Distance for Difference

After the inspirational and motivational presentation from Braam Malherbe I walked out the school hall and decided that I will also dedicate myself to a charity.

The charity I have chosen is called Distance for Difference.  The charity focuses on helping children in need.  To provide them with a better home or whatever is needed to make life a little better and easier for them.  It works in a rather unique way.  I need to get sponsors that will sponsor me for every kilometer I run.  The harder I work the more I can make for the charity. Simple as that, BOOOM.  Are YOU interested in doing your part for a good cause?  Go check out the D4D website.

One of their athletes just completed a bicycle tour from the most southern point to most northern point of Taiwan.  A journey that took him 3 days, 564km and 9900m's of elevation.  Impressive!  He dubbed it MissionT2T.

I'll leave you with this:

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” Sir Edmund Hillary

Wilderness Escape

Finally after various unsuccessful weekends I got the opportunity to visit Groendal Nature Reserve. Groendal is part of the greater Baviaans Mega Reserve. Just 50km out of Port Elizabeth it is characterized by rugged terrain, streams and vast ravines.

The day started of with a quick fact check with the local hiking club.  Shortly after we were on our way up the Upper Blindekloof Trail.  After about 2km's we reached a little monument in honour of the inception of the reserve.  We ignored the sign stating Upper Blindekloof to the right, as our local informant told us to do, and soon found ourselves plunging down into a ravine and indigenous tree canopy.  We were now on the Lower Blindekloof trail.  It is a beautiful flat trail zig-zagging across the dry riverbed.  Jumping over tree roots and ducking and diving under low hanging branches.  Not ideal for someone as tall as me.  It was soon apparent how dire the drought is in Port Elizabeth.  This route is suppose to be characterized by various swimming pools.  Although there were crystal clear pools it is evident that it's been quite some time since any fresh water flowed through here.  It took us about 40 minutes to reach the end of Blindekloof.  A beautiful swimming pool and even a swing rope from a tree.  I won't swim in this pool now, but if the river was flowing this will make for an awesome refreshing swim.  After a quick confirmation on the map we realized that we were indeed on the incorrect track and that our hiker friend sent us down the wrong path.  Not that this was a huge problem, just a little irritating.  

  

We head back out the ravine and got onto the correct path at the monument.  From here it was a hot and steep climb to the top of the plateau.  The views from the plateau was amazing.  We could see the Baviaans mountains in the distance, the ocean and hundreds of little hills into the horizon.  The next sign we encountered lead us on an extreme knee jerking downhill via a very small and faint single track back down to the river.  Once again we followed the dry river bed up the ravine.  With no obvious path it was a slow, painful bushwhack. 

  

We reached the second junction in the ravine and while the baboons up in the ravine sounded unhappy about something we checked the map again.  We had three options.  A, we go on in the ravine and exit as per the map, which at this speed would take us forever and a day and we only had so much skin on our legs that can be torn of.  B, bushwhack up the nearest hill and try to pick up a path.  C, retrace our steps and head back out the ravine the same way we came in.  The safe choice was C.  We reached the plateau once again and felt rather positive about the hard slog up the ridge.  "Perfect training for Baviaans" was our mantra.

  

We ran to a plantation on the horizon and had something to eat in the shade.  We deserved it.  We were running low on water and knew we would have to push on to get back down and out of the beating sun.  After 15km of mostly downhill we were safely back at the car.  

  
We learned some valuable lessons, while nature clearly had the upper hand.  The score 4-1 for Mother Nature.  I got a stick in my eye, we ran out of water, Chris lost his shirt during the bushwhacking and we both ended up like we received "6 van die bestes" from the principal on our legs.  We could only score one point, making it back stronger and tougher than before.

The start to the most technical running I've done in Port Elizabeth

Anyone up for a swing?

Knee jerking descent

Weekly Summary 23-29Aug

23 August 2010

Easy run, gearing up for the week!

Movescount 23.8.2010


24 August 2010

Port Elizabeth is a little vertically challenged.  Sure there are a lot of ups and downs and little hills, but nothing substantial.  This leaves me with the great pleasure of entering the city center.  The only place in PE where there are loads of long hills.  My uncle says that when the city center was still the business hub of PE all the girls had the most beautiful sculpted calves in South Africa.

So I ventured out early and had the opportunity of dodging taxis in the dark while negotiating the hills!

Movescount 24.8.2010

25 August 2010

It's been three weeks since my last time trial on the trails and so far my performance has not been satisfactory.  This all changed today.  Although my legs still felt heavy from yesterday and I felt really clumsy over the uneven terrain I was able to knock off 1 minute from my time over the 8km.  Still not nearly as fast as my road TT's, but it shows a huge improvement in performance.

Running on single track fast with branches sweeping by and grass against your ankles is surely one of the best experiences you can get. You just feel free!

Movescount 25.8.2010

26 August 2010

A easy run up to the nearest "koppie" and back.  Found a nice long steady hill to do repeats on for the up and coming 3 Peaks Challenge.

Movescount 26.8.2010


28 August 2010

Headed out to Groendal Nature Reserve.  What a pleasure! Varied terrain from ravine running to running on ridges and bushwackinig through driver river beds. Excellent technical trails.

