Just 100 minutes

The first morning of my romantic weekend away, I slipped out of bed, and headed for a special place in the Knysna forest. Today was a day to be tested. To see, if I was good enough.

 A year ago to this day, I had been standing on the same spot, wondering the same things. Then I could feel very little as the effects of strong drugs still leisurely cruised my bloodstream. Drugs that had tried hard to fight a tooth abscess and failed dismally. The run was my worst ever, most of it spent locked in a mental battle to put one foot in front of the other.

Four years ago, on my departure from executive mayhem, I set myself 10 life goals to achieve over the next five years. One of those goals was to run a half marathon (21 kilometres) in under 100 minutes. This was my year to set the record straight.

The race started well but I could feel myself tiring with six kilometres to go. Three kilometres later and the tank was empty, time was slipping away. I shared a word of encouragement with a walker, not sure if it was for me or for him. I really wanted to join him. Instead he started to run again, pacing me, both of us with nothing left to give, stride for stride, until at last the finish was behind us. With 19 seconds to spare!

It felt good to achieve a goal which has eluded me for years. It also felt good to have helped somebody else achieve the same goal, although I hope he felt the same way about me, because I could not have done it without him. I often share my strong mind overcomes everything philosophy with my children. This goal required me to live it and it was much tougher than expected. When all was done, I could not believe how close I had come to giving up. Sometimes success requires a short wallow in pain, and pushing through to the other side.

I am glad it was tough. If it had been easy, the goal would simply not have been tough enough. And what is the point of only doing things that are easy?

Achieving the Impossible

I have started to read Lewis Pugh’s book, ‘Achieving the Impossible‘. I am only a couple of chapters in and find myself more than thoroughly inspired. If you don’t know Lewis, he is also known as the human polar bear and has spent much of his life attempting the impossible, in terms of long distance swimming. The human polar bear moniker comes from his kilometre swim at one of the poles.


Having my own wild long distance never done before event at the back of my mind, makes this book a very interesting read!

I found myself so inspired that a run at 05h30 this morning seemed to be a brilliant idea. Lewis wrote about long distance running in snow storms. I figured if that was possible, then there was no way I could shirk almost winter morning running.

And so I was on the road at the crack of dawn fumbling my way through the dark and loving every moment!

I so love books that rock my world!

Respect

I got my hot sweaty run all right; and a whole lot more...


As I was on my way out, Matthew asked if he could come too. He loves running around the block with me, and hence impossible to refuse some good father son time. Five hundred meters later, Matthew made his sprint to the finish.

And then I was off.

It was incredibly hot and the South Easter was gale force. With my arms pumping, heart pounding, and legs burning with effort, I charged at a snail’s pace into the teeth of the wind. The thought of a route that avoided it was enticing but the challenge of running headlong into a wall of fury sparked my imagination.

My legs seemed to have a life of their own, they just felt like running. I found myself loping up a particularly steep hill and then into the countryside. Surprisingly there was another runner up ahead. Catching him up, I discovered he was a big chap in his early sixties. We ran side by side for a couple of kilometres, sharing runner trivialities. The running seemed to be effortless yet my time had run out, and I turned for home.

The roaring of the wind in my ears was immediately replaced by music which had till then lost the battle to be heard. The wind pummelled me from behind, lengthening my stride, and the merciless sun solicited rivers of sweat from my tiring body.

The kilometres flew by and I was soon home. Fulfilled and fatigued!

It was only in the shower that the thought struck home. I had run a couple of kilometres with a sixty year old man, a man more than twenty years my senior, and he had effortlessly matched my pace into a gale force wind. He had talked of long runs into the mountains with glee and waxed lyrical about races longer than 160km.

Now that’s worthy of respect! And goes to show that age is never an excuse!

Running and running and running

So I ran the 21km in Knysna. My wife thought it was a bad idea. The tooth doctor saw no harm. I was there...

The only reason I considered running is that the most amazing thing happened to me on Thursday morning. I spent about 10 minutes psyching myself up to blow my nose, an activity that had grown to be intensely painful. Throwing caution to the wind, I gave it an incredibly hard blow. The result was that my gum burst, releasing all of my pent up pain in a stream of pus. A monster size abscess, that I did not know I had, was now no more.

Yeah, I know; it does not sound good, but boy did it feel wonderful.

