So I didn’t have the best lead up to the Big Day , but then who does, right ? I worked 6hrs a day at the expo on my feet and giving a lot of energy to everybody. We had a rocking stand and my hat goes off to the boys at PUMA, as we had the best expo stand we have ever had.
I did a Guest speaking gig on thursday night, your most important night of sleep before a big race and only got to bed after 12pm….blah blah blah. So on the big race day , I made a small mistake, I should of taken a black bag or something to keep me warm as I stood in the cold for about 50min which wasn’t ideal.The gun went off and I was just cruising, with my plan in my head, at 3km I caught a very old and dear friend of mine and she was on a similar plan to me so we decided to run it together and see how day went. Everything went very well until 37km, we still running together and at this point I told her that we were within 5hr pace and that if we pushed through we could dip under 5hr, this is when Jo took off and dropped me..ha haaa
Constantia nek is where it all fell apart for me a bit and I was walking a lot up the climbs, which was loosing me time on my pace, at 49km I was touch and go to making it under 5km, the good news was that i was able to run downhill well and make up time. But with the last uphill I knew I wasn’t going to make it and was in survival mode for the last 5km, with 2.5km to go I found a mate of mine from Durban who was walking and in pain, so i just ran and walked in with him for a 5hr 13min odd.
I stuck to my plan and followed it to perfection. Here are my splits :
| 1km | 6:43 | 11km | 5:02 | 21km | 5:41 | 31km | 5:41 | 41km | 6:02 | 51km | 5:32 |
| 2km | 5:02 | 12km | 4:58 | 22km | 5:19 | 32km | 5:26 | 42km | 6:10 | 52km | 5:10 |
| 3km | 5:12 | 13km | 4:48 | 23km | 5:24 | 33km | 6:16 | 43km | 5:46 | 53km | 4:33 |
| 4km | 5:05 | 14km | 5:12 | 24km | 5:13 | 34km | 5:32 | 44km | 5:59 | 54km | 7:16 |
| 5km | 5:00 | 15km | 5:02 | 25km | 5:09 | 35km | 5:22 | 45km | 11:00 | 55km | 7:00 |
| 6km | 4:56 | 16km | 5:00 | 26km | 5:47 | 36km | 5:02 | 46km | 10:47 | 56km | 7:07 |
| 7km | 5:04 | 17km | 5:12 | 27km | 5:59 | 37km | 5:04 | 47km | 4:22 | ||
| 8km | 5:03 | 18km | 5:10 | 28km | 5:41 | 38km | 4:54 | 48km | 4:22 | ||
| 9km | 4:58 | 19km | 5:02 | 29km | 5:19 | 39km | 5:10 | 49km | 5:54 | ||
| 10km | 4:57 | 20km | 6:00 | 30km | 6:08 | 40km | 5:33 | 50km | 6:53 |