After four solid months of early morning interval sessions, tempo runs, track days and some good old LSD (long slow distance, not the drug!), the morning finally dawned. Cool, dark and quiet in all its glory. After a night of suprisingly satisfying sleep and some even better dreams, I pulled myself out of bed and started to dress, leaving my shirt with my race number for later.
A quick breakfast of bacon, avocado, fried eggs, banana and hot tea didn't quite jolt me into action so when I rolled out the door, I was still feeling somnolent and maybe a little moody. My ever-present number one supporter and fiancee Carla walked with me to the little Hyundai car that would ferry us into Cape Town along the dark, brooding early morning highway towards the marathon start on the Atlantic seaboard.
A short detour saw us pick up a second companion and longtime supporter, Hannes, after which we squeezed back into the tiny Hyundai and rolled towards the start. Ten minutes later, we had parked and I was completing a warm up of some slow running and dynamic drills before I finally set off, alone, for the start of the 2018 Sanlam Cape Town Marathon.
This year, I was particularly excited for the race, feeling stronger, faster and more experienced than the year before. I was also keen to sample the new route that took in so much more of the stunning Sea Point area: ever salty, fresh and crisp on the dark Cape mornings I have known since I was a child living in the Mother CIty.
I tip-toed and squeezed my way closer to the start line. Not having had a great race the year before, I was seeded 3 or 4 groups back and so likely to fall victim to wasted time reaching the actual start line if I didn't gently edge my way forward. Finally, I couldn't go any further without making myself irreversibly unpopular so I stood my gorund and started to hop around on the spot trying not to fall vicitim to the overly-ambitious cool morning air. Suddenly, a brisk siren broke the silence, suprising everyone and jerking me out of my sleepy revery; the race was off!
The plan had been to run the perfect 'negative split' marathon: I knew I needed to maintain at least 4:45/km for the first half if I wanted to reach my goal of finishing in under 3 hours 20 minutes. Settling into the rhythm, I was somewhat disappointed to find that running at this pace wasn't going to have me feeling like I was holding back quite as much as I wanted to. But there was no turning back here, it was all or nothing! I hadn't trained this fervently to finish this race feeling fresh: it would be under 3h20 or bust!
The first challenge came along Victoria Road, the longest and most exposed straight stretch of the race that would take us all the way from the CBD to the glitzy club carnival of Claremont Main Road. Here, we were faced with an eager offspring of the infamous 'Cape Doctor', the vicious south-easterly wind for which Cape Town is so well-known. This morning, thankfully, Cape Town served us up a lighter variant in the form of an Easterly 'breeze' as the weather channel had called it, although I could have sworn I saw a few flags more than just 'playing' in the wind on my journey down Victoria and Main Roads.
Eventually I reached 23 kilometers and the sweet tune of my supporters screaming my name and appearing more excited to offer out water and bananas than I swear I've ever seen them before!
But after every high must come a low and, right on time, my typical halfway-ish marathon blues slowly rolled over me so like the grey clouds that creep up on Table Mountain.
Stength in any endurance event comes not from ignoring the inevitble lows but in being ready for them and being armed with a strategy for tackling them. Predictably, at 23 kilomtres, my mental fatigue started to set in and the elusive central governor (for more on this, see the note at the end of the article) I'd just lectured the ASICS FrontRunners about a few days prior started to whisper in my ear how tired I felt, how nice it would be to walk, how hard the ground felt, how annoying that stupid wind was and how much I would love to just walk for a few paces. But who am I if I can't take my own advice? So I dug deep and talked myself through the low, thinking of how strong I had been and telling myself that this was where I would earn my result.
Finally, the last 10 rolled around seeing me in such a messy trance of focus, pain and determination that I ran right past my other supporters at the ASICS FrontRunner tent. A loud shout of my name brought me sharply back into the present as I grabbed a Gu energy gel from a friend and took a moment to soak in the enthusiastic support of the people screaming themselves hoarse to see me on. I stared at the Gu for a few moments after grabbing it and allowed myself to drink in everything that it meant to me. I thought of all the people tracking me at home, all the new friends I made over the weekend at my conference presentation for ASICS and even back to the days of sponsored sunglasses on a young cycling team and all the confidence they seemed to reflect my managers had in me.
At 8 kilomtres to go, I found a fresher runner and latched onto him like a limpet to a rock and clung on until the last kilometre when he seemed to fade and I finally overtook him. The last few kays had been a whirlwind of determined focus and mathematical calculations. How much time did I have to spare? How fast did I need to run the next split in order to be safely beneath my goal time? How much faster would I have to run in the last few hundred metres to make up for the miscalculations of the organisaiton's route markers? (The 'marathon' was actually 42,59 kms according to my Garmin.)
Finally, the Greenpoint traffic circle appeared ahead of me. I sprinted underneath it and back into the now balmy sunlight of the finishing stretch, anxiously watching the timer on my watch. As I rounded the last corner, I glanced upwards at the large digital timer on the finishing arch: 3:19:13. I had made it! I was going to run under 3 hours and 20 minutes! I punced the air, over and over again as a fierce celebration of pride. In a gloriuous example of the 'finishing spurt', I lunged across the royal blue carpet, the brght white beauty of the finish line and towards Carla and Hannes- after grabbing 4 small Cokes of course. As I savoured the invaluable moment, I put no effort into fighting back a few dry tears. I had done it! In the confined space of four months, I had improved my marathon time by 35 minutes! Take that, central governor!
NOTE: This weekend I presented a talk on the 'central governor', an as yet unidentified structure located within the brain and believed to be responsible for the sensation of fatigue. Keep an eye out for this week's upcoming post on the subject.