Hi everyone. Hope you are well. I was over in South Africa on Friday and Saturday doing an interview with a former colonial agricultural officer in Lesotho (or, more correctly in Basutoland most of the time he was there) and also running a marathon. As some of you know I am planning on running the Comrade's Marathon this year, a 56 mile (89 km) footrace from Pietermaritzburg to Durban (two cities down in the southern African province of Kwa-Zulu Natal). in order to do that you have to have run at least one marathon length race or longer in the previous year. So I figured I had better get on that!
I chose the Surrender Hill Marathon in Clarens, Free State mostly because it was close--less than a two-hour drive from Maseru. While it is beautiful country as you can see, it is also tremendously hilly and at an even higher altitude than Maseru. The race started at 6000 feet (about 2000 meters) and featured over 1700 feet of climbing (and 1700 feet of descending) over the course of the 26.2 miles (42.something km). It was pretty brutal, but also spectacular. I needed to finish under 3 hours to start where I wanted to at Comrade's so that was my only goal. I managed to stumble home in 2:51, which was good enough for 4th place--a distant 4th as the top three were all professional runners from Lesotho who took home the prize money. It was a good time and I got a good interview the day before so we will call it a successful weekend.
The two photographs were taken on the course on the way home. The first two were both taken at the top of the actul Surrender Hill (the hill was a place where a bunch of Afrikaner soldiers surrender to the British army during the South African War, 1899-1902). One is looking down it to the turn around point, which was cruelly located at the bottom near the grove of green trees, so we came down it and had to turn around and go straight back up! The other one just shows the magnificent views from the top of Surrender Hill. The third photo shows me with Bruce Fordyce, probably South Africa's greatest long-distance runner. He won the 89km Comrade's Marathon an unreal nine times in the 1980s and 90s and at one point had the world record for the fastest time over 50km and 50 miles. His mother lives in Clarens so he comes down to jog a half marathon and hand out awards. Pretty neat guy.
Stay well.
2 comments:
Nicely done - what a course!
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