The Giant's Cup
I recently completed my first long trail race, set in the Southern Drakensberg mountains with Emma, my siblings and their partners. It spanned 2 days with 30km on the first, and 15km on the second, winding through valleys and around mountains. It was spectacular. I love coming to the Drakensberg, which is a beautiful and unique mountain range, and I'm glad to have the excuse to be here.
While I'm generally an active person, I've never been a runner. My first proper run (more than 3km) was in January this year after my brother twisted my (and Emma's) arm into signing up for this race. Since this was not a trivial distance, it meant I couldn't just wing it on my base fitness, and so Emma and I started running 2-3 times a week in preparation. We had 15 weeks until the event and settled on a fairly simple training plan:
- Run 5km each Wednesday, usually on the Sea Point Prominade, while increasing the speed gradually each week (it took me a few weeks to get to the initial 5km though)
- Longer trail runs on the weekend, generally on Table Mountain or in the Cape Winelands, increasing distance by about 1km each week
- Hop on the treadmill at a reasonably fast pace for about 20 minutes after gym one day a week
We didn't stick to this plan exactly, especially since the final 4 weeks coincided with our trip to Japan, but we stuck to the spirit of this plan, and it worked out quite well, with our running fitness increasing quite dramatically over that period without any injuries or overreaching.
This is in contrast to other times in my life where I'd try to get into running, start off too ambitiously, become a sweaty, exhausted mess with creaky joints, and ultimately decide that running just isn't for me. Because we capped the increase of speed and distance over time to no more than 10% per week, each run was challenging but not insurmountable. It was also nice to see how quickly running fitness increases when compared to strength, which can take months to see measurable gain (after the initial neural adaptation).
One caveat is that I hate cars too much to enjoy road running, and the symmetric, hard surface makes my right knee ache in a way that trail running doesn't. Plus being on a mountain is so much prettier than the asphalt city grid or suburbs.
What I enjoyed the most about this experience was how it opened up a whole other world of events and community that is both accessible and affordable. There was suddenly an excuse to get out onto the mountain at least once a week with friends. To go out to parts of the surrounding countryside that I'd never been to before, stand in the chilly morning air while sipping on instant coffee from a chipped enamel cup, then run through it while the sun came up.
The event we ultimately completed—The Giant's Cup—was a particularly good one in that it was a destination event, and a non-trivial run with people I love and enjoy spending time with. And while I may never become a Runner (I'm by no means placing), I'm certain that I'll be a runner for the next several decades.
