Foto Friday

Thanks for all the good wishes and kind words after my previous post. It is much appreciated.

Mont-Aux-Sources 50km Challenge Race Photos

±48.5km

±49km

That’s it for this week! It’s weekend time! No races for me but some trail and long runs planned for Saturday and Sunday. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Sad Weekend

This weekend was a sad one for us as a friend‘s wife passed away, losing the battle against Leukemia. It made me realize again how grateful we must be to be healthy and able to do extraordinary things.

I was supposed to run a half marathon on Sunday morning but changed my plans so that I could give support to my friend. I didn’t skip my run altogether and ran 21km (13 miles) from home instead. It was a beautiful morning and I had a lovely run through the neighborhoods.

We also had a visitor in the bedroom on Saturday evening…

This is a Rain spider, also known as a Huntsman spider in some parts of the world. This guy’s leg span was about 5 inches. That’s big enough for me.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. Be grateful for what you have and what you can do.

Three Things Thursday

1.) I received this in the mail a few days ago…

A finishers certificate for the Mont-Aux-Sources 50km challenge I ran in September. It was accompanied by a letter to thank me for running and donating to the Conservation Trust. Another great gesture from a great event.

2.) Comrades Marathon entries stand at 10811 this morning. Entries close on 30 November and will be capped at 18000. I’m not sure they’ll get 18000 this year but we’ll see. It’s still crazy...already nearly 11000 runners aiming to run 90km (55.8 miles) next May. I’ll start posting more about Comrades soon.

3.) Staying with the Comrades; it was announced yesterday that this year’s Comrades made a Guinness World Record for the ultra marathon with the most finishers. This year 14343 runners finished the 90km race within the 12 hour cutoff time.

Southgate 15km Race Report…A Trip Down Memory Lane

On Sunday morning I ran the Southgate 15km road race at the Southgate Mall in Johannesburg. I ran this as a training run and also to support the local running club. It was a cold morning with the wind blowing clouds in from the North East.

The sun was trying to get through the clouds.

I arrived early and registration was a breeze. It was a bonus to have the race close to home as traveling time was only 10 – 15 minutes. Most runners sat in their cars waiting for the start. The wind was just too cold to stand around outside. The race started at 6:30 and I waited in my car until 6:24 before making my way to the start.

Waiting for the start.

There was a medium size field and I’m sure the cold wind and clouds had a number of runners stay at home/in bed rather than venturing out for a 15km run. The start was uneventful as was the rest of the race. I wanted to run comfortably the whole race and that’s exactly what I did.

Not long after the start.

The venue is close to my parents’ house and I was happy when the route went in the direction of some very familiar roads. Soon after the start we ran on some parts of the road I used to cycle to university in the eighties. This was a pleasant trip down memory lane!

I cycled this road to university in the eighties.

The memory trip didn’t end here as we made our way through the suburbs towards a more industrial area. Here we joined some of my old running routes. From 7km to 12.5km we ran on the route I used when I trained for my first race in 1981. I ran thousands of kilometers on these roads through the nineteen eighties. This was fun!

On my old running routes.

Long gradual hill. I've run up here countless times.

Once we reached the top of the hill in the photo above, the rest of the race was flat and down for a very comfortable finish. I was feeling really good. The rest and low mileage after my gallbladder infection was certainly good for my legs. I had to force myself to just relax and not push too hard during the last few kilometers.

Flat...

...and gradual down...

...to the finish.

I finished feeling strong and relaxed. I wasn’t tired at all. This is great as I can now say I’ve recovered 100% since being sick. I can now start my buildup for the Sani Stagger marathon in November with confidence.

A nice medal for a nice race. The race organization was superb and I had a very pleasant run down memory lane.

Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

“Worst” Photo Friday

I’ve seen a few blogs with “my worst race photo” posts in the past few weeks. I had a look at my race photos last night. There are some obvious favorites and then there are the ones where I look really bad.

Looking at them I realized these photos all tell a story and the ones where I really look bad have better and more interesting stories than most of the others. These were usually true battles and the photos let me relive those battles.

For today I post my “worst photo”. It’s not a bad photo, but this was the worst I ever felt and looked at the finish of any race. It is quite old (1996) but I learnt a lot from this battle. This was drip time!

It’s weekend…

I’m running a 6.2km time trial on Saturday and a 15km race on Sunday. This is a local race that I like to support. I’ll do it as a training run.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and good luck to all doing races!

Time for some other things

This weekend was nice and relaxed for me with no serious running as priority. It was the end of a good recovery week for me and I only ran 5km on Saturday and 12.2km on Sunday.

This left me with time to do some gardening…I love plants and flowers!

I also had time to clean the fish tanks.

I really relaxed when I spent some time with my model train layout.

I hope you all had great weekends as well. Have a happy week everyone!

Patience

I was born an extremely patient person and this week I’ve been very grateful for that yet again. I’ve been really good with taking it easy after my illness and I’ve kept the distances down. I’m feeling good and rested, which makes it that more difficult to hold back and take it easy on the short runs.

That’s where patience comes in and I think this goes much further in running than this. Being patient is one of the most important aspects of distance running. The more and longer you want to run, the more patient you must be.

I’m reading quite a lot of running blogs nowadays and I’m actually surprised at the high percentage of running bloggers that are injured or coming back from injury or battle with injuries nearly all the time. If you read a bit deeper into their running and training history you find one thing in common, not enough patience. Nearly all these runners are chasing times, want to run PR’s all the time, want to run marathons too soon and in general want to get to everything as quickly as possible.

My message for the day:

• The PR’s will come, don’t chase them, wait for them, to come to you, be patient.
• When training…don’t’ do too much too soon, be patient.
• When racing…don’t start to fast, be patient.

Patience is a virtue of life; it is also a virtue of running.

Sandal Girl

I mentioned “Sandal Girl” in two of my race reports this year and even posted these two photos as part of those reports.

Never did I know that Sandal Girl has her own blog! We are only a few running bloggers here in South Africa so I’m happy to tell you about my fellow SA running blogger.

You can visit She Runs in Sandals to learn all about Staci and her sandals.

Thank you! I am better and running again.

The good news is that I am feeling myself again and have started running again this weekend. I was overwhelmed by the comments and well wishes I received from this community! Thank you very much everyone! You are all amazing!

I will take it easy this week with some shorter runs and then up the distance from next week again. I’ll share an update for my plans for the rest of the year soon.

Once again, thank you to all my wonderful running and blogging friends!