Wilhelm du Plooy Two Oceans 2003 continued

At exactly 6am the gun went off and we were off. From the start we were right on target and ran at around 3:57 for the first 15 odd km. At this time both myself and Frank was trying to hold Yolandi back a bit, but she was like a racehorse rearing to go. At the 12km mark we were running with the main ‘bus’ of athletes that always surround the first ladies. Our 15km split was 0:59:00 which was well ahead of our anticipated split time of 1 hour. By the time we got to 21km 1:22:44 Yolandi was about 100m ahead of Frank and myself. We started revising our race strategy, because we didn’t think Yolandi was going to be doing this well.

We decided to tell her to go for it!! She was running at a steady 4min/km and was looking great. I caught up with her while Frank stayed behind. Yolandi and myself had a little chat and I warned her not to run too hard up Ou Kaapse Weg and to take it easy on the downhill. Both Frank and myself were anticipating that we could catch her on the big hill and then at least we could help her through the rest of the race. I wished her good luck and dropped off the pace to wait for Frank. The two of us went up Ou Kaaps at a steady 5 min/km but Yolandi was nowhere to be seen. Down the other side we still ran according to schedule and did 4 min/km. At the bottom of Ou Kaapse Weg, 36km into the race, we were still on target for a sub 4 hour time and an easy silver.

From then on in Frank started to battle. Our km splits started falling away and we were doing 4:20-4:30 per km. At the marathon mark our split time was 2:57:36 which meant that we had 1hr and 2 minutes to run the last 14km. This would be relatively easy, however we still had to contend with Southern Cross Drive. Unfortunately Frank was feeling sluggish and battled to keep up the pace. On the first kilometre up Southern Cross we did a 5:16k, and I had to make a decision. Either I would stick with Frank and see if he can run through this bad patch or I would leave him behind and get my silver. I chose to go for my silver. With 9km to go and only 43 minutes in hand I left Frank. I still had 2km of climbing left up Southern Cross and put in a few fast kilometres just to make sure that I wouldn’t end up being 20 seconds short.

The last 5km, I ran with another running friend of mine from Irene Club, and we were doing 4:10/km. I finished in a time of 3:57:55. ANOTHER SILVER!!!!!!

It was a really easy run for me. Yolandi was the star of the day and ran a 3:47. In doing so she got 5th position and a nice R10 000 cheque for her efforts. That is not to mention the incentives that she will be getting from Mr. Price her sponsor. Unfortunately Frank didn’t make the silver cut-off and ran a 4:06. He was disappointed, but still had a good run and he is well on his way to yet another silver Comrades.

Two Oceans 2003 was yet again the highlight in my running year and I will definitely be back next year to collect my 4th Silver.

For those interested here are my split times :