Author: Modern Athlete

The first eight-hour relay for primary schools was organised 10 years ago by the Ho?rskool Jan Viljoen Athletics Club and over the years it has grown to such an extent that they had to organise a bigger event each year until it reached its current format of 18 hours! The nine-hour event still takes place and runs until midnight, while the 18-hour event goes until noon the following day. During this time you run as many laps as you can around a 1km grass track, taking turns with your nine team mates. The current race record was set in 2004 and stands at 296km in 18 hours.

THE TEAM
AAAC has participated in the 18-hour relay for the past three years and as a proud (and quite competitive) club, we take the event relatively seriously. In 2008 our men’s team won the relay, completing 280km in 18 hours. Our mixed team came second, completing 242km. In 2009 AAAC only entered a mixed social team, and they also won the event, completing 244km in 18 hours.

This year’s men’s team consisted of Andries Venter (club chairman and veteran Comrades runner with 18 silvers), Michael Brandon-Kirby (10 Comrades finishes, including four silvers), Ben Matiso (a 1500m specialist), Gert Bezuidenhout (one Comrades Bill Rowan), Niel Cillie (one Bill Rowan), Zakhele Mdlalose (seven Bill Rowans), Paul Jacobs (novice), Alfred Nkumeni (novice), Eugene Le Maitre (seven Comrades medals) and Adriaan Rossouw (two Comrades medals).

The mixed team consisted of Deon Pretorius (specialist walker), Bernadette Dujardin (specialist walker), Noeline Blignaut (Marathon runner), Chantal Butcher (two Bill Rowans), Adelia Eloff Cooke (novice), Terrence William Duke (junior), Darren Black (one Comrades medal), Alan Bezuidenhout (marathon runner) and Jason van Biljon (one Comrades medal).

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
As the sun set at 6pm the 18-hour race was about to start while the competition was fierce between the high schools in the nine-hour relay, which at that point had already been running for three hours. On the brightly lit school field the air was filled with smoke from braais, loud music and hundreds of kids shouting and cheering. The great atmosphere got the adrenaline pumping and for the first few hours everyone was in high spirits and our runners did three or four laps at a time.

The high school relay reached its climax at midnight with Ho?rskool Marais Viljoen from Alberton winning the race with 140km under their belts. Westonaria finished second with 134km. We still had 12 hours of running left and the graveyard shift was about to start. As the track became quiet, each runner had to dig deep, especially when running down the dark, quiet back stretch of the track. After every two or three laps at maximum pace you’d try and stretch your sore legs a little before getting an hour’s sleep.

THEN THERE WAS LIGHT
The graveyard shift went quicker than expected and by 6am we were doing one or two laps at a time. With only two hours left we set new goals for each team member. Each runner knew they only had two or three more turns left to run – even that thought hurt – but not wanting to let the team down, we kept pushing. Strangely, most of us ended up running 1km PBs at this stage!

With 10 minutes to go we were on 249 laps and the mixed team was on 199; we paused for a moment and got all the runners and supporters of the two AAAC teams together to plod the last lap together, finishing off one of the most amazing nights of our lives. The men’s team won the relay with 250km and the mixed team managed 200km with only nine runners, taking second place in the mixed category.

AAAC would like to thank Ria Bornman, her excellent team at Jannas and their sponsors EPR for organising such a superb event each year! See you again next year…

IN THEIR OWN WORDS
“I have never experienced this before. It’s definitely not for the faint-hearted and you need to be highly competitive to participate. Excellent for team-building. I will be back next year for sure!” – Eugene Le Maitre

“It’s tough but fun, and I will be back next year!” – Noeline Blignaut

“The race was exhausting, but an eye-opener to how far you can push yourself. The camaraderie amongst the team members was unbelievably supportive. Even with the pain and sleep-deprivation, I really enjoyed it.” – Adelia Eloff Cooke

“Terrifyingly fun!” – Darren Black

“It is a great adventure and really puts emphasis on how one handles tiredness and performance during the entire event. It was great being part of a winning team and I feel privileged to have been part of this event.” – Alan Bezuidenhout

“You compete against other teams, but mostly against yourself for your team. You fight internally to go faster and keep going during the early hours of the morning, when your body doesn’t want to anymore, and the last hour is like nearing the stadium at Comrades. Nothing beats the Jannas 18-hour relay for team-building” – Niel Cilli?

