Uniwisp 5-in-1 Marathon

I was so excited to run the Uniwisp 5-in-1 Marathon this was going to be my hope at comrades qualifier. Standing at the start line of the 42.2km at about 4am in the morning in the dark, we caught the first bus up the mountain. We had driven the route the day before to see exactly where the climbs were, my first 10km was amazing, handled the climbs well and the downs. But everything just didn’t work in my favor, I was running with a pouch that I had tested on 2 shorter races, this was all of a sudden not comfortable. My knee strap kept slipping off.  Overall my frustration was just arg.  My monthlys had started. And something that I didn’t take into consideration was the heat, the average tempreture for the day was 29 degrees.  At 21km I finally found a toilet, I was just done.  But I am not a quitter, I was going to finish the race. At 35km I didn’t feel like running anymore.  I was chaffing and not feeling it when a runner who was doing the 5okm came past me, he walked with me, and just kept me company. He encouraged me to run again, and so we walk-ran to the end of the race. I told him to run ahead, and he just said we have got this. I run so much easier if I have someone pacing me, and he just paced me to the end. When I needed water he would get at the station and just let me carry on, just keep moving.  Thank you so much, Walter, for being my support for the day. Those last km were so much better with you.

Pro’s of the Uniwisp 5-in-1 Marathon. There are some nice downs on the race, there were ample water stations on the road.

Con’s Uniwisp 5-in-1 Marathon it was a small race, this race has so much potential.  The road wasn’t closed for the race, so many trucks, there wasn’t any support for runners that needed an ambulance, or wanted to quit the race and be taken to the finish.  The race gets advertised as a fast marathon, so people have a wrong expectation of the race, some of the runners I ran with were doing there first Ultra and Marathon, and they were finished by 21km with all the climbs. There was no food or any stalls at the end of the race. It was literally finishing the race and climbing in my car and leaving.

Would I do this race again? Yes, I will do this race again.  One thing I realised on this run, what you put in is what you get out. There is no easy Marathon. 42km is still 42km.

Running is the only sport that what you put in is what you get out.  My failure to qualify Comrades on this race has nothing to do with the route, the temperature on the day, trucks, food stops, but purely due to not enough time on the road.

Don’t let this route profile fool you, there are so many ups on this route, the first 21km feels like one climb beside a small 3km ish down at about 5km.

So even though this overall race wasn’t so great, I still managed to get some good speed on the legs and stretch on the downs.