Knysna Forest Half Marathon

It is slightly intimidating, arriving early to an event and still finding that you're one of thousands, add this to butterflies that flutter at the start of every race, multiply this by an early rise and raise that to the nth power because of the fact that I've never done a half marathon or any marathon, for that matter before, and you'll understand how I was feeling.

'Bang!' The gun went off. I yelled a hurried 'cheers', to my aunt-in law running behind and threaded my way through the crowd, managing to trip over tree stumps, even in a road race. This year's new route was changed to cope with the change of the finish venue and several of the more experienced runners, said that the course was tougher than last years, and is one of the country's toughest half marathons, yet over 4500 runners combatted and completed this course. Fortunately the weather was with us and it wasn't icily cold, humid or hot…

The route took us through the beautiful forest and plantations, up and down the torturous switch backs and up part of the 50km oyster fest MTB route, with thankfully (unlike Adventure Racing), water tables every three kms. As the race settled down, I gritted my teeth and got stuck in, overtaking swathes of runners, but at the same time being out paced by even stronger, more steadier runners. At around the 12km mark, I reached the next water table, where as always, being not used to the funny little water bags and cups, I sprayed more liquids on me than in me, I started feeling a stich coming on, in a running limp, I tried to wait it out, and slowly it lessened but did not disappear, as if it wanted to spite me for dislodging it, staying with me, till the end of the race. A few more km, along the route, we started the punishing climb down Simola estate, with only a few distance markers left but the race was not over, for the steep descent, left muscles feeling like jelly. Trying to keep up the pace, was like trying to lift lead blocks, but as the Ferris wheel, and the finish line came into sight, I could not help but speed up and complete the race as I had begun, in a run, in the river of souls. I definitely plan to run more marathons for the feeling you get, even with the pain, is exhilarating. 
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Finishing time: 1:42:34


Winner: Michael Bailey,
           in a time of: 1:07:40 
^ Amazing! Wow. Jaw drop.