My preparation for the 2010 Loskop Marathon was not ideal. A constantly niggly left foot after the Vaal Marathon 6 weeks earlier never allowed me to do the sort of mileage in the build up that I would have liked to have done. I also decided to change the shoes I was running literally one week before the race. This in hindsight probably wasn’t the wisest decision either. In the week prior to the race with the new shoes my tendonitis cleared up so I decided to risk running the 50kms in the new shoes.

We decided not to sleep over in either Middelburg or at the Loskop Dam the night before as I was on air until 7pm on the Friday evening. We woke up at 2am and were on the road to Middelburg by 2:30am. An early start to what was going to be a long day.

By the time we reached the start I was a bundle of nerves. As it started to get light the 4000 runners began the trek to the loskop dam. Earlier on in the week I had spoken to my good mate Dave Walters from MPower FM in Nelspruit and it turned out MPower FM was the media partner for the race. We were going to try and do a couple of live crossings from the road and the first one was as the gun went.

My goal was to go out until halfway at just under 7 minutes per kilometre until halfway and then take the rest of the race as it comes. It all went according to plan. About 5 km in I got swallowed up by Vlam’s sub 6 hour bus and decided to stick with them for as long as I could. I actually finished the Vaal Marathon in the bus and that’s how I qualified for Comrades 2010. That’s why it wasn’t vital that I finished under 6 hours in this one but the goal was to spend as much time as I could on the road to get a decent long one in the legs.

It wasn’t long before I heard someone call my name behind me and a runner came and introduced himself to me. It was Peter Swanepoel, we had been following each others progress on Twitter and hadn’t actually met. Running with Peter definitely made the going a lot easier. There was tons of chatter in the bus which made the kilometres breeze by.

Before we knew it we were at the Post Office Tower which signifies the end of the long uphill pull out of Middelburg and then it was onto the halfway mark. I had done a few more crossings with Dave on MPower FM and the last one finished just as we made our way to the halfway mark. We went through halfway in almost exactly 3 hours which meant that for Vlam’s bus to run a sub 6 hour they would have to do a sub 3 hour second half. With this in mind I lost the bus on the first major descent. Being as big as I am the downhills hurt (a lot) and I have to be very careful not to do some serious damage going down them. Having said that I managed to catch them on the next big uphill (Buggers Hill) and then lost them again for good going down Kranspoort Pass.

The ball of my right foot started hurting about 20kms and I just thought it was the hardness of the new shoes. Turned out it was the start of a monster blister. More on the blister later though. Going down Kranspoort Pass hurt like crazy. That pass is steep and I took it very slowly knowing that I had enough time in the bag to finish regardless of what happened. After turning into the valley the road stretches out in front of you and you get your first glimpse of Loskop dam.

I made it through the marathon mark in just over 5 hours which left me just under and hour and a half to do the last 8km. Once you get to the point in an ultra where you know whatever happens you are going to finish you really enjoy the rest of the race. For me this was the point I felt that even if the wheels came off in a big way I’d get to the finish before the cut off.

There is one last ugly sting in the tail of the Loskop Marathon. Varaday’s Hill. If you’ve run it you’ll know what I mean. After 46km on the road, you’re tired, your body aches, you know you’re close to the finish and then you arrive at the foot of Varaday’s. It’s a horrible climb and is made worse by it positioning in the race. At the top of Varaday’s the view down to Loskop Dam is nothing short of spectacular and it then leaves you with a jarring 2km to the finish.

I completed the race in 6:16 and some change and to be dead honest was knackered. First thing I did after getting my finishers medal, t-shirt and goodie bag was to find my family and take my shoes off. The blister on the bottom of my right foot was extremely sore. I’ll leave the story of the treating and subsequent lessons learnt from that blister for another post.

Generally I have only good memories of the 2010 Loskop Marathon. It was well organised and the 2011 Loskop Marathon is definitely one to pencil in the calendar.