Part 10 - Cycling again and the Two Oceans Ultra

Meeting up with [puppy class girl] again was good, if a little awkward as we both were a little unsure of where we were with each other. Anyway, we continued to spend time together and eventually things seemed to be as they were before. I was really happy that I had found a softer side to her and that she was not so much a ‘logical, rational machine’ as I thought she was.

Earlier in the year I had entered the 94.7 Cycle Race (95 or so kilometers through Johannesburg). The race was two weeks after NYC to the day. I had not cycled since before my stroke, so it probably wasn’t the wisest, but I was determined to do it (in hindsight, WTF was I thinking!?). The main problem was that I could still not unclip my left foot from my pedal (to this day I still can’t), so would have to be really careful about planning stops at the correct and convenient times. Since starting with cycling about 2 years or so before my stroke I found that I really enjoyed it and was a pretty decent cyclist for the most part. I was going to ride the race at my leisure and take it easy, there was no real point in trying to go fast as my body was still recovering from the marathon and I had zero cycling mileage in my legs. I hooked up with Grant, a friend of mine who is a good guy and a good cyclist. He was trying to encourage some of his staff to get into the whole fitness thing and was going to ride the race with them, helping them along and through. I decided I would do the same. I was not going to be concerned with times or heart-rates or any of that stuff. I rode with them at a snails pace for what I estimate was 60 or so kilometers before I just could not anymore and had to ‘put the hammer down’ and try to get this race done. They were going to be out there a long time, and I didn’t want to be out there too. I was pretty strong, I hammered it and basically time-trialed to within 10km of the finish before I had a spectacular blow-up and started searching frantically for aid-stations. In my kindness and ‘wisdom’ I had given all my energy gels to others I thought needed them more! I had the usual things happening to me: shaky legs, blurred vision, dodgy co-ordination (and it was bad enough as it was!). Thank goodness I found an aid station. I stuffed my face with tons of Coke and water for 5 minutes before hopping on and finishing the race. It was a really nice experience, very different from any cycle race I had done before… I never even wore a watch, I was amazed that I did that –its something I would never dream of doing before.  It was great riding a bicycle again and it reminded me that I should get back into it ASAP.

Wow, OK so I’ve just read through all that I have written and not all of it makes sense –sorry! As time went on after my ‘thing’ I realized more and more that my mind was not the same as it used to be. In the past I was able to write quite well –one or two people even mentioned the word ‘talented’ in the same breath as my writing. Post stroke I found it very difficult to write as fluently as I did before. According to the doctors the damage to my brain resulted in me struggling with planning and short-term memory. Now, anyone who has ever had to write anything over 1000 words will know that a reasonable amount of planning is required. While my planning skills and short-term memory have gotten better over time through the use of certain mechanisms, I don’t think I’ll get back to where I was before. I’ve learned to deal with that and I have moved on psychologically.

So after the 94.7 life kind of carried on as it does. My relationship with [puppy class girl] developed into something quite special and I enjoyed spending time with her. That December I joined her and the family in St Francis for a few weeks over the Christmas and new-year period. We spent a lot of time on the beach (she loves the beach) and we ate good food (her family always cooked up a storm). I returned home in early January to get going with M&A. At this point I was still very hopeful of fulfilling a little dream I had to do Ironman again in April, but as time went on I realized that it wasn’t going to happen (for a LONG time -I'm still trying!). In the mean-time ‘College’ (Jon, best friend from school) and I had been doing quite a bit of running together and he convinced me that running the Comrades Marathon (a brutal 89km ultra run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban in South Africa) was a good idea. Although I wasn’t in good shape in terms of cycling or swimming, my running was pretty decent. And, as it turned out, my 4:57 at the New York marathon was two minutes and fifty-nine seconds more than I needed to qualify for Comrades. So, we embarked on training. College and I tend to be rather casual about things that we should be more serious about, so the training wasn’t always what one might deem intelligent or prudent. Nevertheless, we trained with the end goal of completing the Comrades Marathon. College is a geologist by trade, and not a stupid man, if you know what I mean. College, or Jon Stacey as most know him, arrived at St John’s College, Johannesburg at the same time as me, in the 3^rd year of high school. Over the years we developed a strong bond of friendship, cemented by the fact that we both ended up being prefects in the boarding school, and did our best to terrorise/educate/teach the 1^st years ‘what it was all about’. We had a hell of a lot of fun. After school we went our separate ways, and eventually College ended up studying at Cardiff in Wales and I (predictably) ended up at the University of Johannesburg, with a later stint in London. We kept in touch through the years and often at a moments notice would embark on epic trips up mountains and down rivers in Zambia and surrounds or end up meeting in Bangkok for a three-week exploration of Thailand. We dubbed these meetings ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ and kept record of them as best we could (we still do).

Anyway, we continued our training, as best as our schedules would allow us (College was based in Johannesburg, but was often out of the country or city for work). As the big day drew closer things looked pretty hopeful. We were not getting nearly the amount of training in recommended by ‘experts’ but we were confident of pulling it off. During all this time I continued my sessions with [Bio] (I was hopeful that a strong core might ‘save’ me, again).

College ended up running a good qualifier at the Pick ‘n’ Pay Marathon, it was quite an impressive effort considering all the shit that was going down at the time, including an obligatory family holiday to the Otter Trail. In preparation for Comrades it is advisable to do at least one ‘ultra’ marathon; this generally means a run of over 42.2km. We had decided that we would use the Two Oceans 56km ultra as this run. Leading up to the race things were not ideal, I remember being very apprehensive about it as I (for some reason) had not got enough training in. Nevertheless, we ended up doing the Two Oceans in a slow time. We weren’t too worried as our big goal was Comrades.