Isn't it strange how things pan out; a year ago, I had absolutely no intention of doing more than possibly two half marathons this year. If it wasn't for Dave Wheeler who got me through the Landmarks half marathon last year, I probably would still have thought so. It was after that specific race that I then decided to set myself a huge challenge of the 30km Bay to Bay in January. To be honest I did think to myself that it would be back to halves and tens after that race. That was until I decided that I should get at least one marathon under the belt and ticked off the list; no better one than Cape Town Marathon [at this stage the thinking is Cape Town marathon and at least one other one like New York or London.]. So, training for 20 September has started in all earnest.
Running partner Graham suggested that we do John Korasie 30km as a training run, which was great as the intention was purely to get kms on the legs. I was a bit worried, because for Bay2Bay we had quite a rigorous training program beforehand; after deciding to train together when we did the AVBOB 15kms, we ran 21 kms the following weekend, 26 the next and then did the 30km. With John Korasie, the training had not been as well planned [although Graham had just had a very successful IronMan that he completed].
On a last minute, Therese decided to join us, which was fantastic! Her first 30km. The three of us ran together for the majority of the way. The weather was perfect for running, cool, misty with a bit of drizzle. We cut our time a bit fine to park, register, go to the loo [the latter we did not manage to do] and lined up a couple of minutes before the race started.
The course starts at the Naval Base (where Cape Town Peninsula Marathon ends), and veers up Red Hill. It is quite an uphill, which didn't feel quite as hectic as I thought it would be, and was quite impressed that we didn't stop.
I had my trusted Gu's that I had at 9kms and at 20kms. After 15kms we implemented the run / walk strategy of running for 9 minutes and walking for 1 minute. Jeepers does that minute fly by! There were some wonderful meandering downhills. A really beautiful race.
Therese did really well and completed in 03:40! We came in at 03:47, I am super chuffed as it was a minute faster than Bay2Bay.
Must admit that I was really hungry by the time we reached the finish; boy did that Boerewors roll go down well!
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