Everyone's Blog Posts - roadrunning.org

Health Dash

2009-09-24T07:18:41.000Z

Before,people would slightly cringe when they hear someone "sign-up for a marathon". Most say " are you serious?". But nowadays its something that almost everyone has become involved with. It almost every event that has something to do with running there is a wide range in age groups and body type as well. The last run that I participated in, there were awards given to the youngest and oldest runner. A 5 year-old kid received the youngest runner award and an 86 year-old man received the oldest runner award.

Running has become not only a competitive sport but an activity where the whole family can participate in. I've read countless blogs, essays and forums on the web that show how much running has changed lives. It has given so many another chance at having a healthy lifestyle.

latic acid

2009-08-10T18:18:42.000Z

can anyone help.after 2.5miles im getting a build up of latic acid in my calf muscle.can anyone offer advice on health supplements and nutrition that would help to reduce latic acid.any helpwould be appreciated
thanx

2009 Traumeel Wally Hayward Marathon

2009-05-03T21:17:51.000Z

This past Friday, 1 May, I ran my fifth Wally Hayward Marathon. Seems like I have been doing my fifth of a lot of races lately!

The Wally has always been my preferred Comrades qualifying race, but this year it was simply a training race as it is no longer a qualifier due to the Comrades being earlier. The race organisers also added a 32 km race for people the are busy with their taper running up to the big one. The 2009 event included 5, 10, 21, 32 and 42 km races!

I decided to do the marathon to get some much needed distance on my legs, but did not want to go very hard on the day. My plan was to do about 3:30 to 3:50. But in keeping with my recent run of very enjoyable runs, the Wally turned out no different. I ran with a club mate from Irene and I finished the race (very very comfortably I must add) in 3:17! Which is no less than about 6 minutes faster than my previous marathon PB. As on the Loskop, my legs felt great throughout and by the next day I would not have said that I even ran the previous day. 3:17 would have given me a B Comrades seeding, but I am happy with my current D from the Loskop. Don't want to start too fast again!

The two lap route of the marathon is probably one of the easiest around with only the hill at the very end that is challenging in any way, for me that is. There are some minor bumps along the way, but none really worth mentioning. The race is always enjoyable in a no frills no fuss kind of way and this year was no exception.

The new distance, the 32 km seemed to be a very popular distance judging by all the people we were passing on the road, the routes overlapped quite a bit.

The 2009 was a pretty big success judging by the comments on the race's website;

"In previous years, entries have consistently been around 4000 - 4500 (with pre-entries).This year the pre-entry requirement was removed and provision was made for a significant increase in entries.

However, the huge extent of the increase in entries obviously exceeded our most optimistic predictions. So, towards the end, we ran out of medals and goody bags, and many athletes ended up with larger T-Shirts than they would have preferred. Arrangements have been made to get more medals ASAP for these unfortunate athletes.

We will obviously consider ways and means to contend with a further significant increase in 2010, to try to avoid a re-occurrence.

It is interesting that at one stage, the Wally was the second largest race in SA! If this trend continues, with your support, it could well be again!

We hope to see you, with many more of your friends, on 1 May 2010!" - taken from the Wally Hayward Marathon website.

Some of the thousands of cars;

2009 Loskop Marathon

2009-04-19T18:30:00.000Z

Yesterday, 18 April, saw the 24th running of the Forever Resorts Loskop 50 km Ultra Marathon. This is an event that has been voted as one of SA's top road races for many a year and in my opinion it definitely deserves the credit. I completed my fifth and fastest Loskop to date this year.

Seeing as I have not yet qualified for the Comrades, the Loskop was basically my one shot at qualification, so I had quite a lot riding on the day. I usually prefer the Wally Hayward because it is a very fast, easy course, but because of the Comrades taking place earlier this year, it is not a qualifying race for the next year or so.

My plan for this years race was to finish in about 5 to 5:30. My Comrades training has been pretty interrupted thanks to a persistent cold / cough, so I did not want to put the bar too high as I only truly started training about 3 weeks before the race. But I did train very hard indeed in those 3 weeks :)

Throughout my distance running career of 5 odd years, I have always struggled with cramps. Come to think of it, I have hardly ever done any race over 32 km without having at least mild cramps at some stage. On Comrades etc they usually turn into pretty severe, debilitating cramps that tends to spoil one's race. I have tried most remedies through the years but none really seemed to work. What I enjoyed most on this years Loskop though, was the total absence of cramping. None whatsoever. My legs never even felt stiff, not even after the race or the next day. So I asked myself how this could be, and the following probable causes came to mind;

---- This is the first year that I have included serious gym work in my training. I try to do the super circuit at least once a day and I really focus on leg exercises. Who would have guessed that gym sessions actually helped... well obviously not me....
---- I ditched all the fancy supplements and stuck only to Magnesit and some Energy Dynamics Octane Gel for on the day. I take Magnesit on the road as well and it really does work, or it feels like it works in any case.
---- No more being a good boy the night before the race, give me beer and pizza! All my previous PB's over various shorter distances were run on pizza and beer, so I figured that should work for longer races as well. One large thick base Roman's Regina pizza and three Castle draughts seems to be the magic number.
---- I greatly reduced the amount of fluids I take in during training and races, sticking to the drink to thirst rule.
---- I go mountain biking for some variation in training.

