Thank you and thank you and main 2012 goal

Two times thank you and then the news about my main 2012 running goal.

1st thank you everyone for all the good wishes and blessings for our marriage. It is all appreciated very much.

2nd thank you is for Jill who's Secret Santa package finally made it to Africa. I warned Jill about "Africa Time" and I was not wrong about that. The package I sent also made it to the USA last week.

Jill sent me some awesome goodies from Colorado. A lovely book! A great Rocky Mountains t-shirt, some Colorado playing cards, Colorado jelly beans and some stickers. Thanks Jill!

All of these goodies from Jill was sent to me to get me excited about my main running goal for 2012. That goal is to run the Pikes Peak Marathon in Colorado in August.

Yes, I plan to take my lovely wife on a trip over the ocean and will combine this with a little mountain hike up Pikes Peak. I will of course be joined by Jill herself and she already convinced Ewa to come along as well. I'm sure there will be some good blogger meetup or even multi meetups during this trip.

So I am off to train very hard right now!

Have a super week everyone!

We did it!

Got married that is! This past Saturday I married the woman of my dreams.

You may kiss the bride...

Done!

On our way to a short honeymoon...very happy!

2012 New Years Race

Hi everyone! I wish you all the best for 2012. Sorry for being MIA for so long, but life is crazy at the moment with our wedding just a few days away.

Running is going well and I ran my first 2012 race on 2 January. I ran the New Year’s race at the Pretoria Botanical Gardens and had a very good time. Everyone was in great spirit and we all were just there to enjoy our first race of the year.

A few pics from the race:

Lovely venue for a race.

Starting my first race for 2012.

There we go!

We started inside the botanical gardens and ran to a gate at the top of the gardens. We then went out onto the road and ran around the outside of the gardens. It was a lovely, warm morning and everyone was in a very good mood at the beginning of the new year.

I ran with some good friends. Here is Samuel (green) and Anthony (Red).

  

I ran my butt off to get this photo of Anthony from the front. Usually I just see his back for a short while. I won’t mention the 80km he ran at the year to year race that finished the day before.

Samuel and Emmy, a good friend that is running her first marathon at the end of January.

This area of Pretoria is very hilly and we were soon reminded of this as we made our way around the top part of the gardens.

Proof that the fast guys also walk sometimes.

There are a few places in Pretoria where the roads are made from concrete and not the normal tar roads we have around the country. The reason is that on hot days the tar melts and run down the steep hills. So if you find concrete roads you know there is a very steep hill to get over.

Spot the runner… no, only walking here…

Going down. I prefer a steep uphill above a steep downhill like this.

We made our way right around the gardens and entered again at the same gate where we went out earlier. The gardens are really beautiful at this time of the year. We finished with a 2.5km loop through the botanical gardens.

Lovely place to run.

A last sting in the tail. More walking.

Finish!

I enjoyed the run a lot and was glad to do my first 2012 race. I was happy to receive my first medal for the year.

With that done I am now focusing more on my wedding that happens this Saturday (14 Jan). I will start my build-up for the longer runs of the year on 20 January. For now I’m just keeping a strong base.

Happy running everyone! May you all achieve great goals this year.