“The words ‘Let’s do it again’ have a whole new meaning.” – Gert Bezuidenhout

No website or brochure could have prepared me for the journey I was about to set off on. The only things I knew for sure when I entered this race was that it is a self-sufficient run held over six legs in seven days with set distances for each day, ranging between 28km and 76km. And so began perhaps the best (and worst?) week of my life. We set off on an unknown journey at 9am on Sunday 17 October. If everything went according to plan, with months of preparation, product testing and training paying off, then we would cross the finish line a week later on Saturday 23 October. But don’t we all know what presumptions mean?

LIFE IN A BACKPACK
My backpack weighed in at 10kg (with water), which was not too bad considering some guys were lugging around 16kg – without water! Now I should add that they had 400g steaks packed for dinner on the first day! Most of the weight in my pack consisted of food, so the good news was that each time I ate a meal, I was slowly getting rid of the weight that was proving to be quite tiring on my back and shoulders. My gourmet menu for each and every single day consisted of strict rations of Future Life porridge, raisins, energy jellies, Salticrax, biltong, a protein bar, a small roll of Super C’s and some two-minute-noodles or smash and tuna.

Hydration and recovery was extremely important, especially in the hot conditions we were running in. I was adequately prepared with my Hammer products mixed in water, a Rehidrat sachet here and there and also a couple of Eno’s. Some of the other bits and pieces bobbing around in my pack included a sleeping bag, a head-net to guard against the dreaded ‘miggies’ while running, a camping pot to prepare my food, blister treatment kit, wet wipes and Vaseline. The wet wipes were crucial because they substituted for a bath each day, while the good old trusty Vaseline was supposed to prevent chafing. However, it turns out Vaseline melts when it gets too hot. It was as runny as syrup and hot enough to fry chips in the daytime temperatures, so I had to choose between chafing or running the risk of third degree burns… decisions, decisions!

CAMP LIFE
Camp life consisted of a village of low gazebos and groundsheets where we picked a ‘comfortable’ spot each day and made ourselves at home with our sleeping bags. Our sweaty running clothes were hanging all over the place and I think hanging our stuff out to dry each day gave us some (false?) sense of starting the day with fresh clothes. But at least we were all in the same smelly boat together! We were rewarded for our efforts with two of our overnight camps being alongside the Orange River – at which point much-needed bathing took place.

The social aspect of this race is phenomenal, and the friends made, jokes shared and camaraderie is awesome. Some days your quips will lift another runner’s spirits, and at other times they’ll return the favour without even meaning to. The support and encouragement is awesome! As for the support crew – from medics, to checkpoints, to physiotherapist – we could not have asked for a more capable team to look after us and see us through to the end of an almost indescribable race.

GOING THE DISTANCE
Our daily distances were laid out as follows: 26km, 38km, 30km, 76km, rest day, 46km and 24km. Of course, Murphy’s Law meant the longest day was also the hottest, as temperatures reached 48 degrees on day four. The running terrain was an equal mix of jeep track, hard gravel road, rocky sections, and of course, soft sand – which usually stopped you dead in your tracks!. All of this contributed to glorious blisters and sore feet. There were, of course, those runners immune to blisters and pain but they received a lot of muted growling from us ‘mere mortals’.

Unfortunately, there were those not immune to the hardships that the Kalahari was relentlessly throwing at us, and seven runners pulled out at various stages due to reasons ranging from heatstroke and ITB, to infected blisters for which intravenous antibiotics were doing nothing! I managed to hang in there day after day, and with toes blistered like never before, heat-rash that had the medics at their wits end, and a smile that only now and again disappeared, I finished the KAEM 2010 as third lady finisher!

How exactly do I describe the most difficult, personally challenging and exhilarating event in my life? KAEM 2010. To my gazebo-sharing mates, Heather, Nic, Richard and Dave – thanks for the hysterical laughter when needed most and the fun times. (Okay, so maybe tuna is seafood!) Everyone who ran and crewed on this race in 2010 will forever be part of a memory that will never be forgotten – and for that I thank you all.

