Review of Soweto Marathon - 07 November 2010
| Sport | Race |
| Event | Soweto Marathon |
| Date | 07 November 2010 |
| Where | Soweto, South Africa |
| Distance | 42 Km |
| Finishing Time | 03:58:17 |
| Race Number | 2497 |
| Result | 1581/4879 |
| Top % | 32% |
| Pace | 5:40 m/km |
| Speed | 10.58 km/h |
| Click here for details about Soweto Marathon | |
| Comments | View Comments |
My experience at the event:
And so after 3 years I'm back at completing marathons. This was my eleventh and it was by far the hardest.Sure, I'm older than when I started running crazy 42km races, and I'm definitely heavier (you know, married life...), but even after spending almost 2 months traning whenever I could, I struggled to complete the course.
It was hard. The many hills of Soweto were followed by crazy downhills against wind, but the worst part, the main reason why everyone couldn't stop moaning was the damn traffic.
How the hell can you organize a marathon in Ney York, or London, or Paris, and manage to convince 2-3-4 million people to NOT drive that morning but if you are in Soweto police cannot do anything to stop the taxi drivers?
Yes, taxi drivers in their crazy minibus. Our lane to run was reduced in certain areas so the taxi drivers could easily squeeze against traffic AND cut the runners.
I personally risked my life at least 3-4 times when some idiot at the steering wheel decided that it was cool to cut across the running lane, with volunteers and police officers doing really little to prevent it. Never in my life I had to swear and shout so much to make those bastards aware of the little fact that there was a marathon on a sunday morning and 5000 people just wanted to finish it.
Water disappeared for strange reason (who decided that Coke was a good liquid in a marathon? Where was the fruit?) and the organisation was terrible. Awful. I finished in a terrible time, still below the 4 hours mark which was my goal, but I ended up home being sore and frustrated by the awfulness of the event.
And seeing fat 10km runners going home with the goodie bags while I just ended 4 hours to get a lousy XXXL shirt was just the perfect way to end the experience...
