Two Oceans

Easter Saturday 19th March dawned yet another stunning morning in Cape Town. On the agenda for our day was to run the Two Oceans. Marketed as the "World's Most Beautiful Marathon", we were looking forward to a glorious run which stretched from one side of the Atlantic, across the cape, to the other.

The run starts in darkness in the streets around the University of Cape Town. There was an air of anticipation and restrained excitement as the crowds all milled around waiting for the starting gun.  A stirring rendition of the national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrica was sung, together with the latest sporting anthem for South Africa, Shosholoza. The sound of 11 000 runners shuffling from foot to foot singing these two songs was enough to send shivers down our spines.

Check them out and see if they don't give you goosebumps…

http://www.worship.co.za/sound/NkosiMono.mp3

http://sa.org.za/sounds1/shosholoza.mp3

The barefoot legend Zola Budd fired the starting gun, and we were off!

Having been sidelined for the previous few weeks with a calf strain, threatening to turn into something worse, I felt less than prepared for the 56km ahead of me. While Simon had been faithfully keeping up the weekly kays, I had been restricted to weights and pool duties. Still, a quick 5kay on the Wednesday before, and there was no sign of the calf niggle or knee pain that had been playing with my head. Yee hah.

What also helped our mental preparation was the fact that our Comrades training program scheduled a 60kay 'training run' this weekend. The pressure was off - we were just going for a jog...

The first 10km along Main Road is lovely, flat and mostly in the dark. It winds its way past the cute little seaside suburbs of St James (above), Muizenburg Beach and Kalk Bay. Before too long, the back side of Table Mountain looms on your right, and the realisation dawns that Two Oceans is actually all about hills. Oh dear.

It's here that I must digress into the topography of Richards Bay, which rather unfortunately, seems to possess only one hill. If you examine it closely, you'll come to the conclusion that even that hill is really only pretending, and is actually just a small undulation in the landscape. As such, when our training schedule has indicated hills x5x3x35sec, we've ended up just scratching our heads and giving it a miss.

So it was with some trepidation that we approached the 27kay mark, and the steady incline to Chapman's Peak. Little Chappies comes first and is a gradual incline until you hit the brunt of the climb - a nice 11km slog uphill. 

In all honesty, the views were so stunning on this climb, that I really didn't notice much of it at all. Sure, we were going up, but, "My God, check out the coastline!". Cape Town really is a stunning place.

The run up Chapman's Peak was spectacular!

And here's the happy runner making his way up the hill!

Meanwhile...

…the support crew were checking out the NeighbourGoods Market, with William and Oliver getting into some carbo loading on our behalf!

After Chapman's, it's down into Hout Bay, and for me, the much harder part of the run began. At this point, the route makes its way up Constantia Nek, a rather steep and gruelling climb. Along here, you pass the 42kay mark - only 14 to go, but with each step you are running the furthest you've ever run, so it's actually quite exciting! After what seems an eternity of foot pounding on road, you reach the gates of Kirstenboch (where I'm running here) and the last few kays to home!

We did it! After 'instructing' Simon to leave me to it and run on at the 42kay mark, he managed an impressive 5.59.13, while I came in at 6.15.13. Not too shabby. On close examination of the photograph above, many will realise that Simon's nipples were a little worse for wear after the run (thank God he didn't wear a white running shirt). On that note, it's fair to say that the most painful part of the day for both of us was the post run shower, where the full extent of the our chafing injuries became apparent!

Thanks to our support crew, pictured with us enjoying the sunset at Chapman's Peak the day after the race. Thanks for waking up at sparrow fart to drop us mere metres from the start line, entertaining William during the race, cheering us on at the end, and then letting us lie on the couch all afternoon before cooking up a delicious spag bog for our post run dinner! We couldn't have done it without you!

And so…
…what an awesome experience. If you're into running, or into travelling, or into doing both together, start training for next year! For us, it's a quick turnaround with just 4 days rest before our next scheduled training run in preparation for 1st June and our Comrades run. Woo Hoo! Bring on the extra 33 keys!