THE RUNNING
MANN the running mann by STUART MANN
In Search of Muscle Memory
As a self-confessed marathon addict , I was thrilled to hear about the Wolfpack Warriors Marathon in Tzaneen , as I had not been able to run an official marathon for way too many months , but I must admit , my legs were not so thrilled on the long drive home !
Marathon # 242 / Unique Marathon # 142 / 18 September 2021
It ’ s been an interesting year , and my standard response when asked the question , “ How are you doing ?” is now “ Good ... A few kilograms too good .” I started off lockdown well , initially running over 1000 kilometres in my driveway , but the pandemic slowly ground me down , and the lack of events steadily curtailed my weekly distance until I was running just enough to earn my free Vitality coffee each week .
The term “ won by a nose ” is used to indicate a very close finish . Despite the fact that I have a rather prominent nose , in the unlikely event of a sprint finish , I am currently more likely to win by a belly than a nose , as my stomach has steadily established itself as the most prominent part of my physique . I was on the verge of trawling the dark web to see if I could find an Ab-Blaster for some home workouts , when Tracey van der Dool , a . k . a . ‘ The Queen of Tzaneen ’ and the brains behind the Magoeba Plunge Marathon , sent me a message that she was in the final stages of launching a new marathon in Tzaneen , provisionally scheduled for the end of September .
This was the catalyst I needed . I had exactly seven weeks to get myself marathon fit , so I went out for long run later that day . The term ‘ long run ’ is relative , and this long run was exactly 10.1 kilometres . However , this was significantly longer than any single run I ’ d done over the preceding months . That night I slept over 10 hours .
Clearly , I didn ’ t have enough time to get marathon fit , but I knew I could do just enough to survive the distance . A week later , I got an elated message from Tracey that everything was confirmed , but the marathon had been brought forward two weeks to the middle of September . Now I knew I was in serious trouble . There was no way that I was going to be even remotely marathon fit by then , but there was even less chance that I was going to miss the first authentic return to marathon running !
My training plan was a steady pattern of three consecutive days of running followed by a much-needed rest day , and I managed to increase my longest long run distance to 10.5 kilometres . In a further effort to lose some weight , I only drank lite beer on my rest days . I kept up this regime until the last week , when I went back to my “ lockdown taper ” programme of two five kilometre runs and was all set .
Sort of Ready to Run
After 552 days between marathons , I arrived in Tzaneen feeling like a rookie runner . Somewhat ironically , I had said a COVID-induced goodbye to marathon running in Welkom ( welcome ), and as such , I took additional precautions , like only having a “ mild ” instead of “ hot ” Nando ’ s burger as my prerace meal . As a self-professed marathon running addict , I looked forward to falling off the wagon and finally clocking up finish number 242 . However , I did pray that in this age , when all we hold to be sacred is continually being debunked by social media researchers , that “ muscle memory ” was not a myth .
I had travelled through with my good friend Julian Karp and met up with another distance running connoisseur , Tobie Reyneke , in Tzaneen . As you can see from the
Images : Martin Mulder & Courtesy Stuart Mann
22 ISSUE 146 NOVEMBER 2021 | www . modernathlete . co . za
An early shot of the Warriors Wolfpack Marathon .