Saturday morning saw me at the start of the Knysna half. I was excited and feeling good. I got off to a great start and ran 14 good kilometres at a great pace. I was still on track to beat my target when all of the wheels fell off. I just hit ran out of energy; the tank was completely empty. I guess my special tooth week had sapped all of my resources.

The next 7 kilometers, became a mental game of putting one foot in front of the other. It was incredibly tough and took me forever. I got to the end in a time that was well over my target but still a good bit under two hours. It was not a great run by any means, but in retrospect was brilliant considering the context.

There are two takeouts to this story; I need to treat the mental debarcle as a fantastic training opportunity for my Kilimanjaro climb at the end of the year and I must listen to my wife more often!

Falling Apart

My life over the last couple of days has seen me play the role of bumbling idiot in place of my usual graceful self.

Saturday started with a four kilometre run on the beach with Luke as part of his school fun run. He did well and came in seventh in the school, not bad for a grade two. I then ran two kilometres with Matt and came in sixteenth, absolutely brilliant for the tiny tot! Luke and I then went surfing until he was frozen. All well to his point!

Sunday was the day that I had been looking forward to slipping on my running shoes and hitting the road. Instead I spent some time on the half pipe with my youngest. I lost control at the top of the ramp on my last turn, twisted my ankle and dived hip and elbow first into the floor. It was not as funny as Matt thought it was! By now I am so used to twisting my ankle that it was in the pool seconds later and then tightly wrapped in a well used figure eight bandage. Sadly, the run was put on hold!

I hobbled around on Monday trying to practise my throws for my Judo grading that would take place in the evening. I was allowed to skip the exercise section of the session but then it was on to my grading. It went smoothly but in a little light practise fight I sprained one of my toes and wrenched my wrist. Hello, and I was taking it easy?

Tuesday night was the indoor hockey challenge; a parents team against the teachers. I love indoor hockey and could not turn this down. I bandaged my foot so tightly that there was practically no blood flow to my toes, but at least my ankle was safe. One game somehow morphed into four games on the trot. At which point I was the stain on a pool of sweat and barely able to move a muscle. I only picked up a minor injury which was a grazed knuckle and a bruised hand. Of course I could show no pain in front of the rest of the parents. You can be certain that if parents and teachers did not know me, they know me now!

Wednesday night was the toughest Judo session of my short new Judo career. I limped into the dojo and had my children drag me out afterwards. A mental note was made to always ensure short fingernails as I had managed to split most of them down the sides. I said a prayer of thanks for power steering. At home, I shooed the kids out of the car and then summoned a vast amount of mental strength to do the same. I slowly shuffled into the house in about the time that it took my kids to shower and go to bed, normally a process that takes hours! I grabbed a very unlucky Coke which was dispatched in record time. That provided me with sufficient energy to get to the shower. Showering was a painful exercise as by now my body parts had ceased. Cleaning the soles of my feet involved a special contortion that involved the wall and a lot of will, and I barely avoided taking the rest of my shower sitting on the floor. I thought that the hard part was over, but drying myself was next to impossible. Halfway through I accidentally dropped my towel on the floor, which was great as it solved the problem of how to dry my feet. I then spread my jocks on the floor and wiggled my feet into the holes. After bending for about 15 seconds I managed to get a hold of them and pull them up, impressing myself immensely with my innovative dressing techniques. At that point I decided I had put enough clothes on.

Today, I feel like a metal robot that somebody forgot to oil! I am tired, very damaged, and absolutely refuse to let anyone tell me that it is all because I am getting older!!

Running for fun

I am so glad I run. It opens up new worlds that I would never have been able to access watching the TV. I do of course require my 80’s tunes to be loud and pumping in my ears for best results!

There is this large bigger than hill, smaller than mountain thing, near to where I was staying in Sudan. It is the only imperfection in an almost flat landscape. Hundreds of people earn their living by crushing its rocks. They have developed a technique of climbing up its sides and throwing down all of the rocks that they can pry loose. The rocks are then rolled all of the way to the bottom where other people set upon them with hammers and chisels. The rocks are then broken down into a variety of sizes and stacked into piles. The bigger rocks are stacked into beautiful round cairns just over a meter in height. At night trucks come past and piles of rocks are then loaded up for the next building operation somewhere in this new land.

