Coughing and spluttering

I've been in Cape Town for a few days to coach an orienteering camp (more on this in my next post).

While in the Cape I've had the most wonderful runs. The Lower Tokai Park was just a treat on Thursday and Friday; and on Saturday evening, after a day spent with our young orienteers in the forests near Grabouw, I took on the six kilometre 'yellow mtb route' from Oak Lane Cottages, which is where we were staying.

All around Oak Lane are apple orchards, farm dams and forests - just my kind of area.

Here are some photos from my run.

 I felt great on the run but only a few hours later my throat felt a little scratchy and my chest  a little tight. By morning I was definitely down with a bug - coughing, congestion, runny nose, blocked ears, elevated heart rate... 

I'd been aiming to hit the yellow route again before leaving but it was no longer an option. After 21 consecutive days of wonderful running, I'm barely up to walking.

I haven't been ill for at least a year or three so this is disappointing. And I've been running like a champ too! Fast, hard and free.

Nonetheless, it is the cold-and-flu season and after a couple of non-stop months I'm clearly susceptible. I hope to kick this in a few days to be back in action.

New favourite running spot - Lower Tokai Park

Yesterday afternoon I hit the track of the Lower Tokai Park for a fast and amazing run.

Located in the suburb of Tokai the park is part forest and part open felled land where the fynbos has regrown.

While there are trails through the pine forest, which is old enough for the forest floor to be open and covered in pine needles, there is a hard-packed trail around the perimeter.

There's also a good stretch of boardwalk across the very sandy open sections.

This is a prime dog walking spot with dozens of people and dogs around. Very well behaved dogs that I encountered. As a runner I always keep a sharp eye on dogs as they can get so excited seeing runners that they like to nip. No worry yesterday as the dogs were pleasant.

And I saw squirrels!

And then there are also the horses and riders passing through the forest... Cape Town does have some wonderful lifestyle benefits.

This Park so does it for me. Hard and fast lose-yourself-in-the-run terrain where the scent of pine is replaced by the scent of fynbos. And then pine again filling my nostrils.

I think one loop of the perimeter is about 3.8 - 4km. It was so good that I blazed two loops before running back to my friend's house.

I ran the same today - in the opposite direction. A really wonderful running location.

39 Days of Running: Halfway

Yesterday marked my 18th day of running and the run took place in Cape Town, where I am for the next few days. While these three weekdays are for meetings and seeing people, the weekend is for an orienteering camp that I'm coaching for our young orienteers.

While most of the runs have been fairly easy to fit in, some have been challenging. As always, this pre-birthday challenge teaches me over and over how easy it really can be to fit in a 30 minute run, even if it is late in the evening and the run is done in the dark.

Monday was a case in point.

My mom's uncle passed away last week (following a big stroke the week before) and so the memorial was set for Monday noon in Centurion. Off we went.

I'd made an arrangement to visit dear friends at 16h00 in Rivonia; I got home with a bit of time to spare before heading out again. Shortly after arriving at my friends' place, loadshedding kicked in. Arrggghhh - traffic was sure to be crazy!

I left them at 18h00 and hit traffic most of the way home. What was fun was coming up with routes from my 'head map' to get me home through some unfamiliar areas. I did pretty well. What does puzzle me is that most of the traffic lights (or all of them?) were on (solar powered?) so I'm not quite sure whether this was normal 6pm traffic or whether it was traffic affected by loadshedding? I have a feeling it was the former!

I got home after 19h00 and started getting changed to go run. And then another friend called so I chatted for a bit and got out of the door at 19h45. I wasn't completely in the mood for a run but aiming to get in only 30 mins, it wasn't a biggie.

It always seems that those runs I'm least in the mood for turn out to be some of the best. I felt relaxed and ran very easy and comfortably. The 30 minutes passed in a flash and if I didn't have to finish prepping maps for the O camp to print the next morning (which I finished after 2am!), I would have enjoyed putting in another 30 minutes.

For the next few days - until Sunday - I'll be putting in runs down here in the Cape - different venues each day which should make for some scenic runs.

39 Days of Running: 25% done

How time flies! I've been away for the past week at Afrikaburn (more on this in another post) with eight of my first 10 runs for my 39 Days of Running done away from home and four of these on the sandy, rocky and dusty terrain of the Karoo and in little towns on the out-and-back journey to the Northern Cape.

Let's see... this year's 39 Days of Running started on Saturday, 25 April; an early start this year so that I can finish this pre-birthday game before I head off to Expedition Africa.

This first run was done with my husky friends, Angel and Toscana.

Husky smiles

Toscana

Day 2 was done in Parys with Ruben and Kyla. As Kyla's bike had a puncture, they took turns. First Ruben rode while I ran and we headed down to the local park. It's about a 4.5km loop. Ruben (6) rides fast so I really had to run hard! We returned home and then it was Kyla's turn. We did the same loop. A good run.

Day 3 was also in Parys in the sweltering afternoon heat just before we left to drive to Afrikaburn. Cooking!

Day 4 was a half-hour run in the dark through the streets of Calvinia. What an awesome town! So clean and magnificent pavements.

Days 5 to 8 were at Afrikaburn. I ran between 30-45 minutes each day. Most runs at sunset, two in quite the dark. It's a big open area and it was great fun running on the roads and tracks around the camp.

Day 9 was a night run in Colesberg. Making my way up the hill from the centre of town an old guy in a red car pulled up next to me giving me a thumbs up and shouting "I've done three Comrades in my time".

Day 10, last night, I was back home for a quick 30 minute run in the dark through my local neighbourhood.

I'm looking forward to some longer runs over the next week.