Towards the end of 1988, a group of Strand and Somerset West-based runners decided that they wanted to start their own running club. They were all members of another club that basically covered the whole area outside of Cape Town, and while they still liked their current club, they were finding it more difficult to get hold of licence numbers and to take care of club matters due to the distances they needed to travel and the time it took. A club for Strand-area runners based in the Strand itself made much more sense.

So Jan Grobler, James Moolman, Johann Diener, Dawie Roussouw and Braam Fischer approached Western Province Athletics for permission to establish the Strand Athletic Club, and shortly thereafter, when Jan and James attended a WP provincial committee meeting, they were given the official nod to start the club. “That same night the rest of the prospective Strand club members were all waiting at the Lord Charles Hotel for the news, and when we received a call to say permission had been granted, I bought champagne for everybody,” says fellow founder member Johann Diener.

UP AND RUNNING
So at the beginning of 1989, the now familiar Strand colours were seen on the roads – white and yellow vest with Strand written on it in blue, plus blue shorts. Fast-forward to 2010 and Strand AC has been celebrating its 21st anniversary year with various club functions and promotions, including a formal dinner-dance at the Lord Charles Hotel, appropriately, which doubled as the club’s birthday party and annual prize-giving. From humble beginnings, the club has grown to well over 200 members and you will often see the Strand gazebo at bigger races, or a group of Strand members socialising after a race. They also love running as a pack in the longer races, and the spirit in the group is usually terrific.

As current Strand AC Chairman Lester Burrow puts it, they’ve got a very special camaraderie in the club. “I’ve been at other clubs, but found something special here, the human factor. You don’t find malice or problems amongst our members, and the top runners are always prepared to help slower or less gifted runners. I’ve seen this first-hand through a personal example: I’m asthmatic, and one Saturday we did a 30km pack run where I battled like hell with my breathing. Dave Mason wouldn’t leave me, no matter what. When I had to walk, he stayed with me. That is something common to all our members. It’s a silent rule within the club: Don’t leave anybody behind.”

PACK RUN SPECIALISTS
Getting back to the Lord Charles Hotel, it is still the meeting place every Saturday morning at 6am for the club’s immensely popular pack runs, organised by Pierre and Anita van Zyl. With the spiralling cost of petrol and race entry fees in recent years, these pack runs have seen more and more members choosing a local long run to travelling to a race, and Pierre and Anita really look after them, with a different route every weekend, water and coke stops every three to four kays, and even cake, sweets and homemade sandwiches on offer in the longer runs. The group runs at anything from 5:30 to 6:20min/km and reforms at each water stop, so nobody gets left behind – and according to the Strand website, you will soon come to understand the difference between Pierre’s “platte” (Afrikaans for a flat one) and a “plat platte” (flat, flat one)!

The club’s other official run is the weekly time trial, which takes place on Tuesday evenings at 6pm from the Charles Morkel Stadium in Church Street, where the club shares clubhouse facilities with the Helderberg Rugby Club. “We have two route options, 4km or 8km, and the turn-out is usually anything from 40 to 70 runners,” says Lester. “We meet at 5:50 to celebrate birthdays, update members on coming races, give feedback on great results achieved and pass on other any other relevant club information. Then after the time trial we meet for a beer in the clubhouse, where we also braai every now and then, and we announce our Runner of the Month and Strandloper of the Month on the first Tuesday of the month, and have a lucky draw as well. The Strandloper award is not necessarily for running – it can be given to a club member for doing anything above or beyond the normal duties of a club member.”

When asked if the south-easter ever disrupts the time trial, he simply smiles and says, “the route is circular, so when the south-easter blows in summer, the first half is with the wind and the second half against it, but in winter it’s just the other way round when the north-wester blows. Look, Strand is a windy place, but our members still come out to run.”

