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, 44 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