Two Oceans Half Marathon

Hello Everyone!

I apologize in advance for the length of this entry but I want to describe my trip to Cape Town for the half marathon this weekend. So my friend Evan and I departed Stellenbosch on the train around 3:30 Friday afternoon. We knew that the rest of the night was going to be a bit of an adventure because our plans were minimal, but we were excited for the unknown. So for the previous 36 hours I had been emailing back and forth with a woman who ran a hostel near the starting line, but our plans to stay there seemed to have fallen through because she wanted us to deposit money into their bank account, but the banks (and absolutely everything else) are closed on Good Friday. So we decided to take the train to Cape Town, transfer lines, and head to Rondebosch where we knew of two hostels that were hosting runners for the weekend. While on the train Evan called his friend Drew who is studying at UCT through the SIT study abroad program, because he has an apartment in downtown Cape Town and staying with him was our back up plan (because the race starts 8 miles from there, so we thought it would be better to get closer). It turns out Drew is doing another week-long home stay with a family outside of the city and is not moving into his apartment on Long Street until next weekend. Bummer, but no big deal.

So we catch our next train and arrive in Rondebosch around 5:15pm. We were expecting this train station to be near the town center, with the 2 hostels and perhaps some restaurants close by. Instead it dropped us in the middle of a neighborhood that looked spookily quite due to the holiday. We started to walk (our destination still somewhat unknown) and hadn’t taken more than 20 steps when Evan saw 2 girls that he recognized. They were Drew’s friends that he’d met the previous week when they were all staying in Stellenbosch. They recognized him too so we went over and talked for a few minutes before they said “do you want to go upstairs and see Drew?” We were caught off guard but accepted the invitation as they opened up a gate and sent us up a flight of stairs into the SIT headquarters. This is a study abroad program where you take informal classes for 2 months, live in different parts of the country with different families, and then spend the final 2 months doing your own research. So we now found ourselves in the SIT classroom where Drew was just as surprised to see us. After some laughs and an explanation of what we were doing in Rondebosch, we used his computer to find directions to the hostel I’d been emailing previously. We weren’t sure if the woman had given our beds away yet, but we figured it was our best bet since this town didn’t seem to have much else to offer us. After leaving Drew, with directions in hand, we acknowledged the fact that someone up above was looking after us. (From this point onwards in the trip we continuously asked each other why we never thought to bring a map of the town with us when we left home).

So we walked about 2 miles until we reached the Vera School. This is a school for autistic learners that turns into a hostel for the weekend of the marathon each year. I knew it was legit because it was one of the five hostels recommended on the marathon’s website, but it was in the middle of a neighborhood and looked completely abandoned. The entire campus was fenced in and we couldn’t see a person or a car inside the fence. We walked around the outside of the fence twice, while alternately laughing at the ridiculousness of our situation and worrying that we may never find a way inside this place. I was becoming a bit skeptical when a guy on a bike rode by us and said “good luck in the race tomorrow.” I was immediately reassured that there were other runners staying in this hostel, if only we could get in. At this point I called my roommate and had her look up the woman’s phone number for me (Anita) so that we could ask where the entrance was. Anita didn’t answer. Luckily a girl a bit older than us was walking towards one of the gates and she appeared to be heading out for a run. We explained our situation briefly so she unlocked the gate and told us where Anita lived. Awesome, we breathed a sigh of relief.

