Sport	Race
Event	Wally Hayward Marathon
Date	01 May 2017
Where	Centurion, Pretoria, South Africa
Distance	42 Km
Finishing Time	03:47:23
Race Number	1091
Result	664/3532
Top %	19%
Pace	5:25 m/km
Speed	11.08 km/h
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My experience at the event:

Less than 2 months ago I thought that I would never be able to get race ready for this year's Comrades (which will happen in another month, the 4th of June). After the disaster that was my first qualifier at the Cape Gate Vaal Marathon, when I finished with my worse time ever on the distance, I thought that the lack of sleep (I have a 10 months old baby at home) and training (less time to train if you want to help at home) finally caught up with him.

But that marathon was a wake up call, and so I decided to find time to run in the most unusual moments of the week, giving up any chance of resting. The following 2 races went quite well (the 50km Om Die Dam was finished just above 5 hours, and the following Irene - 48km - was done and dusted in 4:35.

My goal was to run in less that 4 hours, and hopefully had my brother in law, Andy, finishing with me - or ahead - in order to qualify in the same group as me for the Comrades.

We decided to push from the start, and, on a two lap course with very little hills and long stretched, were you could find your rhythm, we completed the first 21km in a strong manner, after a slow start due to congestion (almost 9 minutes for the first km...).

Andy unfortunately had some trouble around the 25th km, so after trying to get him pack to the required pace , and failing, we decided to do our usual split and running the last section alone.

I still felt strong and thanks to 5km completed with Andy at a slower pace, I found a lot of energies to finish the last 10km at less than 5mins/km, with a very good (by my old man standard) 3 hours and 47 minutes, well below my  4 hours mark.

Some pictures:

Late 6.30 start but we are ready


On the hills


Still strong


Finished!


Another medal


Andy arrived



Details of the race here:  https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1708332951 Back to sports

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