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.

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.

Some new hills for a change

Today we moved on from PND to something even more sinister and horrendous – Linksfield Drive. As per Murray’s instruction I parked my car just inside the booms a few minutes before 05:00 and headed up the hill. Not knowing what to expect I started fairly slowly, wanting to try and do the climb consistently. With not a spec of a streetlight in sight I shuffled through the darkness, which was occasionally broken by another runner’s headlamp or the flickering outside light of one of the oversized houses that litter the ridge.

The first repeat took me a little over 15 minutes, which when you consider the full there-and-back is 2kms, that’s not exactly motoring, but it’s not crawling along either when you think about the hill. The second repeat took closer to 18 minutes and the last one took almost 22 minutes, with about half a minute of coughing up a lung at the top of the hill. Murray wasn’t joking when he said these hills were not for sissies!

The ultimate goal of all this killing myself is to make me stronger, to make me strong enough to finish a marathon and eventually an ultra marathon, but today, for the first time on this journey I was filled with self-doubt. If I was struggling this much getting up Linksfield Drive hill, which is a measly 199m elevation gain over a distance of 1km. When you look at the Two Oceans route profile, the climb from 40kms to 47kms alone is a 256m elevation gain and a gruelling 7 kilometre climb! Who the eff was I kidding thinking I could do this!? Ok, well that’s my rant. Needless to say, I’m petrified of everything that’s coming in the next month-and-a-half.

Thursday is meant to be 1kms repeats, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to run with Murray on Thursday, in which case I might die. Wish me luck.

Sasol Secunda Marathon, not quite done or dusted

After a week of early nights, eating well, mental preparation and generally getting myself psyched up for the Sasol Secunda Marathon, Hil, Becs and I headed into the platterlande van Suid Afrika in the general direction of Secunda. On arrival in town our olfactory senses were immediately assaulted by the horrific odour emanating from Sasol’s Coal Liquefaction Plant just outside town. With every hope that we would get used to the smell, we made our pre-race dinner of chicken breasts and avo and headed to bed for a nice early night. Something that is important to mention about Secunda is that, despite it’s proximity outside of Johannesburg it lacks the benefits of “country” air – if anything the pollution caused by the plant is worse than anything I’ve ever run in on the Highveld. It is also at roughly the same altitude as Joburg, so you don’t have the benefit of being closer to sea level either. All in all, Secunda really has nothing going for it.

On race morning we were greeted with a slightly muted version of the “Secunda stink” as a result of the drizzle that was drifting down. Taking this a sign of good things to come (and good running weather) we donned our Jeppe black and white and headed to the stadium to collect our race packs. Jeanine had broken the news to us a few days before that she would be joining us on the auspicious occasion of our first marathon, despite warnings and advice to the contrary from Murray, Happy and Mike. We found Neen in the parking lot, gathered our goods, chatted through the final details of our various race plans, making sure everyone was on board and headed down towards the start. Becs took the car and headed to our first meeting point, at about 10kms.

The field was pleasantly small and we were about as close to the start as we are ever going to be when the gun went off at 06:00. The 3 of us were quickly left in the dust by Stacey, who was doing the 21km (and is much faster than any of us – barring of course, Jeanine). Neen and I were comfortably going along at about 6 minutes a kay and Hil dropped a bit behind us, going at probably about 6:10/km. At the first water point I grabbed a sachet of water each for Neen and myself. The first sip was not very pleasant, having the same funny aftertaste as the water at the Dischem 21.1km, which didn’t bode well considering I spent a few hours after Dischem alternating which end I aimed at the toilet boil (apologies for the rather graphic description, but there isn’t really a prettier way to describe it). By the 8km mark my stomach was beginning to cramp and I was starting to struggle to comfortably keep up with Neen. When we passed Becs at 10kms I said my goodbyes to Jeanine and walked a bit while I took my Gu. Hilary passed me not long afterwards and was looking strong. I mock charged my way through my Gu and started trotting again, deciding that, at the next water point I would have to take a toilet pitstop.

At the 12km water point I did just that (although I had to wait around a bit as there was only one loo, which cost me a further 3 or 4 minutes). It was not a pleasant experience, my stomach was clearly unhappy with me. After that I dug around in my race pack and took a Valoid for the nausea, an Immodium for the runs and searched for my Buscopan to try and provide some relief from the cramps, but I couldn’t find it. I knew that Becs had the extra Buscopans in the car and I would see her again at the 18km point, so I carried on from there. I wasn’t doing too badly, still managing to run roughly 6 minute kilometres, some a bit quicker, some a bit slower, but all in all my pace was OK – it was hellishly laboured though. My breathing was off, my feet felt like they were hitting the ground harder than they should and I felt heavier than I had in the first 8kms. By 18kms my nausea was almost unbearable. I skipped the water point entirely, having put the cramps (at least in part) down to the water, knowing that I’d see Becs shortly thereafter, I had planned to get a Buscopan and have some Rehydrate and be on my way.

