Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 131, June 2020 June 2020 | Page 41

TRAIL RUNNING
Elated Elevation at Oudekraal
Spring Colours of the Cape
and her mountains are a lot bigger than we are, and
we should appreciate and respect them while we run
and explore their greatness.
Lesson #3: If more than 10 people
are offering the same advice, it may
be worth taking
I became obsessed with the beauty (and brutality)
of ultra-trail running, wanting to enter every possible
race I could. I could not afford many of the remaining
ultra-trail races for the year, so I proceeded to enter
back-to-back shorter, cheaper races, to satisfy my
desire to run ridiculous distances over short periods
of time.
I had many concerned friends, family and even
strangers confront my new road to madness (and
inevitable doom) with questions: “Is it really necessary
to enter two races on one weekend?” Me: “Yes!”
Them: “Don’t you think you’re over doing it?” Me:
“No!” Them: “You’re going to hurt yourself” Me: “I’m
going to hurt you.”
Meanwhile, social media’s algorithms were directing
me to articles on the dangers of overtraining and overracing,
and the importance of rest and cross-training,
which I obviously took no time to read. My inbox was
flooded with links to blogs on these topics, which I
redirected to my junk mail, before opening a browser
to search for more races to enter.
Lesson #4: If it sounds like a
stupid idea, and everyone calls
you crazy… it probably is, and you
definitely are
As my luck would have it, a team from work decided
it would be a nice idea to run the West Coast
5km/10km/half marathon, where work would pay for
our distance of choice. This happened to fall on the
day before the TMC 44km trail run. My response:
“Perfect! Sign me up for the 21km.”
The plan was to take it slow, and use the race as a
relaxed 21km leg-loosener for TMC. I fooled nobody
with this idea, and as expected, my competitive edge
threw me across the finish line to do a half marathon
personal best of 1 hour and 49 minutes. My shoes
Two Oceans Aquarium Running Team for the
West Coast Half Marathon
had left blistered holes
in my feet rivalling the
size of R5 coins,
but nothing a roll
of strapping,
lovely thick
socks, and a big
spoon of cement
couldn’t hide.
Lesson #5:
Overtraining
does exist
Table Mountain Challenge
the next day was, well, a
challenge! I did not sleep well the night before. I rarely
do before a race, with nerves and excitement keeping
me up. But this time the missing skin from the insoles
of my feet was a contributing factor, too. In contrast to
my blistered, burning paws, the weather was cold and
rainy on race morning. I was feeling a little gloomy
and fatigued from the race the day before, coupled
with a long week of work, and now, in hindsight, what
I recognise as being horrendously over-trained. My
excitement had disappeared with the wind, and all
that remained were nerves and shear panic that the
rain could not wash away. This resulted in an extra
visit to an already three times violated porta-potty.
Lesson #6: Study the route before
the race
It helps knowing what to expect, especially when
conditions are bad. I quickly found that out when
the race started with Kasteelspoort’s steep climb. A
disorientating, windy, rainy, icy, misty climb, with no
view to distract from the adversities. The weather and
I continued our respective tantrums up and all the way
along the top of Table Mountain, down Llandudno
Ravine, and towards Kloof Nek. Up to the 30km
mark, I was having an outstandingly bad time, and
my confidence was shattered every time somebody
overtook me. I was quite ready to call it quits, when
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