Movescount 28.8.2010


I attended a very inspirational talk on Friday presented by Braam Malherbe.  He is one of only two people ever to run the entire length of the Great Wall of China.  It took them 98 days to complete the 4000km+ adventure.  All in the name of charity.  This has inspired me to put my gift of running to good use and support a charity.  More on this in the upcoming weeks.  I'll end of with this quote that Braam used from Spiderman "With great power, comes great responsibility".

Weekly Summary 17-21Aug

Tuesday 17 Aug

Went out to George for work. This always gives me the opportunity to explore new areas. Seeing that I had to do 19km I was amped to get in some decent sight seeing. What was suppose to be a moderate, flat, long interval road run turned out to be a partial, hot, dusty ascent of Montagu Pass in George. It's a gravel pass connecting George with Herold and is an absolute splendour. Some long hills to negotiate (really worked the quads) and on return it turned into long speedy downhills to hammer the hamstrings! Overall a good work out in an awesome part of South Africa.  I made a mental note to myself to attend the Om Die Berg trail run next year!

Montagu Pass

Movescount 17.8.2010


Thursday 19 Aug 2010

Went to Target Kloof to do eleven stair repeats.  It would have been great if the stair was another 2 flights up just to really get the heart racing.  They say you need to give names to difficult hills and sections.  It gives that hill a life of it's own and you start fighting a battle with it.  Led Zeppelin inspired me here and I named the stairs after their most famous song "Stairway To Heaven".

"Stairway to Heaven"

Movescount 19.8.2010


Saturday 19 Aug 2010

Woke up with rather stiff legs after serious leg workout in the gym on Friday.  Tried to walk it out and stretch it out, but wasn't very successful.  I finally started with the run at around 2pm in Longmore plantation.  A lot of undulating hills.  This should be the perfect training run for Baviaans Trail Run with 4 steady climbs of about 4km each. After 32km it was time to increase the pace gradually over the last 6km to marathon pace.  With 2 steep hills to negotiate it was a bit tricky to get the pace right.  Finished the last 2km just below race pace.  the lactic acid had built up a lot, but after 5 minutes of walking around it felt a lot better.  Back at home it was time for a ice bath followed by lots of food! Yum Yum Yum!

Movescount 21.8.2010


This week was the first of two peak weeks.  Not a lot of frequent running, only 3 sessions, but it has been hard running and a lot of distance.  Next week sees more frequent running and some very hard running mid week.  looking forward to it.  I'm feeling good about the Baviaans Trail Run.  I will be using this weeks long run as a benchmark for the race.  I strongly believe I can do a 4 hour run. That is if i don't get lost. Four hours is good enough for second, maybe first if Warren Petterson has a bad day, which is unlikely.

Waiting for the Trail

After a long slow (very slow) run on Saturday I was amped to get out on the trail again on Sunday morning. The wind was howling and sun baking down hard, but I persevered. I started of slowly, just to get the legs warmed up, but when I hit the trail it was all speed.

I didn't push the pace at all and kept a steady heart rate. As the trail winded my pace followed. My mind drifted and it was a blissful run. Passed the same group of mountain bikers 3 times. I love doing that! Chasing mountain bikers on trails is probably my favourite thing besides running trails. Especially on the hills and the more technical the better. Just hop past them with a quick "Hey" and of you disspear into the sunset, while they push or "sukkel" up the hill. I'll definitely recommend that you go out chase a few of them around. It might just make you stronger as well! And when you have had enough of chasing them, enter the First Ascent Mast Challenge. Then you won't just chase them, you will RACE them!

elsmi's Running Move 15.8.2010 - Move at Movescount.com

Woodridge Trail Run Report

This new run on the trail calendar is a little gem! Sure to become a firm favourite under the few trail runners and awesome alternative to chasing the line for the hordes of tri-athletes in Port Elizabeth.

 

The day started of chilly and misty, but by the time the start gun went off the sun was shining like it was summer. The first 2k's was a gentle uphill on some single track and gravel road. I took in the second position letting the front runner go in the hopes that I will catch him toward the end or make ground on the technical sections. After a steady climb we entered an area called "pudding bowl". It's a couple of hundred metres of twisting and turning single track in a little forest. Time to make up some ground and try and shake 3^rd place! It worked well and on the intense descent into the gorge I made some more ground. The gorge is about a 2km section in indigenous forest with a trickle of a stream and slippery rocks. My trail skills came into play and I was able to drop 3^rd place and pass the guy in front. I was able to get a bit of a lead, but the middle section of the race was characterized with two steep climbs which saw number 2 taking the lead again and sprinting up the hills! We could only manage a power hike.

 

The last section was free flowing single track. I thought I had 2^nd in the bag, but on the last climb number 3 caught up to me. We ran together for a bit at an easy pace before we both realised the end is only 2k's away. I was expecting an attack towards the end and picked up the pace first. With 1k to go we basically reached a flat out sprint. We emerged onto the finishing field with people cheering for the winner and for our close battle. I just could not get my legs to move fast enough. I finished 3^rd losing the sprint in the final metres.

 

These type of races are always the most fun. A close battle and very strategic. The Woodridge Trail Runs Series was a success and I hope it will be back again next year.