When I saw Becs I yelled for Buscopan, which she quickly went in search of while I (very attractively) collapsed onto all fours and proceeded to vomit in someone’s driveway. Once that was out my system, I felt marginally better. I took the Buscopan, drank the Rehydrate, and asked Becs to message Murray and get his advice, telling her I’d see her at 26kms. The 8 kilometres that followed were the longest moments of my life thus far. I think I averaged about 8 or 9 minutes a kilometre (if I was lucky), I walked more than I ran, I was constantly thirsty but as soon as I had any water I felt horrific, the more I ran the worse I felt. By 21kms I was seriously considering turning into the stadium and looking for Stacey to get her to text Becs to say where I was, but I was also hoping that, now that I’d had a Buscopan I’d start to feel a bit better and I’d be able to carry on.

At 22kms I hurled again, and this time left nothing inside me, not even the Buscopan. At the next water point I took sachet of water to try and rehydrate myself and a cup of Creme Soda, which seemed to help a bit, and off I went. The next 4 kays were as much a mental battle as they were a physical one and by the time I saw Becs shortly after 26kms, I had decided to call it a day. I had done the maths, and if I carried on at the pace I was going, I would never make it in under 5 hours, which would mean that I had killed myself to finish a race that I couldn’t use as a qualifier anyway. I also didn’t think I could manage another 16kms feeling the way I did. After Becs collected me, we raced to the 29km point just in time to see Jeanine looking strong going through, followed by Hilary who was taking a bit of strain with her knees but was otherwise looking good.

I had the shakes, I had a fever, my stomach was cramping still and I felt constantly nauseous, but I was eternally grateful that I was not on the road anymore. Even when Murray told me I was lame and soft. And maybe I was, but no amount of abuse was going to change the fact that I had bailed. I couldn’t go back and carry on now, that was it – I’d stopped my watch at 26kms and that was that.

At the 39km mark Jeanine was still looking good, although she was having a proper strop and walking (despite my yelling at her to “shuffle”). Hilary was in pain, but going strong, she had adjusted her plan to a 4:40 plan and was bang on time. They both did exceptionally well, Jeanine finishing in 4:22 and Hil finishing about 20 minutes later. I was bummed that I hadn’t managed to complete this milestone with them, but it just wasn’t my day. The thing to do now is focus on Vaal, adjust my race plans to exclude Gu (which I think exacerbates my stomach issues) and find something that works for me. If I find at Vaal that the water has the same strange taste, I will need to get bottled water and run with that so I’m not reliant on the sachets, but hopefully it won’t come down to that.

The only way from here is up. Vaal is in 3 weeks and I have a lot of work to do. Tomorrow we are doing some other kind of hills with Murray and co. (although I’m still not exactly sure where I have to go to do those, but we’ll figure it out).

No last run, but we have the makings of a race plan…

With a few days to go to the Sasol Secunda Marathon, I had every intention of heading out for the Wednesday recovery run yesterday. And then the alarm didn’t go off. You see, I have an alarm on Tuesdays and Thursdays – because that’s when I run – and Becs has one that goes off on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesday morning my alarm woke us and we didn’t click that Becs’s alarm hadn’t gone off, so on Wednesday morning when I woke up at 05:20 because it was starting to get light outside, we realised our error. Becs’s alarm wasn’t actually on, and I had missed my last opportunity to run before the marathon. I guess it’s true what they say, you don’t always know when you’re doing something for the last time.

I know that may sound a bit fatalist but I really did want to do the extra run on Wednesday, and hopefully boost my confidence after the disastrous run I had on Tuesday. Although, when I think back over my last two races – Johnson Crane, where I ran my 21.1km PB and Springs Striders 32, where I felt really strong throughout the duration of the race – I had horrific training runs in the week leading up to both of them. I am hoping that the theory will hold true this week, and that my crappy PND on Tuesday will mean a strong, happy run on Saturday.

