Training Log Archive: Stijn

My only goal for the day was to defend 2nd place - I was worried about Ray (+2mins) due to his running speed and Nic (+58mins) because of the 48mins he managed to gain on Jacques Mouton last year to take 2nd overall. Jacques wasn't too much of a concern as he had been throwing up the whole of the previous afternoon.

So when Nic set off up the first 500m climb at pace, I stuck to him like glue. We quickly formed a lead group of 4 (Nic, myself, Ryno and Bennie) and crested the climb in a new PB for Nic by 4mins - he's very informative that way ;-) Then as per his strategy last year, he blasted down the technical forest descent of the Malan Gorge. I was just able to hold on but definitely would not have been going as fast on my own. The 4 of us were still together at the Mnyameni Hut (CP4) - luckily Ryno had brought along the CP this time.

Setting off up the next 500m climb, Nic said he was going to take it easy to avoid blowing in the next valley, so I pushed ahead at a slightly faster pace and Ryno came with me. The climb went well and we had opened up a decent gap on Nic and Bennie by the time we reached the top. Ryno broke away from me about 50m before the top and I knew that was the last I would see of him that day. I stuffed up the first section of the Wolf River descent slightly, missing the river crossing and ending up on a cattle track too high up the wrong side of the valley. I noticed the orange markers for the 38km and bee-lined straight to them to correct myself. I was able to run the rest of the flowing descent quite well, but here (and for the rest of the day) was "running scared", constantly expecting Nic, Ray or Jacques to come cruising from behind.

I was feeling much stronger than the previous day and just kept on chipping away at the course. Ryno had already opened up 15mins on me at CP5 (6km after he left me). I actually quite enjoyed the forest descent down to the Zingcuka Hut and readied myself for the 700m climb of the Hog. The nice thing about this climb is that on the upper slopes you can see the last few km of trail behind you - I kept checking for other runners but could see none. The other nice thing is that once you crest the top, it's 10km of flat and downhill running all the way to the finsh line in Hogsback.

I was feeling great in this section and as I passed the water table with 7km to go, realised that I may have a shot at breaking 7h. That motivation was enough to run strongly to the end, again practically sprinting up the last short rise to get to the finish in 2nd. Ryno had smashed the day and finished in 6h18m! Nic and Bennie finished together about 45mins behind me and Ray a further 10mins back.

Surprised myself with the 2nd place overall (in a field of 43 runners) and really enjoyed the race and the experience. Oh, and it turns out it's actually only the Hobbit 89, based on the official GPS route as measured by Tweet :-P

Splits:
Mnyameni Hut (10.3km) - 1h42m
CP5 (22km) - 3h48m
CP6 (27.5km) - 4h34m
Crest of the Hog (31.5km) - 5h40m
CP7 (34km) - 6h02m
CP8 (39km) - 6h37m

C • Congrats 6

This is the race I had been looking forward to all year! I felt my training had gone well and I was completely injury-free but didn't really know what to expect.

Starting at Maden Dam, Nic set a sensible pace for the first flat 3km and cleared all the cobwebs for us in the process. Sensible, because I was able to hold on to the front group of 7 in this section. As soon as the climb started, Ryno made his break and the rest of the group started splintering. I pushed hard up the steep 800m climb and managed to get to Gwili Gwili (CP1) in 3rd, about 20mins ahead of my planned split.

The next 17km to Dontsa Hut are very runnable but it was warming up fast so I walked all the hills to save something for the huge climbs in the 2nd half. Despite this, I had pretty much expired by the time I reached the hut, again 20mins faster than my planned time for this split. I had run this whole section on my own and nobody had passed me so I was surprised to find that Nic had checked in ahead of me at the CP. It turns out that Ray Orchinson had been signing in as Nic but this was pretty confusing at the time! My mind was not in it at this point, so I took a 10min lie-down at the hut, rehydrating and refueling. Nobody had arrived by the time I set off again.

I walked the 700m climb up Doornkop quite slowly, struggling with the heat and trying to recover. Ray caught me on the upper slopes, having missed the turn-off initially, so now I thought I was in 5th. Despite Ray being a 2h47m marathoner, he's a bit new to the techinical stuff so I managed to catch him again on the steep downhill off Doornkop. I took another short sit-down at the next stream crossing and let Ray get a few minutes gap ahead of me.

I'm not sure what happened next (maybe it was the biltong I got from Ray at the river?) but suddenly my strength returned and I was running again. Cruised through to the kit-check, caught Ray again on the gradual downhill and was actually looking forward to smashing the steep 300m climb through the Waterfall Forest up to Cata Hut. Ray and I did this section together and kept the pace nice and high. To our surprise, we caught Jacques Mouton just before top - he was really struggling with the climb. With about 500m to go, Ray stopped for a short breather on one of the switchbacks, I kept going and noticed the gap opening. As I got around the corner I put the hammer down and practically sprinted the last 50m of the climb and the flat section to the finish :-)

As I got there it turns out that Nic was nowhere to be seen and I had managed to grab 2nd place for the day, a whole 1h04m behind Ryno. Ray finished about 2mins later and Jacques probably about 10mins back.

Splits:
Gwili Gwili Hut (13.5km) - 2h01m
Dontsa Hut (30km) - 4h31m
Doornkop (37km) - 6h20m
CP3 (42km) - 7h25m

Last run before the race starts on Friday. Took the pack and kept the pace just beyond comfortable. Ready to go!