Rounding the Cape twice
A report on my
"back-to-back" Two Oceans 13 & 14 April 2001.
You are familiar with the ultimate long-distance runner's nightmare:
you just struggle across the finish line of an ultra-marathon after all these
agonising hours of sweat, pain and torture and then you wake up and find out
that it was all a pre-race dream and now you have to get up out of bed and do
it all over again for real!
In a way, this is a bit how it
felt running Two Oceans back-to-back. At the end of a meeting with Paul Vorwerk
about the "Tuffer Puffer", he added: "Oh, by the way, aren't you
interested in helping raising awareness for a charity cause? Paul Selby wants
to do something special for Two Oceans" It wasn't a very easy decision,
since this year was to be my 10th i.e. permanent number. On the one
hand I didn't want to jeopardise my chances, but on the other hand I did want to do something special. Two
Oceans has always held a special place in my heart, not in the least because it
was both my very first ultra-run and it is the only race that I have run every
single year since I started my running "career" on a fateful day 10
years ago. I said "sure" and
figured that I had another month or two to come up with a decent excuse.
It was to be a nice group event,
with an expected ten or twenty runners. I approached all my regular
long-distance buddies at FHAC but they all turned out to be wussies! In the
end, only 4 individuals managed to obtain their week-end pass from their
asylum: Barry Swartz, Paul Selby (both up-country runners from Fit2000), Paul
Vorwerk (AAC) and myself (FHAC). The former two did it last year and so had
some experience to draw upon. It also proves the point that some people never learn. In fact, Paul Selby has
done many similar back-to-backs, including Comrades and even Washie!
The fateful Good Friday arrives
and I'm trying to grab a quick afternoon siesta but they call me down to
Rondebosch for an e-TV interview, which then made me and my family late for our
pre-booked and pre-paid IMAX movie. At
least my 6-year old Sylvia also made it to the TV news by coming third in the
nappie 2 Oceans which is a full 56 metres, or better, 56 000 millimetres.
We are supposed to meet each
other at the "Finish" banner on the UCT grounds at 22:45, but the
rest of the gang only shows up 22:55. We still need to sort out seconding stuff
and get dressed which really makes us about two or three minutes late to the
finish er starting line. Paul proposes a group prayer. Now, I am not at all
religious, although most of the others in the team (runners & seconds) are.
However, I must admit to directing a non-directed prayer to the
"God-up-or-down-there-that-does-not-exist-but-just-in-case-anyway"
about three-quarters through virtually any endurance event I've done in my life
(yes, exactly at that familiar point in the race where you can already vaguely
make out the gates of Heaven - or Hell in my case - in the fuzzy shimmering
road ahead of you).
After a very uneventful
"well let's go, shall we?" we set off into the cold windy empty
runners finishing funnel across the UCT rugby grounds. It only takes us a
couple of seconds to realise that the marshals have not cordoned off the left lane of the M3 and, no, cars are not gonna go out of their way to avoid
runners; even if they do happen to
run with a couple of kilometres worth of reflector belts wrapped around their
bodies.
We jog together and chat for the
first 10 or so kays. Barry's showing off his very efficient fast-walking
technique, which he actually keeps up for virtually the entire stretch, whilst
we poor okes have to run the entire
thing. I learn a thing or two about the sports medal manufacturing industry
from Paul, including such things that a free-falling Rand is not all that bad
for exporters and also that there are worse things in life than having to
represent your company at running events all around the globe. And Paul agrees
to put me on his waiting list of people who are prepared to carry his luggage
(with samples) around the world for him, I'm only number 31253313 on his list.
For reasons which I can't really
go into on this public forum (but ask me anytime at the pub after you've bought
me a Hunter's Dry), we split up into two pairs for the next 14 kays, with Paul
Vorwerk and myself relying on our backpack. Suffice it to say that jogging in
the mountains by moonlight is a most wonderful and relaxing experience. Except
that, just after midnight, while we are both jogging well on the side of the
tar road (about 30 cms outside the yellow line!) one idiot veers his (?) car
deliberately and unexpectedly towards us at the very last moment, missing me by
less than 10 cm. I'm sure he thought it was very funny. To me it just confirms
why I normally stay as far away from roads as possible, preferring to run in
the mountains for 80% or more of my training. Paul just bends down and picked
up a rock and holds it ready for the next idiot trying to pull something like
that on us.
