Vampires and porta-loo's

I did it. I ran my first ever 21km on Saturday morning and what an awesome race it turned out to be. My housemate and I woke up at the crack of dawn (3:45am to be precise) to drive through to Hartebeesport on Saturday morning. We arrived at the race start at 5:00am, still no sign of light breaking on the horizon, and then stood in a queue for the porta-loo for half an hour behind the weirdest man I have ever had the displeasure of coming across. Evidently he had either been locked up in a dark cupboard with little human contact for a significantly long time or he was a vampire (which makes more sense because it was still dark). This dude could not stop staring at my housemate and me. So not only did we have to stand in a queue at 5 in the morning, with the smell of urine and poo-gas filtering through the air every time someone exited and entered a porta-loo, we also had to deal with a psychopathic, ex-murderer/vampire eyeballing us while plotting our deaths (he had by this stage conveniently done a 180 degree turn and was now facing us).

After losing the gawking vampire in the crowds, we headed for the starting line. At 6:20, the gun for the race fired and we were off. The race was relatively flat with views of the mountains and dam along most of the route. There were plenty watering stations along the way and on the whole, the race was very well organised. I noticed something during my run, however, which freaked me out. While running behind a man, I noticed him spraying his legs with sachets of water. This could only mean one of two things:

1. He was very hot and was trying to cool himself down.
2. He decided that running into the bush for a number 1 would take too much time and therefore decided to 'go' while running, and was rinsing off his legs while relieving himself.

I desperately hope it was the first. I also noticed a lady blowing her nose by blocking one nostril and forcefully snorting out the unblocked nostril (I was once again lucky enough to be positioned behind her), and also noticed how many runners spit. The road along the entire length of the race is splattered with lovely mucous patches which I had to run through. I can only imagine what is now stuck on the bottom of my Purple Nikes.
I completed the race in 1 hour and 56 minutes, averaging 5.5mins/km and had the most ridiculously tasty cinnamon pancakes at the end of the race (well worth running 21.1 km for). This is a race I will definitely do again.

Om die dam

Tomorrow is the fateful day. I will be jogging the Om-Die-Dam half marathon at Hartebeesport dam in my Purple Nikes. I have not been training for it and don't feel particularly confident. My self-belief baloon was slashed this morning after looking at a training programme for the race which commenced in DECEMBER. Not sure who designed the programme but the person was obviously smoking some good stuff. 12km on the first day?? An average of 42km a week??? Are you berserk? I have been averaging 25 - 30km a week. I can only shudder at the thought of meeting drill sergeant Om Die Dam. Hopefully he/she won’t be bringing up the rear with a whip and a loudhailer tomorrow…because I have a feeling I may be the ‘butt’ of the race group.

Muddy socks

Official time: 00:32:07.
And no, I am not talking about the ‘Fit at 40: 32 Minute Advanced Workout’ or the 32 Minute Messenger Bag Tutorial from ‘The Diary of a Quilter: the confessions and obsessions of a stay-at-home quilter’. I am, in fact, talking about my time for running the JP Morgan Challenge last night.


Not bad considering:

• I was soaked to the bone from standing in the pouring rain at the start.

• I had to run through someone’s flower bed.

• I had to jump over several garden gnomes and,

• I ‘dodged, dipped, ducked, dived and dodged’ through hordes of people who all started the race in the sub-20 seed although it was pretty obvious that they had never seen a pair of running shoes, let alone run a road race in under 4 minutes a kilometer.

To those people I say this: Either shape up, buy yourself a decent pair of running shoes and actually DO some running or be a little more considerate and stand where you are supposed to – in the 40 to 50 minute seed.

My Purple Nikes are no longer purple, but now have a lovely reddish-brown hue to them thanks to the selfishes (a selfish person who is similar to a shelfish i.e. no backbone or brain) whom I had to leap onto pavements and trudge through mud pools for. P.S. You selfishes owe me a pair of Puma socks since mine are slpattered with enough earth to build an apartment garden. Okay? Lovely.

JP Morgan Corporate Challenge

Yes its tonight. SO much of excitement...


It’s, wait for it…not 5km, not 6km, but 5.6km. Because 5 km is not enough and according to some, 6 is too much.

Last year I ran it in about 36 minutes but I started in a batch that were supposed to run at about 5 min/km. However...there were some remarkably unfit and over nourished individuals in my batch and therefore I spent the entire race dodging the walkers, looping round trees to avoid the shufflers, ducking underneath the flaying arms of the boozers and completely ignoring the talkers.
But not this year…I have a cunning plan.

You see, my company sponsors our race entry and has a tent at the JP Morgan each year. Unfortunately, this is one race when it helps to be catastrophically unfit. What tends to happen is that all the booze in the company tent is consumed by the walkers DURING the race so that those of us who actually RUN the JP Morgan Challenge (why would they call it a challenge if it’s meant to be a gentle stroll) get nothing upon finishing.

Yes…so this year I have a plan. I received a little email communication from my company this morning to say that no alcohol will be served before the race. Mwa ha ha ha! So I shall be running…as fast as my Purple Nikes will take me, in the 4 minute/km batch (yikes) so that I can quench my thirst with a few ice-cold Sav’s (Savannah Dry) and wait patiently for my fellow ‘runners’ to join me. I know that people will have to pass me this year if they genuinely are hoping to finish in fewer than 30 mins, but that’s ok. I will pretend to have a stitch if they give me funny looks.