The race mission assigned by my awesome coach, David Roche: RUN LIKE A PUPPY: positivity is a performance enhancer, smile your cheeks off. I’m proud to say I completed that mission, although running like a puppy is an ongoing goal I will always be trying to achieve. Seeing as this was my 4th consecutive African X, I decided to look back and read all my previous race reports – 2014, 2015 and 2016 - to try and remember the feelings and moments that the race has previously brought. It was quite enlightening to read how much I’ve learnt over the years. It was even more wonderful to acknowledge that my love of trail running, racing, single track, mountains, and pine forests has not diminished one
It’s incredible how life presents you with all sorts of different experiences, each to give you an opportunity to grow. Sometimes, these experiences are ones of elation and confidence, and sometimes they feel horrible at the time, and only afterwards do you see the opportunity in them. Coming off the back of my 3rd consecutive African X win and my first DNF of my running career, I’ve had all these experiences squashed into 2 weeks. And what I’ve learnt, is that I’ve learnt more from the DNF than the win… African X was absolutely wonderful! Landie and I had fun, ran strong, felt great (despite an infected blister on my foot) and really just had a beautiful 3 days of quality time together with
