Reluctant Runner

The second run of the winter trail series I am busy cutting my teeth on, was at the Paul Cluver wine estate on Sunday.  The weather was just perfect as we set off into the mountains for one of the most beautiful runs I have done to date.  We had a rather nasty uphill to conquor, but the thing with trail running is that it is ok to walk!!  Nobody reminds you that it is a running race (common on road runs) and you don’t even feel the urge to get going – you just plod on with everyone else to the top of the hill.

I was lucky I didn’t faceplant on the path as I was gazing around once we got to the top, you could see right to the ocean on the one side and just green rolling hills on the other. After some pretty hair raising descents we were even treated to some rope sections – which means we had to hang onto ropes to get us down one of the ravines… Nothing too hectic but if the ropes weren’t there I think I would have been A LOT dirtier than what I was at the end.

My time was not amazing but at the end of the day I didn’t care and neither did anyone else, especially since there was wine tasting going on AND a special discount on any purchases made by the trail runners!!  I’m really starting to feel at home in this new world of trail running

Yes, I took some time off running and blogging after the Comrades because let’s face it, we all know what it’s like when you are working towards something and it ends up taking over all your headspace -  you end up needing some time off from what you were working on and just taking a breather – which is what I’ve been doing.  No running and no writing about running, it’s been marvelous!!

Anyway I’m now back on the wagon because you do reach a stage where you miss whatever you were working on and want go back to it – or a variation thereof.   Since seconding my mom at the African X, I have been seriously reconsidering the world of trail running.  You might remember my first attempts at trail running which ended in me vowing never again to set foot on an un-paved path – but it just looks like so much fun so I decided to give it another shot…

To ease me back into it I signed up for the Montrail/Cape Storm trail running series again – the first of which was yesterday.  I managed to provoke, encourage and threaten a couple of my friends to do it too so my experience of the race was totally different to last year because I actually had people to run the whole way with.  I also put no pressure on myself to do the 10km route in an hour, like I’m used to on the road, which meant that we could walk the difficult bits and totally eliminated the stress.

I’m not going to trade my running shoes in just yet for trail shoes, but I’m pretty enthusiastic about my future in trail running – and it doesn’t even have anything to do with the fact that the average age of the trail running fraternity is roughly half that of road runners

So as it turns out I don’t hate trail running as much as what I thought I did…

Sunday’s run was MUCH better than the one before, not just because the trail seemed easier but I came prepared with my ipod to blast any negative thoughts from my mind if it was needed.  I also carried a small bottle of water this time instead of a full CamelBak, which seemed to make a bit of a difference.

Of course I could have just been having a bad day the first time – so third time will be the decider on Saturday August 15th when I do the next race in the series which forms part of the Gravity Adventure Festival in Kleinmond.

All I can say is that the jury is still out with this trail running thing