This has been a weird year for training and for all the extraneous events that have had an impact. We've had work pressures, family issues , injuries, flu, lack of motivation .. its been tough.
I have tried to downplay expectations even knowing that this was probably my best hope of a sub 11 but at the same time realising that it may be a bridge or two too far.
We stayed with our friend Nikki in Hilton and decided to catch the bus from PMB to Durban , leaving our car at the finish gave us the most flexibility on the day. As usual we went to the finish and explored the area, found the tog bags , and the Team Vitality tent, wow it was different when there were 10-20000 people filling in all the gaps....
Although Kypie and I had planned to do the race together we had not really made a proper meeting up plan.. The trip down in the bus was reasonably uneventful until the driver stopped to let some people relieve their bladders. We were a bit concerned the bus may have broken down but no we soon set off on the wet road to Durban.. The rain had stopped and form my app it showed no more rain, other apps seemed to predict rain at 7am, with the start being in the dark at 5:30. To ensure we had warm clothes at the finish we left a bag with Biddulphs in PMB and took one to Durban. With our bags handed over we entered C pen( By raising R6000 we get into the Charity batch- we took 50 seconds to cross the start , the last runners crossed about 12 minutes ) at 4:40 where we hoped to meet up with Kypie. We never thought we would get there before him and besides we could see everyone walking past us to get in the batch so thought we would see him if he was late. We got quite far forward in the batch just by following others forward as they moved to meet up with friends. Next time we will plan this better!!
The usual quiet Durban build up with National anthem then Shosholozawas followed by the cock crow and the Cannon which wakes up all the poor pigeons in Durban.... I seriously believed that Kypie was ahead and hoped he would not start out too fast... Our goal was to get to 7:20 / km and stay as close to that as we could knowing the hills would impact us and move that to 7:30.. That was plan A. If you watch the video here at just on 50 minutes race time you can see the Orange cap on the other side of the road, that's me Comrades 2019 video Not sure if we feature again I have not watched the whole recording yet
At about 12km I looked at my watch and average was 7:20/km a few seconds later I heard " I am so thankful to have caught you" we were re-united.. In 4 Comrades now we have only been apart for 17 in the first one and 12 now. It was great to be reunited but round about here I started feeling my left hip flexor /piriformis complaining. Not much I could do so I just ignored it, my stride must have changed / compensated for it as later I felt my right hamstring tightening. Both of these were worse on uphills and camber.. So as we started Cowies hill it was there. It did not slow me down but was an irritation.
Met up with Nigel Asprey at 32km and got a Tonic water which is a really great change of flavour. I was a bit disappointed as this year they only had naartjie energade and my favourite is the blueberry, but hey beggars can't be choosers..My goal had been to get top the mat at Drummond in 2:22 and we managed a 2:25 which meant sub 11 was very tight as the mat is not quite halfway.
Going up Nchanga my hips were mildly sore, and my calves also were complaining a bit but that's life.. Looking at the splits afterwards we were faster on all the big hills than 2 years expect for Pollys... It was not a bad climb just goes on and on and on. and this starts at the conclusion of the hardest road marathon in South Africa
I truly believe in even effort so whether going up down or flat you should expend the same energy which means that you never push to hard. As your energy levels and enthusiasm wane so your speed will drop. And yes it drops, suddenly at the top of Nchanga you are into a breeze and it slows you and saps your energy . Up Nchanga and pretty much all the way down again.
By this stage one is going through the motions, keeping going forward trying to stay positive.This is a heavily undulating section with no major hills but you look across to about 6km ahead and realise you need to go down quite a but before ascending to the same height. Just after the highest point I looked across and who would not recognise those legs... Liz was on the side of the road puking... We thought biltong had solved the problem but not yet. I tried to encourage her to stay with us and jog ahead on the downs which she did till we started little Pollys but she was pretty tired. With a heavy heart we went on but we did slow a bit as by now I was leaning quite badly to the left, I think when I finished in 2015 I also had a slight lean but that was only at the end . I was trying to pull my back straight but with the camber on the road it was not easy. There was an Ex SA cricketer Mornantau Hayward struggling up Pollys and Kypie took great delight in chatting to him as they inched up the hill.. It goes much quicker if you take your mind off the task at hand..
