Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 123, October 2019 | Page 44

Learning from Experience
In 2016, Jock once again followed a heavy racing
schedule, with his appearance at UTCT bringing
him a sixth place finish as well as a fifth place in
the Sky Run. He withdrew from the 2017 Ultra-Trail
Drakensburg (UTD), but was back in 2018 to win it,
and also took third place in the Karkloof 100 Miler,
but Jock was beginning to realise that he needed a
new approach to racing. In top level cycling, riders
commonly do huge mileage in training each week and
race often, but running is less forgiving on the body,
and thus Jock has had to learn over the years that he
cannot race as much as he did in the peloton.
“I have had to start to be more selective in my races. I
want to win every race I enter – I am that competitive
– but I now pick my races better. I won’t race a
100km every weekend now.” That last comment was
admittedly said a bit tongue-in-cheek, as there simply
are not that many ultra trail races week in, week out,
on the South African running calendar, but Jock’s point
is well made. “I have also had to adapt my running. I
would be very aggressive in the early stages of a race
and would pay the price later. I am now a lot more
conservative in my approach. I know that at some
stage I will hit a bad patch, and have learnt to let the
other runners go when that happens, trusting in my
ability to get through the patch and catch them later.”
This new approach to racing is also applied in his
training, says Jock. “I am a workhorse. The more, the
better, so Ian has had his work cut out to actually hold
me back. If the session is 30km, I will want to do 40km,
and so on, so Ian really has had to hold me back. It has
not always been easy, but we are getting there.”
A dream Come True
Nowadays Jock focuses on one big race a year and
gears his training to build up to it, and he says that
his focus has shifted to his bucket list races. “When
I started in trail running, there were two races in the
USA I always wanted to run, the Western States
100 Miler in California and the Leadville 100 Miler in
Colorado.” He says the desire to run Western States
came from being inspired by Ryan Sandes, who won
the race in 2017.
However, Western States is considered to be one of
the ultimate trail races in the world, so getting an entry
requires not only running qualification races, but also
going through a lottery system. “I tried to enter the
Western States in 2018 and did not get in, so I set
my eyes on Leadville instead. I still want to do both,
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but not being able to get into Western States meant I
looked at Leadville for this year. They are also super
strict about getting an entry, so as soon as entries
opened, I applied, and I got in,” says Jock.
First run in 1983, the Leadville takes place each
August and runs through the heart of the famous
Rocky Mountains. With 4700m of ascent run at
elevations between 2800m and 3800m, it is one of
most gruelling trail races on the global calendar, and
Jock needed to use every bit of the experience he
has built up over the last nine years to get through
it. This included starting conservatively and holding
back in the early stages of the race. “It went against
all my instincts, but I held back,” says Jock, and it
paid off as he later reeled in one runner after another
to climb from 24th to eighth place as he came home
in 19:33:10.
In Leadville, Jock was ably seconded by his old friend
from cycling days and now also a trail runner, Graeme
McCullum, whose role was nearly as challenging as
the race itself. For the first 11 hours he had to make
sure he made it to all the feed zones in which he was
allowed to second Jock, and then he acted as a pacer
for Jock by running with him, as allowed by the event
rules, so this was a big team effort. “Without Graeme
things would have been a lot harder,” says Jock. He
adds that Leadville has just made him hungrier for the
next adventure: “Western States is still on my radar,
but so is Ultra-Trail Mont Blanc in France.”
“This is where my perfectionism and work ethic does
help. I am very strict about allocating what time I have
available to the maximum.” He heads up the Ford
Fury branch in Fourways, a 50km drive from home,
which means that at 4am you will find him out training.
Then it is home, shower and off to work, before
getting back home around 6pm, when he needs to
find time to spend with his fiancé and five-year-old
daughter. “They have been great in their support of
me, but I do need to make sure that the time I spend
with them is quality time.”
Another big difference between cycling and running is
that he was paid to ride throughout his career, but he
has to fund all his trail running himself, including his
international trips. Of course, his sponsor, Salomon,
does help, but by and large these trips come out of
his pocket. That, though, is not a deterrent to Jock.
His story has shown that when he puts his mind to
something, he makes it happen.
So... Which is Harder?
Inevitably, the question arises, which of the two
sporting disciplines is harder, running or cycling?
Initially, Jock says he felt that cycling was harder, but
quickly changed his mind, as the body takes less of a
hammering when riding. “For sure, running is harder.
And I say this because I can’t ever recall vomiting
when pushing myself in cycling. In running, however,
I don’t think I’ve done a race of 100km and more
without vomiting!” he says.
“I’ve crawled into bed many times after a tough
cycling race or stage, but I’ve never laid in a heap
next to the road whilst still racing, as I have a few
times whilst running. There is nowhere to hide in
running, no wheels to sit on and no downhills to
freewheel on. I got away with a lot racing a bike,
because I was generally smarter than the rest, but that
does not apply to running. There is simply nowhere to
hide when the gas is on.”
Jock says the challenge of running is compounded
still further by the need to juggle a full-time job and
family life with his highly competitive trail running, so
time is something that needs to be planned to the T.
ISSUE 124 OCTOBER 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
better if not for having raced UTCT that same month.
A big racing year was then rounded off with fifth place
in the Sky Run in November