In Fish Hoek, Eva (my wife) is
there waiting for us with coffee and various other motivating items. (No, you
won't get anything more specific out of me on that count, not even for a
Hunter's Dry!) Normally I talk Dougie Rossouw into seconding me on these crazy
things, but he's switched to Tafel-Light so it costs me twice as much these
days to get him in a receptive mood; and he's also acquired some external
braincells/common sense (Bev!). So I talked Eva into it. She's the mother of my
3 young kids so getting out of bed at 2 am to attend to unreasonable demands
from immature individuals is nothing new to her In fact she generally regards
a good night's sleep as one of these luxuries one often hears about but that
have not actually ever happened in real life for as long as her memory stretches.
Anyway, I take a 10-minute break
sipping my coffee and eating some chocolaty type stuff in the warmth of the
car. Kommetjie Road is really the only place where there is a bit of a stiff
and cold South Easter breeze. The remainder of the entire "two Two oceans"
I found really next to perfect i.t.o. weather conditions - I dont know where
the media got this terrible wind conditions from.
Some of the stuff we give Paul V.
to eat must obviously have been the rat poison we always keep ready at hand,
because Paul gets very sick by the time he reached Muizenberg and left the
local dogs some nice pre-heated munchy meal by the pavement side. In fact, he
never really recovers well from this and is later pulled off the road by the
officials when passing thru Sunvalley on his way back. It is also around Muizenberg that the other
Paul (S.) mentions the possibility of doing a "triple" next year. I
tell him to shut up and run {similar to the old joke of the South African
family emigrating to Australia. On the trip the youngest boy keeps asking daddy
complainingly "Is it still far". Eventually dad gets a bit agitated
and shouts back "shut up and keep swimming!"} Anyway, Paul hasn't
mentioned the triple since - wonder why.
By this time, more and more cars
pass us by, loaded with people who seem to be on their way to some sort of road
race. 't Is really nice to have the occasional hoot for support, when they
recognise us as the dangerous free-roaming crazies that had been on e-TV's
Police File equivalent the night before. And we receive similar support from
the refreshment stations which are now slowly coming to live. Before we know
it, we hit Newlands, with almost 20 minutes to spare. Our seconding vehicle can
go through, so we break there to change clothes and eat/drink some more, and
finally trot off towards the Start banner, which is our halfway point. A cordon
of marshals actually tries to stop us entering, until one slightly brighter
spark all of a sudden sees the light and waves us thru. We are rewarded with a
prime starting spot that is actually a metre in front of the start line by the
time we are done talking to news media representatives (we leave most of the
talking to Paul). At least that solves one of my major initial worries: how am
I gonna get to my H-seeding pen (I put my 14 hour Puffer as my qualifier, not
remembering having run a qualifying road marathon). Anyway, the gun goes off
much too early for us and this whole crazy crowd pushes its way past us. By the
time I reach Muizenberg, about 6000 people have passed me! This is a clever
race tactic since their wind-wake pulls me along at half the energy price.
I actually begin to get very
worried in the first hour of this second lap: it takes me a full hour to reach
the posted 9 km mark, despite having started right at the front and running the
whole way with no head wind on the completely flat course as fast as I can
move. This does not bode well for me finishing the official Two Oceans within
the 7 hour cut-off - am I to loose my chance at a permanent number? Miraculously, the second hour I manage to
increase my running speed to 9 km/hour. After my hourly walk-break (Clovelly)
and another support stop by Eva (now an official race marshal,
"helped" by our three lovely kids), I hit Fish Hoek with the usual
ecstatic and incredible crowd support which makes the Two Oceans just so much
more special to the Fish Hoek runners. From here onwards there is no stopping
me any more: I pick up my pace in the last quarter to 10 km/hour - even
averaging 9 over Ou Kaapse Pass! Thank you my family, crowd support, the Very
Big Kahuna, and Norrie.
Norrie? Something else I tried
for the first time was Norrie Williamson's recommended walk/run strategy: I
faithfully walked for three to four minutes after every hour of running, right
from the start. It seems to have
worked: my second 56 km was 45 minutes faster than my first "lap"
(where there was admittedly no incentive to run faster since the start for the
second lap was fixed). But in fact,
according to ChampionChip (mine has been renamed TortoiseChip), my last 14 km were the fastest of the entire run. I
overtook a good 1000 runners from 28km-to-go until 14km-to-go, and another
1000+ runners from 14-to-go until the finish.
So, how was my "Two Two
Oceans"? In short: I had an excellent run. I ran much better and faster
than I ever expected - and deserved in view of my (lack of) training. I must
admit that I did not really think I would make the bronze medal, since I have
had two previous finishes within 15 minutes of cut-off time. But, on the other
hand, I felt the whole thing was blown a bit out of proportion. I mean, there's
a multitude of other runners who have completed 100 km and 100 mile races who don't get any special mention. Anyway, I
expect at least ten FHAC athletes to join me for next year's double Two Oceans.
And don't forget to mail off that cheque to Child Welfare!