GREAT RUNNERS, GREAT CHARACTERS
The club currently has a number of top runners amongst its member, notably Celia Pienaar, who recently represented South Africa in her age group at the World Triathlon Champs in Hungary. Then there are Johann Diener, Friedel van der Merwe and Esther Brink, all of whom have represented Western Province many times. Also, the women’s veteran (40-49) team was third team home in the 2010 Comrades Marathon.

On the training front, Lester says the club is lucky to have Max Ruppert amongst its members, as he heads up Max’s Training Group. “He went to Saudi Arabia for a few years, and when he returned he started a training group for the club, catering for all runners from fast to slow. They do speedwork and more specific training, and the runners following his programme have really posted some great times and big PBs.”

But it’s the ‘characters’ that Strand is known for, with Pierre and Marina, and Gordon Leonard, considered some of the biggest stalwarts of the club and well known in the province for their humour and good nature out on the roads. “Pierre and Marina are the club,” says Lester. “Every single Saturday morning, without fail, they do our pack runs. There’s Coke, sweets, sarmies, milk, water. They’ll even give you a ‘dop’ if they can! They never miss a Saturday, and Yvonne and Martin Naude are also usually there to help. As for Gordon, well, he’s 75 years old, but you won’t be able to keep up with him. That one is a real party animal!”

REHYDRATION TIME
Typically, Pierre humbly reckons Gordon is the biggest character in the club. “About 15 years ago when Gordon joined our club, he asked us for a lift to the Hohenhort 15km in Constantia. After the race, when we were sitting on the grass waiting for the prize-giving, Gordon saw a guy walking around selling beers, so he bought a round for all six of us, to say thank you for the lift. Well, we all said thank you very much and drank our beers, then when we finished, we told him we were ready to leave and went to the boot of the car as if to put our bags away, but instead out came the club cooler box, full of ice-cold beers. Gordon just stood there looking amazed, then he started calling other runners over to look at our cooler box, proudly telling everybody to look at his new club!”

Like any running club with a strong social scene, Pierre can tell some wonderful stories about road trips to far-flung races in years gone by, where the Strand AC club name was held high. “We used to take a kombi full of guys to Bonnievale each year, and on the way back we always stopped in Stormsvlei to visit the bar. There were two old ‘tannies’ behind the bar the first time we went there, and they eventually asked us to leave because we had drunk everything! Three weeks later we drove that way again for another race, so we stopped at the same bar, and the tannie just swore when she saw us coming in!”

AT THE RACES
Strand currently has two races on the calendar, the Fun in the Forest Half Marathon and 10km on Vredenburg Farm in April, and the Eikendal 10km on Eikendal Wine Estate in October, both of which offer tough but incredibly scenic routes, much of it off-road. However, Lester explains that things may change soon.

“The Eikendal race will be run as a fundraiser for the Helderberg Hospice next year, and we’ll still be helping with the organisation and the race will be run under the auspices of our club, but the Hospice will be the main organiser. We’ve been approached by Western Province to put on a fast and flat half marathon in the Strand area, which potentially could become the WP Champs or a league race. So watch the calendar for developments!”

CLUB CONTACT DETAILS
Telephone: Lester Burrows 082 424 8457
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.strandac.co.za
Clubhouse: Charles Morkel Stadium, Church Street, Strand

A number of years ago, my first experience of heart-rate (HR) based training didn’t really get my pulse going… The monitor was set up way too low for my max HR, so the trial ‘run’ I took part in ended up with me walking most of the way to get my HR down enough to progress to the next interval of the set workout. Now I realised that the set-up was wrong, and I know that HR-based training is the most effective way to improve one’s performance, but after staring at that little screen for nearly the whole session, I did decide that training with one wasn’t really my thing. I simply prefer running as I feel and don’t want to constantly check my wrist to see whether I am in my target HR zone, and whether I should speed up or slow down – which is why the adidas miCoach does get my pulse going. It gives you audio prompts via an earphone regarding target zones and workouts, and has no visual display, so no looking at your wrist at all.

I was recently invited by adidas to a miCoach presentation by former Aussie Olympic Swimmer Ryan Mitchell, who heads up their global Interactive Business Unit. He told us journo’s how miCoach works, then took us outside for a interval session test run, followed by showing us how to pre-programme the unit using the miCoach website, then download, interpret and adjust the session information.