We also ran into some obstacles getting a decent route map out of the organisers, and ended up having redraw it (to the best of our abilities) based on a really low resolution image with no distance markers and very few legible street names. Having done that, we’ve worked out points where Becs can meet us at along the route, they may not be the best or most logical spots but because of the way Secunda is laid out, they’re the only places she can get to without having to drive along the route, which could cause her delays, and may make her miss us. So the points we’ve outlined for her to meet us are 8kms, 16kms, 19kms, 29kms and 37kms, when you combine that with the two plans we have under consideration, you get something that looks a bit like this:

Distance	4:20 Plan	Arrival Time	4:30 Plan
8kms	0:47:54	06:40	0:49:45
16kms	1:35:49	07:30	1:39:30
19kms	1:53:46	07:50	1:58:09
29kms	2:53:39	08:45	3:00:20
37kms	3:45:45	09:40	3:54:26
Finish	4:20:00	10:20	4:30:00

Which means that Becs needs to get to 8kms by 06:40, incase we get through a bit earlier (although I wouldn’t hold my breath for that), move across to the 16kms mark by about 07:30, and head down to the 19kms mark 20 minutes later. She’s then got quite a long time to get back to the 29kms mark, needing to be there about an hour later – say 08:45 to be safe – and about an hour after that she should be at the 37kms mark.

So that’s the plan as it stands at the moment, on the day we’ll evaluate things and based on how we’re going. Becs will have water, 32Gi Endure, Rehydrate, and some food – boiled baby potatoes and maybe peanut butter sarmies or something similar, biltong maybe, the usual. At each point we’ll decide what we need/want to take in to refuel, in addition to a Gu every hour along the route.

Stay tuned for a post-race update on Monday.

4:20 Marathon Plan

4:30 Marathon Plan

First Lap Route

Second Lap Route (with meeting points)

First Lap Elevation

Second Lap Elevation

Pamin, Pamin, Norman, Douglas, dead.

Today was our second attempt at PND – Mike’s version of hill repeats on Pamin, Norman and Douglas roads in Bedfordview – and it was something of an epic fail. After last week’s attempt I was feeling pretty confident, we’d done 1,5 repeats of Pamin, 1,5 repeats of Norman (having been told to turn and head down with Murray and co.) and 2 repeats of Douglas. This week I was feeling so supremely confident, in fact, I asked Becs to drop me at the meeting point on her way to the club and I would run home afterwards. Schoolgirl error!

The first climb up Pamin was as expected – tough. The second one was almost soul destroying. By the time we got to Norman Road I was ready to turn around and hitch hike home (after mock charging for 5 minutes at the top). We didn’t. But we did agree that we’d only do one repeat each of Norman and Douglas, so that I would have something in the bank to get me home afterwards. By the time we got to Douglas I was pretty much ready to KO – feeling dizzy and light headed, but we soldiered on, completing our one repeat and headed back to Hilary’s car.

Running home was pretty kak, but it’s done now. Hopefully, by the time Saturday (and with it Secunda Marathon) rolls around, I’ll be feeling a lot stronger! I have a race plan from Murray (which I fear Hilary is not going to like, but I’d like to give it a go), Becs is going to second us and we’re busy finalising the places along the route where she will meet us. Tomorrow we’ll do the recovery run with the club, and rest Thursday and Friday.

PnP Marathon: an ode to South African drivers

I’m sure anyone who has ever gone out running, whether early in the morning, in the middle of the day or late in the evening, can attest to the lack of courtesy and decency among South African drivers. In fact, if you’ve ever been on a road in South Africa, I’m sure you can agree that South African drivers are by and large a bunch of selfish road hogs who don’t have enough common decency to so much as raise a finger in acknowledgement of their fellow human beings – unless it’s the middle finger, everyone’s pretty good at raising that one. As a runner I’ve been exposed to all manner of assholes on the roads – from the kamikaze grannies who aim their Hundai half loaves at you with sniper like precision to the careless taxi driver more focused on finding his next fare than the reflector-clad, luminous shirt wearing weirdo diving into the bushes as he passes, and every other kind of sadistic vehicular manslaughter-attempting twat in between. But I have never experienced less considerate people than the good people of Edenvale as they headed to and from their respective churches on Sunday morning between 07:00 and 09:00.

Jeppe Quondam Athletics Club is the proud organising club of the Pick ‘n Pay Marathon and Half Marathon and each year, race organiser round up all the club members to assist with various activities on the day and in the build-up to the event. Becs, Hilary and I were assigned to marshal duty and were each allocated an intersection along the route (Jeanine, the lazy bum, faked having to work the weekend to get out of helping). After our 22km on Saturday, which passed without incident worth comment, we donned our reflective vests, took up our flags and headed to our respective intersections. By 07:00 I’d almost been run over 3 times by “Christians” on their way to church, some of whom had proceeded to swear out their windows and rudely gesture in the general direction of the runners in general, and more specifically, me. A few of them were treated to a particularly violent flick of my marshal flag as I attempted to illustrate to them just how close they’d come to forcing me into the next life. By the time we left our posts, having completed our tasks, at about 10:00 both Becs and I had each been the victims of at least 4 separate hit-and-run attempts (and that’s just on a 200m stretch of road, a small fraction of the 21km loop), I had hit at least one car with my marshal flag and shouted some encouragement to “go forth and multiply” to a number of other maniacs.

