Ask me

My claves are stiff, I’ve got a blister the size of my TV remote and my dogs are killing me. Translation – I’m a finisher of the Two Oceans Marathon, the most beautiful marathon in the world (or so they say). But before you get too excited, I only ran the half. To experience the most beautiful marathon in the world you have to run the ultra version, all 56Km of it – a feat I’m toying with for next year. In my humble 21km I was shooting for sub 2 hours, and did it in style with a time of 1:53:30. The only mistake I made was after the race. I forgot to tell anyone where or how I would meet them. With 15,000 people running and many more there to cheer, I felt very tired and well, lost. Imagine the Royal Easter show when you were a kid, spending just a few too many minutes at the wood chopping and then realising you had lost mum and dad. And then trying to find them. Well, that was me all over again. In my post race state I picked a direction and started walking until I got to the physio tent and found myself on a mat with a Red Cross lady rubbing baby oil into my claves. I didn’t fight it; I just went with the flow. To cut a long story short, half an hour later, I made first contact and found more people from there on in. I’m happy but sore and am already starting to forget the pain and thinking how much fun it will be to do it next year. But you may be asking the question, “What is this doing in my blog?”

Good question. Am I going to make some reflection about how you can do anything you put your mind to, a lesson for my son to be? No. I hate that sort of talk because there are lots of things in life I couldn’t do no matter how determined I was. Will I draw the analogy between a marathon and the race of life? No. To predictable, it’s been done. (And besides, I also ran the half, so what does that mean?!) So what’s the point?

Simply this. I am growing to love running. I love pounding the pavements and trail running in the mountains. And should Tubman Jnr ever read this, I want him to know that this is something his dad loved to do. And if, by the time you are able to read this, I’m not running any more, ask me to show you my medals and tell you some stories. And most important of all, ask me why I’m not doing it any more.