Basically, you pre-programme your max HR and select the training session you’d like to do from a large menu, then you hit the road and the unit gives you audio prompts when to speed up or slow down, depending on which HR zone you should be in: blue (65% of max), green (75%), yellow (85%) or red (95%). Ryan and co had pre-set the units for us to do a 22-minute workout, starting with a blue zone warm-up, followed by a green zone speed-up, then six one-minute yellow zone intervals with one-minute green zone rests, and ending with a blue zone warm-down.

FIELD TESTING
Having strapped on the HR chest strap, attached the stride sensor to my shoelaces, plugged in the earphone and switched on the miCoach, I started running and listening to the woman’s voice in my ear. When my first yellow interval came round, I put my foot down, but I was not working hard enough to get to yellow, hence getting a second prompt to “Speed up to yellow zone.” I had only been running in the upper green zone, but Ryan had warned us that this might happen, as we still had to get the feel of things. So, when the second interval came round, I rocketed around the field to make sure I got to yellow. But then in my third and fourth intervals I was prompted to “Slow down to yellow zone” – but I wasn’t running as hard as the previous two intervals, so in my semi-gasping state I decided there must be something wrong, and went even faster! Then the same message to slow down came in the fifth interval, and by now I was taking serious strain, so I decided to listen to the voice in my ear instead of the voice in my head…

When we went back indoors after the run, Ryan asked if he could download my session info to show the group how to use the online support. When my graph popped up overlaid on the workout, I could see that in the third and fourth intervals I wasn’t just in the red zone, I was way off the graph! I couldn’t resist quipping that “I think I just killed myself!”

OK, The unit was not set up 100% to my max HR, so my actual red zone was higher than the graph allowed, but still, I had been running much harder than I needed to in order to get to my yellow zone. It really brought home to me that as you tire, your HR climbs easier, so training on HR will prevent you from overdoing it and running yourself into the ground, which is what you’re likely to do when running based entirely on time and pace. Ryan then showed us how easy it is to adjust the settings online to bring the miCoach in line with my actual max HR – so the next time I use my unit, it will give me a more effective workout.

FEEDBACK
The prompts you receive are not at all irritating or overwhelming, and the unit has a handy quick-reference function: push the big centre button and you receive a summary of time, distance, pace, stride rate, average HR, and which zone you’re currently in. Checking all that info on a wrist unit would require looking down for a good few seconds, perhaps even scrolling through menus, whereas with miCoach you just comfortably continue running. You can use any earphones, as the unit takes a universal jack, and added to that, you can plug miCoach into your MP3 player, which allows you to listen to music that cuts out automatically when you receive miCoach prompts. You can also plug it into your smart phone to use the phone’s GPS function as part of your workout.

How did you get involved in the sporting industry?
From a very early age I have been training and competing as an athlete on a national level. I spent eight years on the Australian Swim Team, competing at two Olympic Games, in Atlanta and Sydney. My introduction to business in the sporting industry comes from my days as an athlete when I used to test these types of devices.
 
Before joining adidas in September 2009, I ran my own consulting company, specialising in strategic brand marketing and sales distribution, and prior to that I worked in Polar Heart Rate Monitor distribution in Australia. At adidas I am the global marketing coach for miCoach, a small device that delivers real-time audible coaching as you exercise, via headphones or combined with your own MP3 player or smart phone. I am currently based in Germany, a very different place to my home country. The Germans were proud to tell me it is the furthest place in central Europe from a beach – not the nicest thing to tell an Australian!

What does a day in your life look like?
The last 12 months have been extraordinary because of the working demands. The European culture allows for longer lunch breaks and I take advantage of this time to do some training. The weather is obviously very different to Australia, so I try to do a lot of trail running during the winter and some cycling during the summer months. We have to practise what we preach, so it is important for us to have some exercise time during the day.

Why are you so passionate about what you do?
I know training concepts such as the miCoach work. It gives you feedback and controls intensity, which will help make you a better athlete and add to the quality of your life. We have a unique concept and yes, we need to do business, but our product has the opportunity to influence people’s lives in a positive way. Working with a global sporting power such as adidas is a unique opportunity!