Once inside the fence we could see some cars and a group of older runners making dinner in the kitchen/lounge. This reminded me that I was hungry, but we had no food because we had wrongly assumed that the hostel would be near a downtown area with restaurants and whatnot. Anyways, we needed 2 beds first and foremost. After quite a few knocks on Anita’s front door there was still no answer. We turned around and saw a friendly looking guy who asked if we needed anything. We told him or story and he gave us Anita’s cell phone number before heading back inside to the lounge. Evan called and someone answered, but it was the wrong number. We weren’t sure what our next move should be, so we decided to sit on a bench by a little playground and see if Anita would show up. After about 10 minutes Evan tried the phone number from the website again. This time we heard it ring inside the house that we were sitting next too, as at the very least we had the correct number. As Evan heard someone answer through the telephone, we could both hear the person speaking inside the house as well. Once Anita was on the phone Evan explained that we knew it was very late notice but we were wondering if there were two beds available. She asked where he was and he said he was standing outside her house, we all laughed and she said she’d be right out. Now I have to mention here that in my emails with this woman she had seemed very quick and perhaps somewhat irritated with me (although it wasn’t my fault that the bank was closed), so I didn’t want her to know that I was the same girl from the emails. I never would have thought to do this, but Evan suggested it when I had said earlier that I didn’t want to make this woman any more irritated with Sarah Regan. Looking back on it this was probably unnecessary, but whatever. So she came out and Evan introduced himself and I decided on the alias of Joey Potter (yes, from Dawson’s Creek). Anita explained to us that some people had asked for beds but hadn’t shown up (which was me, but in my defense she had emailed me that morning and said she gave the beds away because I hadn’t deposited money yet), so she did have 2 available. Again, we thanked God for a warm place to stay.

I put my bag in my room, made my bed, and before I could think about my hunger again the group of people in the lounge offered us pasta! They had made way too much and were strongly encouraging us to eat with them. It didn’t take any coaxing for me to make a big plate and thank them repeatedly. Fortunately Evan wasn’t all that hungry because all the pasta had meat sauce on it and he’s a vegetarian. They poked fun at him for only eating an 8th of what I had, but he was polite and did eat some of it (luckily only enough to give him a small stomach ache later). The people staying in the same building as us were so friendly and welcoming, and it was really interesting talking with them. Some were family members, others just friends, but they run the ultra-marathon together each year (Two Oceans has no standard marathon, just a 21k and 56k). Some guys were doing it for the 9th year and they were in their mid-sixties now. They told us all about Comrades too, which is the biggest ultra in South Africa at 90k (~54 miles)! They asked us how we were getting to the race in the morning and we said we’d planned on walking since it was only 3km away (the one thing I did right was pick a place close to the start so we didn’t have to worry about transportation). However, they insisted that we catch a ride with one of them to save time. The guy who had given us Anita’s (incorrect) cell phone number earlier immediately agreed to drive us. We thanked him profusely and chatted a bit longer before heading to bed around 8:30pm.

I got up at 4am, after tossing and turning all night, and got dressed for the race. We were in the car by 4:30 and at the start by 4:45. We bought some crackers for breakfast, pinned our numbers on, put our bag in a van that would take it to the finish line, did a quick warm up jog, and joined the 11,000 people who were lining up for the race. While standing in the crowd with 15 minutes to go before the gun went off we replayed the previous night in our heads and appreciated the fact that we made it to starting line. We may have been ill-prepared, but we had a lot of fun. It was the first time we’d done something more than a day trip on our own here in South Africa, because we’re always with the other 45 Americans in our program whenever we travel. With that many people you rarely get to interact with the locals and make connections with people like we had last night. And most importantly, even though we didn’t have a concrete plan, we knew we were in safe areas and were aware of any places that should be avoided.

So the gun went off at 6am, while it was still dark outside, and after about 3 minutes of walking with the whole crowd we could begin jogging. The first 3k was pretty slow because the pack was still tight, but we were able to pick it up after that. I felt really good from 4k-10k (and by this time the sun was up), then from 11k to 16k was quite a bit tougher. The middle part of the course had some rolling hills, but after that there was a gradual up hill that last for about 4 kilometers. The final 5k wasn’t too bad and we both finished in 2 hours and 11 minutes. It was 1 minute over my goal, but I was still pleased. Plus we got bronze medals for finishing within 3 hours so that was sweet. The most amusing thing about the race was that they offered Coke at every single refreshment stand (along with water and Powerade), and at the end of the race you got a voucher that could be redeemed for either a Coke or a water. From what I saw it looked like roughly 80% of the runners were drinking Cokes behind the finish line. Apparently this is true of most races in South Africa, which doesn’t actually surprise me because people are crazy about Coke here.

We sat for a few minutes, rested our legs, and retrieved our bag from the van before taking off in search of the nearest train station. After a mile long walk, a 15 minute ride back to Cape Town, an 80 minute ride to Stellenbosch, and a 30 minute walk we were finally back at home. It had been an awesome adventure and a great race.