The Giant's Cup

I recently completed my first long trail race, set in the Southern Drakensberg mountains with Emma, my siblings and their partners. It spanned 2 days with 30km on the first, and 15km on the second, winding through valleys and around mountains. It was spectacular. I love coming to the Drakensberg, which is a beautiful and unique mountain range, and I'm glad to have the excuse to be here. While I'm generally an active person, I've never been a runner. My first proper run (more than 3km) was in January this year after my brother twisted my (and Emma's) arm into signing up for this race. Since this was not a trivial distance, it meant I couldn't just wing it on my base fitness, and so Emma and I started running 2-3 times a week in preparation. We had 15 weeks until the event and settled on a fairly simple training plan: Run 5km each Wednesday, usually on the Sea Point Prominade, while increasing the speed gradually each week (it took me a few weeks to get to the initial 5km though) Longer…