It has been a busy few weeks for us. We traveled east last week to help with training the newest group of incoming education volunteers in South Africa. In general I think it was a good, productive time. Preservice training is challenging no matter how you look at it, and it was very interesting to work with the training team in order to try and make things easier for and prepare the new trainees.
On last Friday we headed back to Pretoria and back out west, thanks to the kindness of many others who helped supply us with transport, and stayed the night in Rustenburg (our shopping town). The next day I participated in the Rustenburg Mountain Race, which is 25.5 K (or 15.8 miles) up some of the steepest mountains in this region and through the Kgaswane Nature Reserve. This was very exciting for me, as it was my first race ever! Tim also ran the 5K Fun Run with fellow volunteers and friends Anne and Gabi, who met up with us in town and who we got to spend some time with after the races back at Anne's site up in the Magalies mountains.
Overall I feel very proud to have ran the 25K. During grad school, I was always finding something more "important" to do (typically, presenting at conferences) than developing or exploring my running interests, so in the first place it just felt good to make a commitment to something I like and that is special to me. Second, I prepared very well for the race and finished respectably, at just over 3 hours on a course ranked 4/5 in difficulty! I faithfully followed a training program for the last 3 months and tried my best to follow all the advice I could get (mostly from the Runners World website) on how to go about successfully racing.
Running a race is really an incredible experience. I think the best advice I received was to take it slow at first! I found myself pretty must in last place (among some-1,000 runners) for the first few kilometers, which felt weird since I'm pretty fit and there are many walkers among the race participants (actually, the top speed walker beat me by a few minutes--which isn't so bad, considering how arduous speed walking is!). However I was passing people continuously throughout the race after I had warmed up. If 3 hours is a median race time (they say it is), then I passed probably half the other runners since I started out slow!
The other good advice I received was to break the race up into 3 separate races of about 5 miles each. The first 5 (which included the very steep mountain climb where most normal people had to eventually walk at least the last 300 or so meters) I focused on not tiring myself. Again, this was very hard since I had to walk up the final climb of the mountain, but I had to still pat myself on the back for not panting like many of those around me. So, no panting or straining for the first third of the race. The next 5, which began with an incredibly steep downward mountain pass, would be a race of strength and good form. Still sort of testing the waters, I focused on making sure nothing was hurting in a bad way and that my pace was steady, changing to maintain my workload as I meandered through the park. Then the last 5 miles were dedicated to just making it, doing it strong, and coping with the sorts of funny exhaustion feelings one starts to feel when they are pushing themselves beyond their comfort zone. Throughout all of this I was passing people, and after the uphill climb I only stopped once briefly to toilet. They say that at your first race you should aim only at completion as injuries on race day are not uncommon even when you're prepared well in advance, and considering the difficulty of the course my average pace (11 or so minutes per mile) was not at all bad, so I am considering the race a great success!
I was also elated at the finish line to find Tim with a bouquet of flowers in his hands and our friends who completed the 5K with him. Perhaps an even greater achievement than mine is that Tim has now gone 2 weeks without a cigarette! Even with all the stress of the past few weeks he has remained committed to not smoking, and I was also excited to hear that he noticed his greater strength since not smoking during his race. A full marathon and a 10K are definitely now in our futures!
Back at work this week we are now very busy with things to do! I can hardly walk, but I will be involved with SGB workshops the rest of the week, while Tim is working with 600 learners total this week for National Science Week. Our supervisor had surgery last week and is still in Pretoria, so we must also dog- and cat-sit for her starting tonight, which at least means we can watch satellite television and get our laundry done this week.
So things continue to get better and better for us here in South Africa, overall, and it is amazing to reflect that our service is nearly half completed! We are still talking about extending though, as we are so enjoying our long-term southern African adventure.
0 comments:
Post a Comment