By Bruce Fordyce
After 35 years of running I might have expected to know it all, but as I have learnt this month our sport will always surprise us and teach us more.
Following my toughest Comrades in at least 20 years I rewarded myself with a long holiday. The holiday included plenty of eating, drinking and making merry and only the occasional short run. My weight shot up 4 kilograms.
My first serious running commitment after Comrades was the Kaftan half marathon a month later. One of my favourite races this race is brilliantly organised by the Komatipoort Athletics Club and is sponsored by Selati Sugar. The race is unique in that much of it follows the SA/Mozambique border fence on a gravel road and cement track fit only for 4X4s. It includes a vicious 650 metre hill called “Hell Hill” and a kilometre or two later another 750 metre slog. Runners are awarded a second special medal if they are able to run Hell Hill without walking and marshals monitor your progress the whole way up the hill.
A few kilometres into this year’s Kaftan I suddenly realized that I felt terrific. I scarcely felt as if I was running. I flew up Hell Hill.( Well not really but I ran it well) Then I literally flew along the rest of the course, running the last 5kilometres in close to 20 minutes and feeling great the whole way.
Can any of the Runners World readers explain this?
I should have been a wreck after Comrades but instead I felt terrific. Perhaps I was simply over trained and tired at Comrades and the subsequent rest had been just what the doctor ordered. I remember chatting to Lisa Ondieki (Olympic marathon silver medallist 1988) at the New York marathon prize giving in 1992.
Our own Willie Mtolo had won the men’s marathon but Lisa had set a new course record (2:24) to win the women’s division. She was puzzled because after a disastrous run in the Olympic marathon in Barcelona she had hardly run a step in training for over a month! I remember listening in awe to her describing her training programme for the Olympics and deciding that it was madness. She had trained herself into the ground. It was predicable to any outsider that she would not run well at the Olympics. But look what very hard training followed by plenty of rest had done.
To this day her New York run, while not quite a P.B. remains her proudest achievement. Perhaps we need to learn to rest much more?
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It makes sense outside of the text books and training manuals fore sure. I have seen the same results in top sports people in swimming, rugby and often in running. Unfortunately it is not something people can be taught I don’t think, but rather something that needs to be experienced.
I am sure you (Bruce Fordyce – one of my sports heroes) have had it suggested, that a long rest (perhaps by the reverred Professor Tim Noaks) would do you a world of good. It was not something you chose to do, but once it happens, the results are profound.
Ole’