April - Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon

[Sweder]

Immediately after the Marathon marker we start the never-ending climb to Constantia Nek.
This is one of Cape Town’s most beautiful suburbs, set to the north of Table Mountain and housing a number of exclusive wine estates and sumptuous dwellings. All this amounts to bugger all when you’re in perpetual agony, breathless and sun-dried, dragging your weary, sweat-soaked carcass up 4 kilometres of unforgiving mountain.

In fairness all but the very strong and foolhardy elect to walk this section. Never mind all the macho posturing about not walking, it’s a running race and all that. Hogwash. This is tough, baby, really really tough. And I like hills. Rog is happy enough to walk too, at last having the decency to complain about the heat. Whilst the kilometre markers seem to have been set every two or three miles now thankfully the water stations remain ubiquitous. I’ve no doubt the canny organisers realise the increase in demand at this juncture and, as with just about everything else related to this race, they’ve got it spot on. I pour and squirt enough water to irrigate the Sudan, taking a couple of frozen Powerades to cool my on-board supplies. We’re walking at a good pace, passing a lot of people as we climb. I make a solemn, silent vow, one that I’ll make good just as soon as we reach the summit.

At 46K I turn to Rog.
‘Mate you’ve been fantastic, you’ve dragged me this far. It’s time for you to stretch those legs and leave me to hobble on alone.’
Rog looked genuinely shocked.
‘No, no – ‘
‘Enough. You’ve probably blown any chance of a Bronze (Sub Six) thanks to me; there’s no guarantee I’ll finish let alone medal, but you still can. Go on old boy, give it a fair crack.’
We smile at each other. He knows I’m right.
What he can’t know, and I won’t tell him, is that my right calf is in constant convulsion and the pain is enough to make me want to gnaw my own leg off. The rest of my ailments – thirst, heat exhaustion, general decrepitude – I can live with and probably finish with, perhaps even within the allotted seven hours. But this bloody leg will be the ugly roadside death of me and I’d rather not take anyone with me, least of this Prince amongst men.

This is no Oatish act of selfless sacrifice. For one the thought of Rog coming away with nothing just because he’s a stand-up bloke who wouldn’t leave a mate is simply to awful to contemplate and far too much to bear. I should feel obliged to fly him back next year, and frankly I defy any mortal to swing that one past Mrs S. Besides, there’s a small, slightly twisted part of me that thinks it might be more interesting to write about heroic failure than a hobbled, ugly crossing of the line. It’s certainly more in keeping with most of my fellow countrymen where sport is concerned.

With a slap on the back and a cheery wave Rog is gone, run-shuffling into the colourful multitude.
I’m left dragging my tortured limb in a horrible parody of Quasimodo, shielding my eyes from the sun, seeking Esmeralda – or more likely a paramedic. All I need is the drool, and frankly that can only be moments away. I feel no sorrow, no self-pity; whatever the reason for my failure, be it poor planning, crazy indulgence, a late last meal, those pesky salt tablets or the simple underestimation of the heat and overestimation of my own ability, I’ve given it my best shot. I lined up, took my place on the grid, stood shoulder to shoulder with giants and set myself in fair competition with my fellow man. If I can’t make it this time then you know what? I’m going to come back and kick this courses hot-tarmac’d arse.
Man, it’s taken more than I can spare out of me just to think that clichéd bunch of baloney.
I tell the demons in my head to give it a rest.

Around me any number of people wear various shades of agony.
Here a young man stretches fit to bust against the trunk of a massive pine; there a girl stands, crossed legged, reaching for her toes to coax blood into her locked hamstring. The trouble with walking up Constantia is one assumes this has been a restful phase; far from it. You’re working just as hard to walk briskly up a pretty tough, heavily cambered hill without respite for four kilometres under a blazing sun. So it shouldn't come as a shock when one reaches the top and is not immediately rewarded with a flood of energy.

I stumble through Glen Alpine and onto Rhodes Drive, a wonderful, winding, leafy trail that will ultimately lead us home. There’s still a 10K to run/ walk/ crawl - it may as well be 100 for me. I’m spent, done in, facing my darkest hour in a short but illustrious running career. The Demons of Despair are chuckling, another wretched, wrung-out soul ready for the barbie. The shaded pine straw calls to me; oh how I long for it’s cool embrace! To curl up under the trees, sucking on a frozen fruit juice, dreaming of glories that might have been as I wait for the cosy, comfortable sweeper bus . . .
Tom Petty pops into my head:

God it’s so painful
When something that’s so close
Is still so faar outta reeach . . .