We just kept moving on not quite knowing how Liz was doing but knowing that if I stopped I probably would not get going again. To turn around and look backwards while walking forwards is a no no 80m into a race, eventually a friend Brian May acme past and said he had helped Liz coming up Polly Shortts. That was a relief. It was great to finish my 9th Comrades with an awesome walking buddy. at last we got the exact same finish time..
After finishing I went to get my togbag ( we both had stuff in each tog bag just in case) so Liz would have warm stuff to put on as PMB cools off quickly and sunsets at about 5:10pm Once I had my bag I went back to the finish, it felt like there were a million people there. Fortunately met up with Adri who confirmed Liz had finished. So do I go left where there are millions of people or right to medical to see if Liz is there. She was not at Medical so I fought my way through the hordes to our club tent, and eventually found Liz who had puked again, there was another team member Bruce who had also puked and said the berry smoothie helped him so Liz had one and felt a bit better, by which time the medic arrived but Liz said she was ok. Her skin showed she was not dehydrated so we decided to avoid the biggest non military temporary medical facility in the world. By this stage Bruces wife arrived having spent 2 hours at some other tent waiting for him..
We then set of to find our car and get Liz into a bath at Nikkis place. I had a meager meal as not really hungry, Liz just had another smoothie. We drove back home on Monday and why did I only stop once when I got home my legs and back had seized up pretty much. I initially slept well last night then tossed and turned and tossed and turned.. This morning I am still very tight but it has been gradually easing. I really prefer not to take any pain killers or NSAIDs so as to allow the body to heal naturally. If you tell the body there is no pain it will not heal itself. I should be fine in
a day or two..
Dave
Liz you can see below how Liz slowed after Camperdown but she ended faster. A few more kms and we would have ended together..
Kypie
Looking below you can see that Kypie was 1 minute behind across the start line..
I used race predictor on my Garmon 920xt it was awesome you put in the total distance and when you get to a km marker you can press the lap button and it will correct the pace and ETA.. In ths case I put in 87km as I did not want it to go a km short. It worked really well just when Kypie met up with me we were on a 10:42 pace but as the hills kick in this drops but it was awesome near the end as predicted ETA went just over 11:30 and we by then knew we were safe.
I have tried to downplay expectations even knowing that this was probably my best hope of a sub 11 but at the same time realising that it may be a bridge or two too far.
We stayed with our friend Nikki in Hilton and decided to catch the bus from PMB to Durban , leaving our car at the finish gave us the most flexibility on the day. As usual we went to the finish and explored the area, found the tog bags , and the Team Vitality tent, wow it was different when there were 10-20000 people filling in all the gaps....
Although Kypie and I had planned to do the race together we had not really made a proper meeting up plan.. The trip down in the bus was reasonably uneventful until the driver stopped to let some people relieve their bladders. We were a bit concerned the bus may have broken down but no we soon set off on the wet road to Durban.. The rain had stopped and form my app it showed no more rain, other apps seemed to predict rain at 7am, with the start being in the dark at 5:30. To ensure we had warm clothes at the finish we left a bag with Biddulphs in PMB and took one to Durban. With our bags handed over we entered C pen( By raising R6000 we get into the Charity batch- we took 50 seconds to cross the start , the last runners crossed about 12 minutes ) at 4:40 where we hoped to meet up with Kypie. We never thought we would get there before him and besides we could see everyone walking past us to get in the batch so thought we would see him if he was late. We got quite far forward in the batch just by following others forward as they moved to meet up with friends. Next time we will plan this better!!
