rolling, and my stupid aching planter fasciitis on my right foot, which I am not really doing anything about because there is not really anything one can do for it*, I’m physically feeling OK for Sunday. Mentally I’m completely effed, but physically I’m OK. Here is what is going on in my mind, in no particular order:

1. In order to qualify for a seeding higher than E for Oceans, I need to run a sub-4:15, which is extremely unlikely given that my 21km PB is 2:07 and I would essentially have to run two 21km PBs straight after each other in order to do that. OK, so I’ll get an E seed, that’s fine. Then I just need to finish in under 5 hours because that’s the E seed block.
2. What if my stomach is lame again?
3. Which shoes should I run in? My Asics are starting to give me a bit of grief, but I’m not sure if it has anything to do with my Asics or if it’s just my feet. My New Balance are nice, but they seem to have a slightly built up heel on the outside and I’m worried that it will mess with me on a longer run, given the fact that I supernate. They’ve been OK for a 21 and for shorter runs, but I don’t know if they’ll hurt me for a 42. They are lighter than my Asics though…
4. What fuel do I run with? I’ve established that Gu seems to be part of the problem with my stomach – or at least it exacerbates the problem – so I’m going to try running with 32Gi and EnerVit tablet things and Rehydrate instead. I’ve tried the 32Gi ones on longer club runs and they’ve been fine, but I don’t know if they give me the same energy boost that Gus did. But maybe I just need to take them a bit more frequently?
5. At what point do I take the Rehydrate? Should I take more than one? Jeanine only used one at Secunda, but everyone is different and she’s a machine, so who knows.
6. What if I’m not built for distances like this? OK, I know I’m not built for distances like this, no one is, but what if my mind is not strong enough to tell my body to shut the eff up and keep going?
7. How will I know if I’m genuinely not OK or if I’m just being a big baby? Will I even know that? Is there even a point where I should stop? Should I have just tried to suck it up at Secunda and finish? Was I just being a big girl pants about the whole thing? That’s the problem with time, it gives you distance and blurs the sharp edges of the feeling, so you can’t recall exactly what it was you were going through, which is when you start to doubt you were ever really going through anything in the first place.
8. I’m running with Ta, Shan, Bridge, Phillipa (I think) and Pete so that will hopefully help, provided I don’t lose them like I did at Tough One, but what if I lose them? What if I have to go to the toilet again? What if I have to stop and tie my shoelace?

What if, what if, what if? URGH! I know I’m over analysing the whole thing, and I know I’m probably psyching myself out, but this is how my brain works, I’m that guy. Girl. Whatever. I am praying to any and all gods that I don’t have a repeat performance of Secunda and that I get this damn thing finished. Any additional prayers are welcome.

* OK, so there are a few things you can do for plantar fasciitis:

1. freeze a full plastic water bottle and roll your foot back and forth over it, the cold will soothe the pain and stimulate blood flow to the area, speeding up recovery
2. gently roll your foot back and forth over a hockey or golf ball, the massaging motion will stimulate blood flow to the area, speeding up recovery
3. sit on the floor with a towel in front of you and grip the end with your toes, pull the towel towards you by scrunching your toes up and releasing, do this until you reach the other end of the towel. I don’t actually know why this helps, I think it’s just the stretch and release movement but I am definitely not an expert so don’t trust me.
4. the only real fix is rest, but if you can’t rest make sure you stretch your calves before and after every run

Weekend Recap

This weekend’s runs were a bit deurmekaar to say the least, Saturday was meant to be a 10km loop followed by Full Boys’ School, to make it a nice even 30km with a rest day on Sunday. Hil and I arrived at Tasha’s ready to rock our 30km at 04:45 on Saturday – well, I did, Hil arrived a little closer to 05:00. Keeping an eye on my watch, cognisant of needing to get to the club by 06:00 to join up with everyone else for Boys’ School, I realised that we weren’t going to make our full loop and get to Jeppe in time, which meant a slight detour and only a 7km loop. This also meant that we didn’t loop back to Tasha’s, which meant that I missed my uncle, who was dutifully waiting for me at Tasha’s at 05:50 to join us for Boys’ School (oops). In my defence, we hadn’t 100% confirmed that he was going to join us, but I did feel horrible about it.

After we’d set the alarm off at the club, Hilary and I joined up with the rest of the massive group of Jeppe runners heading in the direction of Jeppe Boys’. Everything was going well, my legs were feeling good, my breathing was fine, my stomach was behaving itself. When we got to the Shell on Queen Street at about 06:45 I started doing some maths. Becs and I needed to fetch Gareth at 09:00 to get to Cullinan for an appointment at our wedding venue at 10:00, I had done 7kms of Boys’ School and still had 13 to do, and I needed to be back at Tasha’s by latest 08:00 or I was going to run out of time. 13kms in an hour and 15 minutes didn’t seem likely, especially given that 4 of those kilometres would be along Highland Road… In light of all of those things, I decided to do Mini Boys’ instead. That, coupled with us cutting our loop short, meant that instead of a 30km run, I was only going to do a 20-odd.

