Weekend Happenings

Friday afternoon and I’m working like crazy. It seems that all the projects I’m busy with developed some crisis during the week and everyone everywhere is trying to get things solved before the weekend starts. I’m not complaining and I’m always happy and grateful that in these tough times I still have more work than I can handle.

There is a silver lining though…its weekend and Sunday I’m running a race! I’m running the Striders 32km (20 miles) in Springs on Sunday morning at 06:00. This will be the 5^th time I run this race and I’m really looking forward to it although I’m treating it as a long training run. The pics below are from the 2008 race.

This will be the first of three 30+km runs for February. The next will be Saturday next week (32km) and a 35.5km run on the 28^th. That will be my peak training for my marathon on 20 March. Things are really starting to get exciting and before I know it, it will be ultra time! I’ve already entered the Loskop 50km on 17 April but will run a 50k on 28 March as well if the marathon goes well. I’m also planning some long training run for Easter weekend (maybe 100km spread over 3 days???). I’ll keep you posted!

Have a lovely weekend all and happy running!

Happy Birthday Dad! 3 February 2010 - 80 and counting

I’ve mentioned my dad and the influence he had and still have on my running a few times on this blog. Well, today is his 80th birthday and I though it well to dedicate a short post to him. So dad, this is for you, for an amazing 80 years, lived by an amazing man. Cheers dad!!!

A few pics of the man himself:

At 80 still ready for a good wine anytime!

Running his 1st marathon - 1982 Jackie Gibson Marathon in Johannesburg

Finishing his 1st Comrades Marathon in 1985

The last race we ran together – 1999 Skukuza Half Marathon. That’s me in red with my brother and his wife between me and our dad.

Good times!

If you could ask Pheidippides a question, what would you ask him?

This post is in reply to Christina's 3rd question in the running question challenge.


Question:

If you could ask Pheidippides a question, what would you ask him?

Answer:

The first question that popped into my mind when I read Christina’s post was how long did it take? That was followed by what was he wearing? Did he drink any water at all? Was he carrying some weapon or armor? Then I also wondered, did he really run the distance or is there some myth attached to the story? Anyway, this is a great question, I wish I could really meet and talk to the guy.

Living and Running in South Africa

I always get mails and questions from people about life in South Africa. A lot are work related, but since I’ve started my running blog I’ve been getting more general and of course running related questions. Julie asked me about this as well so I’ve decided to add some facts about life and running in South Africa to my posts from time to time. So to start off here’s our flag!

I was born in Johannesburg and have never lived anywhere else. SA is a great place with 11 official languages. My home language is Afrikaans so if you see some strange English from time to time, please forgive me. English is my second language, but luckily I had a brilliant English teacher when I was at school.

Running in SA is huge. Road running is extremely big with the 89km Comrades marathon the main event each year. Trail running is not as big but growing very fast. We have a very strong club structure in South Africa and most runners belong to a running club in their area. This is one of the reasons we have many good races to choose from each weekend as most clubs host at least one race every year. I can choose between 2 to 4 races in a 50km radius from my home almost every weekend…very lucky indeed.

This year I’ve joined a new club and got my new club colors last week. Club members have to run races in their club colors. We also have a license number that we have to wear during races. Usually we run with the race number in front and the license number at the back. Runners that don’t belong to a club must purchase a temporary license when entering a race.

My new club is called “Lewensentrum”. That is Afrikaans for “Life Centre”. This is a picture of my new club colors and license number. This is the colors you’ll be seeing in my race photos in future. Hope there’ll be many of them to share!

To end this post, just in case you are wondering…this is where South Africa is...in the red circle with the small red star (yes it's a star) where you’ll find Johannesburg.

Comrades Entries Closed

Comrades entries were re-opened for a limited number of 2000 spots on the morning of the 30th of January, which were taken only at Mr Price stores nationwide.

The 2000 entries were snapped up in 4 minutes!

This means that all entries for the Comrades Marathon 2010 are now officially closed.

No correspondence will be entered into.

Wow, 2000 entries gone in 4 minutes! This year’s Comrades marathon is really extremely popular. With more than 22000 entries there is a good chance that there will be close to 20000 starters for the 89km race on 30 May. That is a lot of runners for a difficult ultra and I’m still hoping to be one of them. Next year things will be back to normal so this is a year not to miss the race.

My plan is to qualify on 20 March at the Elands Valley marathon. This is a fast marathon with the first 18km mostly downhill. I’m positive I’ll be ready to finish in less than 5 hours to qualify for Comrades. Runners have until 26 April to qualify, so that leaves a number of other qualifying races if anything should go wrong. Up to now things are going according to plan and I’m on track to qualify on 20 March to be one of the 20000 athletes that line up for the 89km journey on 30 May. I'll keep you posted!

If I could inspire someone to run, who would it be and why?

This post is in response to the 2nd question in Christina's running question challenge.

Running Question Challenge Question 2:

If you could inspire someone to run, who would it be and why?

Answer:
I'll have to go with Tony on this one. It’s most definitely my eight year old son. If I look at the impact the inspiration from my dad had (and still have) on me, I can only hope I inspire my son in the same way. He did his 1st 5km run at the end of November last year and displays his medal and race number proudly on his bedroom wall. Maybe something rubbed off on him already!

The rain continues, but brings some good rest.

Well the rain is still continuing in Johannesburg and this morning I did my training run in pouring rain. I planned a 25.5km run but in the end ran 22.5km on a route that stays much closer to home. I thought this was safer in case there was some lightning or some other emergency with all the rain. This route also doesn’t cross any streams as the 25.5km route do.

So the weather made me miss my 15km run on Wednesday and I ran 3km less than planned today. Running 18km less than planned for the week sounds bad, but I think it will give my body some needed recovery time which is worth more than the extra 18km would have been.

Tomorrow (Monday) is my rest day and then I’ll start some weeks of hard training with long runs over the weekends including a 25.5km, 2 x 32km and a 35km run before I cut back a bit in the weeks leading up to my Comrades qualifying marathon on 20 March. This I need to run in less than 5 hours to qualify for the Comrades marathon on 30 May. Looking at this I’m feeling much more comfortable with the shorter total distance for this week caused by the rain.