My running exploration led me all over that hill for an incredible workout. There were plenty of shocked expressions from those hard at work. It obviously made no sense that they were on this hill to survive and I was there for fun! Anyhow it was great to test myself against the mountain and see if I could follow their rock rolling paths straight up, mill around on top and then find other routes down again, whilst always pretending to be in total control!

My last run up this geographic anomaly saw me starting off tired and looking for an easy option. I followed a flat winding track. Like all gentle looking tracks it went around a bend and became steep and nasty. Instead of feeling daunted, I was suddenly filled with energy and raced to the top. Once there, I found a flat rock and began doing pushups with the panorama of Juba spread out below me. I was the highest being around, and certainly the only one uselessly building his chest and arm muscles. Down to my left was an interesting rocky dome which looked worthy of some attention. With less finesse than a shovel, I made my way to the base of this dome. What looked like a cool challenging rock climb from on high now looked far too difficult up close. Not being one for standing around on a run, my body launched into an all fours attack on this rock face. With huge faith in the tread of my shoes, three breaks to catch my breath, and a constant heart rate of 170 beats per minute, I made it to the top! Not wanting to waste the physical high, I got down on my stomach with my feet at the top of the dome and the rest of me pointing down it. And so it came to be that thousands of kilometres from any sea, I was able to practise my surfing jump ups. Later, with my arms about to fall off, I negotiated an easy path down. Now that was a great run!

Just the other night I went for a run in Entebbe in Uganda (had to go via Uganda to get to and from Sudan). My mission was to run on the banks of Lake Victoria. With careful planning, I found myself at the botanical gardens with a flat batteried camera and no money for the entrance fee. Moses at the gate felt sorry for me, or just thought that the amount of sweat dripping off me could be better used watering his plants, and let me in. I had a good run through the park and then headed back to the guest house with a plan in mind. I took a shortcut there up a road called Hill Road. Don’t ever take short cuts up roads called Hill Road, trust me on this one! At the lodge I collected my big camera, got some local currency and then put my sweaty body back on the road. This time I paid my way in, much to Moses’ surprise, and then got to work photographing silly pictures of me in spots I had scoped out earlier. It was a run, although I think my camera would have preferred to be in someone else’s less moist hands! Apart from the supersized foliage, a troop of monkeys entertained me, birds of all types called and shrieked, an army of real live marching ants attacked me, and a big horned cow snorted its displeasure at my company. Another great run!

Running at home will be a bit different, but I cannot complain, not with panoramic vistas of False Bay as my constant companion. Yeah, I like running!

Yours truly on the banks of the Great Lake Vic. The photo below shows just how short I really am!

HOT IN ACCRA

This morning began bright and early. The only thing is nobody told the sun and even though it was not yet doing its thing, it was hot and humid. My host here in Accra, an old school mate of mine, decided I needed to experience the joy of exercise in an outdoor sauna. And so at 05h45 in the morning I was preparing for a run.

Warming up in this place is an activity to be severely frowned upon. More than anything else, I needed to cool down! And I was yet to take my first step.

I have recently spent a good deal of time pounding the streets of Dar es Salaam. It is hot there too and I had hoped that my time in the sun there would have acclimatised me for anything. I was wrong!

After three steps, perhaps it was four, my body started to respond. There could be no doubt that the lovely houses and well maintained roads had nothing to do with it. Actually Accra was a revelation to me. It is for the most part a well kept and orderly town. Everything works from traffic lights to the rules of the road. That is apart from the police officer who climbed into our car the other day. He told the driver that he was under arrest for a serious traffic violation. Yes, I remember now, we turned left! After extracting the princely sum of four dollars from the driver, he proceeded to ask me for his present from South Africa. While fiddling with my camera, I replied that I would happily take his photo, and mail it to him. He did not seem keen to take me up on the offer. This I deduced from the fact that he suddenly vanished and reappeared down the block moving at a hectic pace. Strangely this incident did little to dampen my surprise and wonder at this West African country. Most of it was the people here that are so friendly and helpful that they put me to shame!

But I digress.

It was definitely after step number three and just before step number four that my face grew intensely hot. It felt like my brain was sending signals through my body like an old ship siren warning of imminent disaster. By step six, I was glowing. A meltdown was inevitable! Step ten saw great big shiny drops of sweat extrude through my pores, en masse. Then slowly at first they started to move, gathering speed and momentum as they joined other streams, forming great rivers, torrents really, that gushed to the floor.