Off all the above the most plausible reason is certainly the amount of time I spent in the gym. So before the Comrades, the gym will be seeing a lot more of me. Sure the others might have had an influence but I am sure the deciding was the gym sessions.

But back to race day. The Loskop is always an excellently organized race, this year was no exception. The start was thankfully moved back to 06:00 after being moved to 07:00 in 2008, which was a strange move indeed. Collecting race numbers was easy and after a minor inconvenience at the tog bag lorry (I handed in my bag without half the stuff that was supposed to go in the bag....) it was off to the start. The only thing I don't like about the start is they always seem to have politicians talking a bunch a crap that no one really cares about. I am aware that there are elections on the 22nd etc, but I am here now to run. So say good luck and fire the gun. That leaves more time for music and general jolliness.

The Loskop route is a pretty easy course, very easy in fact. There are only two challenging hills, Bugger's and Varaday's. The first 25 odd km are slightly (mostly) uphill but you hardly even notice it. The going uphill at the start is a good thing, later on the race is mostly flat and even slightly downhill which is very enjoyable. Apart from said hills off course.

Because I was only going for a five plus hour time, I decided to stick to a bus that came past me that was going for 4:50. I wanted to stick with them and then walk up Varaday's. A dodgy race plan but one that was in line with my perceived level of fitness. I have no idea who the bus drivers were, but they were two guys running for Gijimas and a nominated lady from Brookes. They were absolutely brilliant. By far the best bus I have ever run with and these guys are not even official flag carriers. They really run a tight ship and make you forget about the daunting 50 km task ahead. Soon the bus had about 30 members that were all running together very well and it became apparent that 4:50 was slowly turning into a possible 4:30. Now that might sound like bad bus driving, but I can assure you it was not. They managed the bus like pros and kept the pace as steady as a resting heartbeat. If anything all the bus members were pushing up the pace because we were all feeling so damn good. Whoever the drivers were, guys thank you and I really hope to see you on Comrades where you will be driving a Bill Rowan bus.

This is the part where I would normally complain about cramping and so forth,but I really cannot. This was by far the most effortless 50 km I have ever done. After 44 km of running with the bus, I came to the realization that my legs were feeling like I have not run a single meter yet. Sensing I could possibly still make sub 4:30, I started pushing the last few km's. When I reached the 45 km mark, I had about 23 minutes to go for the sub 4:30. That meant running the last 5 well under 5 minutes per km. The first km was easy, but at 46 km you hit Varaday's Hill which is a 2 km, steep climb. I just kept on pushing and managed to keep the next 2 km steady at about 5 min. This left me with some time to spare for the last two, glorious downhill kilometers into the resort. The Loskop truly has an awesome finishing stretch, unless your legs are shot. Then that last bit hurts like hell. I burned it down the hill and finished the race in 4:29.

After finishing, the strangest thing happened. I was not tired at all. My legs felt good as new. In fact my legs felt so good that I went mountain biking this morning with friends and wouldn't have said that I did an ultra the previous day.

All in all the 2009 Loskop was once again a brilliant race. Everything about this race is just good, the spirit on the road, the course, the water points, the organization,well basically everything. I will definitely be back next year to do my favourite race of the year!

Big thanks to Forever Resorts and all the other sponsors for making it possible -- and to all the volunteers! You guys rock.

The final stretch into Forever Resorts Loskop Dam.

Comrades Marathon entry closing date extended

2009-04-02T15:42:03.000Z

Taken from the Irene Running Club communication;

Entry Closing Date extended!
The CMA officially closed entries for the 2009 Comrades Marathon on Tuesday 31 March 2009.

Since the closing date on Tuesday, the CMA has been inundated with telephone calls, emails and faxes from desperate runners wishing to still enter Comrades 2009. Most if not all have stated that they had not entered due to the misleading reports that Comrades may be cancelled.

CMA Management had a difficult decision to make, and for the first time in Comrades History, entries will be re-opened. We must stress that this is for a limited period only, due to various misleading factors. The new closing date is MONDAY, 6 APRIL 2009 at 18H00.

