Highway to hell!

I have recently found just how good music can be for running to!!
I know....about a century behind the rest of the world but I was born in an age when the "Walkman" came out and they, as you know, would have run out of batteries before you finished your run!
I never owned a CD player and my only MP3 player came and went in my "lazy phase of life".
So it is just now that I have put some tunes on my phone and listen to them as I run.
I find it takes my mind off the breathing etc and makes it all go a lot quicker

Having said all that it dawned on me yesterday during the run when ACDC's "Highway to hell" came on followed by Berlin's "Take my breath away"...that I need to screen the songs before I run!!

Brent

No your honor - it was just the training!!

Yesterday I went out for my long run for the week...a 12 km one (still early days I know!) and what another exciting run it was.
I am feeling really good running at the moment....better than I have ever felt actually but yesterday's time (which was 56 min and 35 sec) was aided a little by a banned substance!!

Adrenaline!!

At the 10km mark I looked up and saw that I was just 50 - 60m from about 100 buffalo..they were fortunately just staring at me like cattle so I took a quick photo with my phone and used a passing truck as a bit of a distraction to get past them. Now I had my first "dose" of adrenalin and the meters just flew by until I rounded the last band before home...probably the 11km mark and there were about 200 elephant crossing the road. The wind was perfect and so I sat down to hide my human form from their eyes...took a few images again with the phone and WAITED! (I had stopped my stopwatch by now).

Not the sort of roadside supporters I was hoping for!

 Most of the herd crossed but one stubborn cow started to feed along the roadside towards me so I had to hopscotch along on my backside until I was a safe distance away before walking around her in the forest.....then back on the road, started the stopwatch again and finished in record time!

My running shoes in the same frame as a herd of elephants

You have got to love Africa!

Its a good think I am not a contender for a medal, I would have a hard time convincing the judge where the adrenaline came from!!

Brent Stapelkamp

Training "Busted!"

A couple of days into my second week of training for the marathon, my training has already suffered a set-back!!
Nothing serious like an injury or anything but an empty space in my calendar where there should have been a "7km" entry! but before you write me off and remove my blog from your favourites list...hear me out!!

A major part of the Long Shields project, and I mean a MAJOR part is to collar lions that we believe are potential cattle killers. The principal is basically thus......"first know where your lion is!" and so when I happened upon a young lion with his sisters not far from home I had to forfeit my running and catch him. He was given the name of "Buster" and is a three year old male. He and his sisters were abandoned by their mother as 2yr olds when she coupled with the two new males in the main camp area. Its an educated guess but I would say that he is probably one of the highest risk individuals in terms of potential cattle killing due to his current situation. His sisters, coming of age, could either settle within their mother's territory and mate with the two new males or join a lone male around our place. Buster unfortunately can't do either and so must look for his own place. If he goes into the park he will encounter older territorial lions so we predict he will eek out a living in areas where he doesn't have to compete with older lions......the communal lands.

We will watch him now and react to his movements, keep cattle out of his immediate reach and buy him some time hopefully to mature and return to the park big enough to claim a territory of his own.

                                             Forgive me for missing a days training??

 

Training: week 1 complete.

Week one of my 24 week training schedule is complete with 39km run.....three lions and no blisters!

Last week I set off on a 7 km run from my house near the park. I was going to run 3.5km and then turn and so stuck my headphones into my ears and began.
About a kilometre after the turn I saw two game-drive vehicles ahead looking at something but thinking it was probably a kudu or something I just continued. One vehicle broke away from the others and headed towards me with an American client on the back giving me that good old Yankee hand signal.....TIME OUT!! I pulled the earphones out and heard him say "Time out son....there are lions ahead!"

Just then a friend pulled up in a pickup truck and offered me a lift past the lions....I happily obliged!
He dropped me back on the road just 200m past the sleeping cats and I carried on with the rest of my run.
                                           A little reminder of why I am running this marathon!

The "youngsters" whom I ran past on day 3 of training!!