The usual quiet Durban build up with National anthem then Shosholozawas followed by the cock crow and the Cannon which wakes up all the poor pigeons in Durban.... I seriously believed that Kypie was ahead and hoped he would not start out too fast... Our goal was to get to 7:20 / km and stay as close to that as we could knowing the hills would impact us and move that to 7:30.. That was plan A. If you watch the video here at just on 50 minutes race time you can see the Orange cap on the other side of the road, that's me Comrades 2019 video Not sure if we feature again I have not watched the whole recording yet
At about 12km I looked at my watch and average was 7:20/km a few seconds later I heard " I am so thankful to have caught you" we were re-united.. In 4 Comrades now we have only been apart for 17 in the first one and 12 now. It was great to be reunited but round about here I started feeling my left hip flexor /piriformis complaining. Not much I could do so I just ignored it, my stride must have changed / compensated for it as later I felt my right hamstring tightening. Both of these were worse on uphills and camber.. So as we started Cowies hill it was there. It did not slow me down but was an irritation.
Met up with Nigel Asprey at 32km and got a Tonic water which is a really great change of flavour. I was a bit disappointed as this year they only had naartjie energade and my favourite is the blueberry, but hey beggars can't be choosers..My goal had been to get top the mat at Drummond in 2:22 and we managed a 2:25 which meant sub 11 was very tight as the mat is not quite halfway.
Going up Nchanga my hips were mildly sore, and my calves also were complaining a bit but that's life.. Looking at the splits afterwards we were faster on all the big hills than 2 years expect for Pollys... It was not a bad climb just goes on and on and on. and this starts at the conclusion of the hardest road marathon in South Africa
I truly believe in even effort so whether going up down or flat you should expend the same energy which means that you never push to hard. As your energy levels and enthusiasm wane so your speed will drop. And yes it drops, suddenly at the top of Nchanga you are into a breeze and it slows you and saps your energy . Up Nchanga and pretty much all the way down again.
We just kept moving on not quite knowing how Liz was doing but knowing that if I stopped I probably would not get going again. To turn around and look backwards while walking forwards is a no no 80m into a race, eventually a friend Brian May acme past and said he had helped Liz coming up Polly Shortts. That was a relief. It was great to finish my 9th Comrades with an awesome walking buddy. at last we got the exact same finish time..
After finishing I went to get my togbag ( we both had stuff in each tog bag just in case) so Liz would have warm stuff to put on as PMB cools off quickly and sunsets at about 5:10pm Once I had my bag I went back to the finish, it felt like there were a million people there. Fortunately met up with Adri who confirmed Liz had finished. So do I go left where there are millions of people or right to medical to see if Liz is there. She was not at Medical so I fought my way through the hordes to our club tent, and eventually found Liz who had puked again, there was another team member Bruce who had also puked and said the berry smoothie helped him so Liz had one and felt a bit better, by which time the medic arrived but Liz said she was ok. Her skin showed she was not dehydrated so we decided to avoid the biggest non military temporary medical facility in the world. By this stage Bruces wife arrived having spent 2 hours at some other tent waiting for him..
We then set of to find our car and get Liz into a bath at Nikkis place. I had a meager meal as not really hungry, Liz just had another smoothie. We drove back home on Monday and why did I only stop once when I got home my legs and back had seized up pretty much. I initially slept well last night then tossed and turned and tossed and turned.. This morning I am still very tight but it has been gradually easing. I really prefer not to take any pain killers or NSAIDs so as to allow the body to heal naturally. If you tell the body there is no pain it will not heal itself. I should be fine in
a day or two..
Dave
Liz you can see below how Liz slowed after Camperdown but she ended faster. A few more kms and we would have ended together..
Kypie
Looking below you can see that Kypie was 1 minute behind across the start line..
I used race predictor on my Garmon 920xt it was awesome you put in the total distance and when you get to a km marker you can press the lap button and it will correct the pace and ETA.. In ths case I put in 87km as I did not want it to go a km short. It worked really well just when Kypie met up with me we were on a 10:42 pace but as the hills kick in this drops but it was awesome near the end as predicted ETA went just over 11:30 and we by then knew we were safe.
