Training Log Archive: Tim C

Otter

Knew I probably shouldn't be doing this. But had committed to it and was really keen to race, even if my shape was likely to be pretty bad. Had also decided before that I'd race this and then stop running until I'd soted out my knee/s properly.

Plan was to be fairly conservative and just try get through the race in one piece. Lasted all of a few hundred metres before we hit the fun technical rocks and I got excited to race. Kane and Johardt were pushing the pace, and Robbie going after them. Let them go on their way, and stuck with Christiaan, Mvu and another guy I didn't know. Slowly started dropping people on the more technical bits and had caught up and passed a not so great looking Robbie about 10km in. Moved into 3rd place shortly after, feeling pretty strong. Stuck in 3rd until a bit before half way where I started taking a bit of strain on the climbs and Christiaan and Mvu came past.

Not feeling great at this stage, but still moving half decently and there seemed to be quite a big gap between me and 6th place. Started feeling the onset of cramps just before bloukrans and they came on properly on the technical rocky bit just after. From here through to Andre hut it was half walk half jog, gradually getting worse.

Was absolutely dreading the climb out of Andre (I would cramp every time I lifted/bent the legs a bit, so a near vertical climb was not fun to think about). It turned out to be even worse than I'd feared, Literally crawling on my hands the whole way up to try reduce the leg bending. Got to the top and stood up properly and all the quads, calves and hammies seized up at once, rendering me useless. stood there completely still for a couple min and when they had finally eased off I managed to start walking again. Soon after got past by Toni and over the next 7/8km had another 2/3 people come past as I walk/shuffled my way along.

Bianca (in 2nd) came past just before the drop down to the natures valley beach, and she was looking rather wobbly, but still moving okay. Hit the beach and I suddenly started reeling her in, her zigzagging a lot and looking rather worse for wear. Caught her up as we hit the forest jeep track and she was rather out of it. Walked with her for a few hundred metres holding her up a bit and then she started to lose all strength and pretty much carried her the next couple hundred metres. Decided here to rather stop and let her lie down and try recover. Medics then arrived and put her on a drip and fed her a bunch of stuff. Sat there for an hour or so while she got her sugar levels back up, and then we walked the last 1km or so into the finish and across the floating bridge.

Not quite the otter I'd planned, but there were a lot of positive aspects still. It was nice to see that I could still run okay (up to 30ish km anyway), even with pretty much only running 3km a day for the last year, it was awesome to see Kane and Johardt get so close to that 4 hour mark. And also really cool to see how strong Bianca has gotten in the last year or two!!

Otter prologue in Natures valley.

Had my thesis presentation this morning, so had organised to do that in the earliest possible timeslot and then got straight in the car and drove the 7ish hours through, went to registration and had to go straight out on the course. Not the greatest prep.

Nice technical start though in the river bed which was perfect, and then a fairly brutal climb up to the top of the hill which I just about survived.

5th place, with Johardt running a crazy 15:27