To date the CMA has received 9700 entries and literally has hundreds to process over the next few days. A final official figure will be released on mid April 2009.

CONFIRMATION – COMRADES ENTRY CLOSING DATE EXTENDED TO 6 APRIL 2009, VIA ALL AVENUES. (CMA, ONLINE ENTRIES, MR PRICE, POSTAL ENTRIES WILL BE ACCEPTED)
COMRADES WILL TAKE PLACE ON THE SUNDAY 24 MAY 2009, starting at the Pietermaritzburg City Hall and finishing at Sahara Kingsmead Stadium in Durban.

Statement release by Comrades Marathon Association on Thursday, 2 April 2009

Site moved to Ning

2009-03-22T17:30:00.000Z

Firstly, for those of you you that knew and blogged on the old RoadRunning.org site, it is still available here, just as it was before. The old posts are also syndicated on the home page to ensure they still get a spot in the limelight.

My apologies for the site being down for so long, the server that hosted the old site crashed a while ago and I did not really get around to bringing it back online.

The old platform that it was running on, Community Server 2.0, was, although being a good platform, prohibitively expensive and ultimately far from ideal. Blocking SPAM comments became all but impossible, we could no longer add any new users due to license restrictions and we could not upgrade the software etc.

I moved the site over to Ning for various reasons, firstly the base product is free and for all practical reasons unlimited in its use. It is also a hosted service so there should be no more outages in future. The Ning platform also works a lot easier compared to the rather clumsy Community Server. This will be a much more stable, permanent home for RoadRunning.org.

If you have any questions regarding the new or old site please email me on prieur@gmail.com or send me a message through the site.

2009 Sunrise Monster 32 km

2009-03-15T16:46:49.000Z

This past Saturday saw the thirty second running of the Sunrise Monster 32 km. The race, as its name implies is usually a bit of a "monster".

I did my fifth Monster this year and it was definitely the hardest one. The new route is a lot tougher than it seems and a lot harder than the previous routes. The original route that included Neptune etc was in my opinion a much better route, but the race could apparently no longer follow that route for some reason or another.

The 2009 route, taken from the official race website;

From the onset I just wanted to do this years race as a Comrades training run, so I was aiming for a finish time of around 3 hours. The race was set to start at 06:08 but was delayed by about 15 minutes due to traffic and the Metro cops still having to close some roads. Collecting pre-entries was also a bit of a mission and it took me quite some time to collect my number. Good thing for the delay then!

The start was a bit of a mess with loads of runners starting from in front of the start line and on the sides of the road, then feeding onto the road in front of the faster runners which was a bit annoying. It is funny how almost all road races in Pretoria lately seem to have runners starting from in front of the start line.... organisers should really start to address this issue.

The route starts with a few nasty little hills just to remind you that you are indeed doing the Monster. But nothing too serious. I was feeling good after 10 km or so and decided to pick up the pace a little, reaching the 16 km halfway mark in 1:21. Even though I was planning on doing around 3 hours, I decided to see if I could improve on my 32 km PB of 2:40, as I was really feeling good and knew (or thought I did) the rest of the route. My plan was to push hard over Klapperkop and then have some time in the bank for the Herbert Baker stretch and any other small bumps towards the end.

My plans were however dashed at the 21 km mark when instead of going over Klapperkop, we went down the side of it. As in the total mineshaft, free fall type of decent. It was 2 km of downhill mountain biking without a bike. Normally I love a bit of cross country running, but not after 21 km and not when I have a race plan hastily put together on route assumptions. My knees were not impressed.

When, after what felt like an eternity we finally made it back onto civilized tar roads, my race was all but ruined. I never regained my rhythm and even the small downhills hurt like mad the last few km. Normally I am a pretty tough runner (have never had any injuries, never get knee pain etc) but I really did not enjoy that part. My right knee made funny grinding sounds the rest of the day. That part must have been awful for people with actual knee problems or any kind of injuries/niggles.

Most of the last 6 odd km was spent alternating between running and walking and trying to be as gentle on my legs as possible. I finished the race in 2:51 which was still a lot faster than planned but a lot slower than what could have been. From what I have heard through the grapevine the organisers had to cut some "corners" because of the exorbitant cost of Metro traffic cops and that next year they are not going to take us down that suicidal slope. But I understand that sometimes you need to do what you need to do ;)

All in all, apart from the cross country running and the minor hiccups at the start, the race was one again excellent. I will definitely be back again next year as it ranks as one of my to-do races. A tough race to get you into shape for Comrades - and prepare you for all the downhill running that is to be had there.

Big thanks to Harlequin Harriers and Medihelp!