What the hell is wrong with people that they can’t be considerate of others? Why can’t you a-holes share your road for a few hours a week? And don’t give me any of that “roads were made for cars” bull shit either; a quick look back in history would illustrate that roads (as they were) were originally made for people, and then horses, and then bicycles, and then cars/busses/trucks, etc. You people who aren’t willing to share your precious tarred surfaces for a few hours out of your supposedly Christian lives were obviously really good at sharing your toys when you were younger too. My wish for all of you is erectile disfunction/vaginal apathy (delete as appropriate), I only hope that you will never have to experience the devastation of actually hitting someone or – gods forbid – the horror of losing a family member to an equally idiotic driver.

Rant over. Happy Monday.

Not a quality session

I missed yesterday’s quality session because we went to see The Script and Phillip Phillips at The Dome and only got home at about midnight. I decided four and a half hours was not going to be enough sleep for a successful quality session. To make up (a little bit) for missing yesterday, I did “Emily’s Route” with the Fledgelings this morning (and left my watch at home). We didn’t go particularly far – between 7 and 8kms apparently – nor did we go particularly fast, taking about an hour to finish, but at least I got up and ran (something that I fought with all my might when the alarm went off).

I did feel a bit better having completed the run, but I still felt like I could almost immediately go back to sleep (in fact I almost fell asleep in the car on the way home). I guess on some days the battle you have with yourself about running is not whether you can or can’t do it, but whether or not you want to. And if “I don’t want to” wins out over “I want to”, the next battle you have to fight is whether or not to tell yourself to shut the f**k up, put your big girl pants on and get out there anyway. Today was one of those days. Today I cursed Jeanine and the deal I made with her. But today I got up and ran anyway, so I guess I won.

This weekend is the PnP Marathon, which is Jeppe’s official club race, so we’re all helping with marshalling and manning water points, etc. so we’re doing a 27km tomorrow. Next weekend is the big day – Secunda Marathon – and I’m quietly kakking myself. Hopefully another week of running PND will help to prepare me for the monstrous wall that will inevitably erect itself at some point in my race.

Dean Street rectangles, Schmean Street rectangles

Like Bachman Turner Overdrive said, “B-b-b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen nu-nu-nu-nu-nothing yet!” (You sang it didn’t you?) Today we ran hills with Murray and company, and holy crap, we don’t know what hills are. Mike’s version of hills is what he calls “PND – Pamin, Norman, Douglas” and it makes Dean Road rectangles look like a casual Sunday stroll through the park. The way they do it is to meet at the Bedfordview Virgin Active at 04:30, run along van Buuren to Townsend, up Townsend to Kloof, all the way along Kloof back to van Buuren and along van Buuren to Pamin Road, which is where Hilary and I joined them at 05:00.

To give you an idea of why we met them on Pamin Road, the route that they run from the gym is 4.9km according to Google Maps, and when Hilary and I got there at 05:00, they were already on their way back down Pamin Road after completing their first hill. Which means that they got there in probably around (or just under) 20 minutes. Which means 4 minute kilometres. Ja, that’s why we met them there.

The fun only really begins when you get to Pamin Road anyway, so we didn’t miss much. You start with a gentle climb, where you go from 1,672m above sea level to to 1,744m above sea level in 800m. A one hundred metre ascent over 800m horizontal distance – draw a triangle, that’s kak steep! Then you run back down. Then you run back up. Then you run back down again. Then you run along van Buuren to Norman Road. And repeat the up, down, up, down process again. Norman Road is a little better – it takes you from 1,670m to 1,735 over a slightly shorter distance (probably around 700m). Ok, no wait – Norman is no better, it’s pretty much exactly the same. Maybe by that point I was just numb. Once you’ve completed Norman, you run along to Douglas Road and repeat the process again. All in all 6 up-downs. Douglas goes from 1,671m to 1,714m over a shorter – probably 600m – distance.

Today we got off a bit lighter than usual, on the second repeat of both Pamin and Norman, Murray told us to turn with them, so we could start the next road with them. So on our second Pamin Road repeat we only climbed to 1,700m and on our second Norman Road repeat we only climbed to 1,717m. Murray and co. only did one repeat of Douglas, they then gapped it back to the gym, leaving us to finish our second Douglas Road repeat on our own.

All in all it was bloody tough – the hills are hard, but still nothing like we’ll encounter in the Fairest Cape, so next week we’ll be back there, pushing ourselves harder, trying to do them faster and stronger because, like Murray says, “the more you kak now, the less you will on race day.”