Most memorable moment in your career and in sport?
It has to be the Olympic Games in Sydney! Representing your country in sport is a wonderful honour, but doing so in front of a home crowd is an amazing experience! From a business perspective, I had some wonderful experiences through the business I was managing in Australia. Managing a company at the age of 26 meant a significant amount of pressure, but the success that followed was memorable.

What does your current training look like?
My running career started as a swimmer when we used running as cross-training. Swimmers only use about a third of their body weight in the pool. Running is a great way of cross-training because the impact forces your body to cope in different ways. I started running more after the Sydney Games, when I retired.

The season determines how much I run. I am not training as much as I should because of work demands, but I try to run at least 30-45 minutes a day. I keep the sessions short and sharp, and clear my mind when running. I usually run on my own and I love to run with music, and of course, the miCoach pacer. When the weather is good I do more endurance bike rides over the weekend.

Has running influenced your career and work ethic?
Without a doubt! Sport teaches commitment and discipline. Sport has also afforded me opportunities to travel and to be exposed to different cultures. That has helped in my work environment where I am constantly working with different international companies. Sport teaches you to be social – though swimming is an individual sport, we travelled and operated as a team. That is very similar to how we operate in business; we all have our own little patch to work in, but we operate in a big corporate structure where everything adds to the success of the company.

Any memorable running races that stand out in your mind?
My father-in-law organised a trail running event in Adelaide. On the morning of the race, I cycled 130km and was late for the race. To get to the starting line we had to climb about 600m and the first three quarters of the race was uphill! We lined up and the gun went off! Needless to say, it was a painful start!

What would you say to someone who says that they don’t have the time to start running?
There is always time for exercise and you have to hold yourself up to that commitment. One can get significant results by doing small amounts of exercise often! It takes discipline and self-talk, but you need to find that level of commitment.

What is the first thing you do after a run?
I lie down and focus on my breathing. I use it as a form of meditation. Over the last couple of years I have used this is an important part of life in general.

Any advice to novices?
There is no level of fitness too low to start. Paralysis is caused by fear and many people feel intimidated walking into a store and asking advice on gear and how to start an exercise regime. We all have to start somewhere. You don’t have to strive towards finishing a marathon; it is just about doing something and keeping active.

 I followed a fairly stereotypical route after school; went to University, got a degree, started working at the age of 22 and didn’t particularly enjoy it! I changed jobs a couple of times. Having been in my current workplace (ironically a mental institute) for just over a year, I became more dissatisfied with my career. I stared at the ceiling, wondering for the hundredth time what one can do with a BSc (OT) aside from actually being an Occupational Therapist!

A while ago a friend had told me to just find out what I enjoy doing and do that. “Uh, sure, but who’s going to pay me to run?” was my cynical response. Later on, during a gruelling hill session, I realised that although it is quite unlikely that anyone will ever pay me to run – this is frequently confirmed when, at about the 28km mark of a marathon, I give myself a pat on the back for effort, only to hear that the race has been won an hour ago – but that I may still be able to incorporate my passion in my work.

So the following day I sought work at my favourite local running shop and now look forward to pursuing a career in something that has been such a great part of my life for the past 15 years. I look forward to helping someone find the perfect pair of shoes for his or his first 5km or 20th Comrades, to hearing all about Heartbreak Hill over and over and over, and to showing off my sexy runner’s feet to my new colleagues. – MELANIE DELAINEY, VARSITY KUDUS RUNNNG CLUB

Irongirl in the Making
This year has seen me doing my first 10km, first half marathon and first triathlon! It has been a road marked with injuries and disappointments, but most of all loads of new friends (the thing I love most about sport). My next goal is to complete Ironman 70.3. Thank you for your great magazine and for making it easier for us aspiring athletes to get into the sport. I have been following your 70.3 training programme and it has been great. I love the feeling of being fit and healthy. I can’t wait for 2011! The attached picture is of me doing my first triathlon in the West Coast. What an awesome event! – TANYA WEYERS