At some stage during my maths session I had lost Hilary, so I went in search of her, during which time the group left. Hilary was struggling with her ITB and was going to wait for the Fledgelings to come through and join up with them, so I set off to try and catch the rest of the group. I gapped it up Queen Street at 5:50/km and found them at the top of the hill, only to realise that I’d forgotten to restart my stupid watch. The rest of the run was uneventful and I got home with enough time to shower and get across to Gareth (albeit a few minutes late).

When Becs got home she told me that Frank, my uncle, had found her en route and was somewhat upset that he’d missed me. In light of that, and the fact that I’d had to cut my Saturday run short, we decided to do a 10km on Sunday. We did something of a “making it up as we go along” route, looping around Bedfordview. It was quick, uneventful and not altogether terrible.

Yesterday was my Gran’s funeral and we got stuck into the wine afterwards and only got home after 23:00. When my alarm went off at 04:20 to go and do hills this morning, I quickly silenced it, took a headache tablet, downed a bottle of water and went back to bed. Sorry Murray, but there was absolutely no way I was going to manage hills after the amount of libation I partook in yesterday.

I’ll do the 10km recovery run with the club tomorrow and do that horrendous “power session” with Murray again on Thursday. Hilary has done a really good job on her ITB and has been ordered to rest it this week or risk doing further damage that could rule her out for Oceans. Sunday is Vaal marathon – eek! – so Friday and Saturday will be rest days.

Walls, daemons and bare-teethed beasts

Hilary and I set off early on Sunday morning for the Far East, i.e. Springs for the Springs Striders 32km, which would be my second (having completed Tough One) and Hilary’s first 32km race. We both expressed concern on the way to the race, given the shocking form we experienced on our Thursday/Friday runs, but we were resolved to knuckle down and give it a red hot go. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, shortly after 05:00 and went to the race organisers for Hilary to collect her race pack and for me to enter.

By 05:50 we were heading towards the start armed with Gus, asthma pump and a belly full of nerves. As the start gun fired, we casually stood around for a minute or so until the filed actually started moving. The first 12kms progressed largely without incident, although it was clear that Hil wasn’t her usual self. She seemed to be battling some pretty serious daemons – both physical and mental. After the race she told me that she hit her first wall at 12kms, which for Hilary is a pretty huge thing, because I don’t think she’s ever had to deal with a wall. I, on the other hand, encounter walls of various heights and thicknesses on an almost daily basis.

By the time we passed the stadium to start our second lap, I had to turn around to make sure that Hilary didn’t sneak off and call it a day, doing the 15km. We had agreed to slow down from the 6 minutes a kay that we were aiming for over the first 12km, and were now running in the region of 6:10-6:15/kilometre, having joined a group from Bedfordview, forming a hodgepodge bus of some sort. By the time we went through 18kms, Hil and I had fallen off the bus as Hil struggled with pins and needles, leg cramps and daemons intent on convincing her she couldn’t do it. I’ve been there, I know all-too-well what those buggers sound like when they’re screaming that you can’t do it. They get louder with every aching step, they convince you that your calf hurts, you quad hurts, your foot hurts, you have a headache, you’re dehydrated, you’re feeling nauseous – anything to convince you that you can’t do it. Ignoring them is futile. They are persistent like no other, they’re like children who haven’t grasped that social conventions require you to wait until other people have finished talking before you start talking – “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom! MOM!!” You have to fight back, acknowledge that they’re there and then beat them at their own game.

Hilary must have told me a hundred times to go on ahead, to leave her. Every time I turned back to see where she was or to wait for her, she waved me forward, or yelled, “go dude!” I just ignored her and waved her to catch me. When I decided to enter this race, it wasn’t because I particularly wanted to do a 32 this weekend, but I didn’t want Hilary to have to do it on her own. At Tough One, I went through the toughest part of the race on my own, after losing the bus at 16kms (because I have the bladder of an old man with prostate problems), so I knew what it felt like to battle those daemons alone. And it bloody well wasn’t fun at all. I didn’t want Hil to have to fight that battle on her own, and so I made a decision to stick with her – walk when she needed to walk, push her when she needed a push, drag her when she gave up, whatever it took really. Yesterday’s race wasn’t about running a PB or anything of the sort, it was about making sure that Hilary crossed the finish line. And I’m very pleased to say that she did, at 3:39:08, after battling spasms in both calves, cramping in her quads and a multitude of inner beasts, with teeth bared and vicious intentions clearly visible.

Walls are a big part of any runner’s life. For some people they come early and the reconstruct themselves throughout the race, for the lucky ones they are small and surmountable. Some days they’re higher and thicker than others, but they’re always there. The most important thing is proving to yourself that you can overcome them, which Hilary has now done. Well done to Hilary for completing her first ever 32km, we’re now one step closer to that 42.2km – and don’t worry, we’ll kick those walls down together buddy!