So Johnson Crane turned from an absolute disaster into a blast. My wife was doing the 21 whilst I was hoping to sort out my qualification for Comrades after cocking up Soweto by running with the wrong chip. Like Hacc, we also got stuck in the traffic jam. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get from the turnoff to the parking lot. There's something supremely disheartening about sitting in your car on the way to a race you've prepped for and hearing the gun followed by a horde of runners down the adjacent street. My wife was pretty gutted, she had really psyched herself up to put in a quick half marathon time and she wanted to just turn around and go but I persuaded her to join me on the 42 course and use it as a training run since she's never done a 42 before. We got to the start about 35 minutes late, joining the back of the 5km fun run crowd and set off. It was actually damn pleasant running along totally empty roads for the best part of 45 minutes. I had been warned about the psychology of running a second lap on a course but to be honest I had enjoyed the first 21 so much that I was quite happy to run it again for the second lap. In the end my wife hit the wall at about 35km, which was to be expected as she'd eaten a very light breakfast, had no nutrition with her and found herself running her first marathon in the spur of the moment. I've never seen real pain on her face before but she dragged herself to the finish like a trooper. We got home in 3:33 on our watches though we didn't get any recorded time because we were so late over the mat but it was hella fun running her first 42 with her. I've now done two marathons and still don't have a qualification under my belt… my organization leaves a lot to be desired. So, hopefully third time is the charm. My bigger problem now, though, is that my wife wants to run Comrades so if anyone knows of an entry going come the transfer window please let me know. My poor kids are going to be running orphans.