About five kilograms lighter and much faster on my feet, we arrived back at the hotel. Thankfully I had had the foresight to set my air conditioner to its lowest setting. Changing from my wet kit into my swimming costume was an irony in itself.

And so there I was totally inspired for the day and raring to go. Who would have thought that an outdoor sauna could have had such a positive effect on me?

Just as well it is the middle of winter here!

There is a story of pumping arms, thousands of pounding hearts and pouring sweat that needs to be told!

My very own One Ocean! The race that has consumed so much of my mental energy and a little of my blog space. I must confess the 21km is really the Once Ocean as one does not get to do both of them on the race. I have always understood that the Two Oceans is one of the more difficult runs out there and I certainly was not disappointed. I have great respect though for all those runners that manage the 56km as that is a long hard haul regardless of whether it happens along two oceans or not.

My first Two Oceans was awesome. I took my hard learnt lessons about smiling and complimenting myself to heart and told myself many, many lies that made me smile. Crowd support was incredible and as a runner, something really appreciated. It seems having these people cheering for me and calling me by name, as it was included on my race number, added an extra couple of springs in my step. I also found that by interacting with the crowd, they got all fired up and we were both able to feed off each other. I was not going to let all of these complete strangers down!

Strangely enough there were also very monosyllabic conversations with other runners that were absolutely awesome. I may have misinterpreted some of their grunts though.... I had a conversation at the end of the race with a runner that I had been following for some time. It was really great as I was tired and needed the mental diversion. If it was not for her, I would not have run the time that I did. In fact, the women runners were incredible and impressed me immensely. I was just trying to keep up with them!!

I tell you all of this as this was the best run of my life. Strange but true as I have not been able to train for it all. I managed to run the 21km in well under an hour and forty five minutes. I look forward to meeting one of my five year goals which is to run two 21km runs in less than a hundred minutes. Bring on the Knysna 21!

And now that you all know about this goal of mine, there is no way that I can let you all down!

My oldest son has a beach run this weekend. I thought that I would take him for some practice runs before we actually hit the beach on Saturday. I would imagine that as a 6 year old, 2km is a pretty major distance! I was amazed at how excited he was to go running with me. I suppose that he has seen me go off running and has thought it pretty cool and so he will get a chance to do what dad does. Yes please, dad the hero! We set off at rather a brisk pace and I was absolutely blown away at the amount of effort he put into his running, he just ran and ran and ran. We did stop a couple of times and at the end he really stepped it up a gear and sprinted for home. Once again I was amazed at how children are able to apply their minds and do things that you would never have thought them capable of. One aspect of my life that I am looking forward to is introducing them to possibilities – I can’t wait to be my children’s biggest fan!

One of the interesting things that happened on the run was that we passed stacks of people. Stacks more passed us in their cars! OK - not that interesting. All the people that saw us immediately realized that we were on a bit of a training run together. Every single one of them ended up with this funny smile on their faces which said “that’s so sweet”. So it may also have been a bit of gas but I like the way I have interpreted it! It certainly gave me that warm feeling that I am doing the right thing, spending real time doing things that my children want to do.

The other interesting thing and completely unexpected consequence of our running training has been the amount of conversation that we have had. We have had 20 minutes of quality talking time on each of runs. I have learnt tons about my boy, about school, about his friends, about what he did, about what he thinks about things, well really just all about his life. If you have young kids, you probably share my frustration in that I cannot get much out of them over the dinner table about their day. Most of these conversations are quite contrived and hardly deep. Now I eagerly await our runs, not for the exercise, but for the gift of getting to know my kids.

One more interesting thing was that I was able to slip into dad the coach mode and my children actually listen. Perhaps their blood is pumping a bit faster with the exercise and this turns on the listening section of their brains – can this be proven as a scientific fact? I think we all found this valuable as many of the coaching lessons that one learns in sport are things that can be applied to life; pace yourself, set some goals, sometimes things are tough – need to work through it, etc.

My youngest son was also dead keen to join us and so we all ran a bit of our route together. If you were wondering, my 3 year old runs 600m with only 1 short walking break – not bad when your legs are shorter than my shin!