two oceans recap

Rainy Easter Sunday here. I really lucked out on the weather--yesterday was beautiful and warm, perfect for the Two Oceans. I'm glad the rain waited until today.

Yesterday morning at 5:15 a cab picked me up to take me to the 6 AM start of the Two Oceans half marathon in Newlands, just a few miles from my house. On a complete whim, Nick, never registering for the race and never having run over six miles, decided to illegally join the run. This was not a difficult task, considering there were 14,000 other half marathon participants (the other 9000 of the 23,000 total ran the ultra--more on that later). Here we are at 5:30 in the morning, looking less than attractive.


The race start was insane. Since I didn't provide a mile time, I was placed in the final seeding, which meant that I didn't start until about five minutes after the cannon (Yes it was a cannon, not a gun) went off. The crowds were insane and it was difficult to set a pace for about the first 4 or 5 mile because there were so many runners! I ended up running the first 5 miles at an 10:30 mile pace, which is significantly slower than what I'm comfortable with, simply because it was impossible to move through the crowd. By mile 6 I was able to make my way through them and increase my pace.

The race took us from Newlands to Claremont towards Wynberg (VINEEEEBERG!!) and Constantia. The mountain views were incredible. From miles 7 to 8, the course went straight up hill. I was getting a little bit tired at this point but thanks to the many refreshment stations I had a constant supply of powerade and water sachets, even though I accidentally squirted powerade directly in my eye around mile 9. At the top of the hill we had a beautiful view of the sunrise over the Southern Suburbs all the way to the Cape Flats.

The last 4 miles followed Rhodes Drive to Kirstenbosch and eventually to UCT's upper campus, where the race ended. I completed the race in about 2:15, which was slower than I expected, but I know that the slower pace was definitely due to the crowds. While it was little slower than projected, it allowed me to be mostly comfortable the entire race, although I was pretty tired by the last mile. The crowd encouragement was beautiful all along the course and running toward the finish line with so many spectators was a complete adrenaline rush. Nick and I found each other at the finish line, grabbed water (and a Diet Coke for me--sometimes it is just the most refreshing thing ever) and retrieved my backpack from the bag drop for some photo opportunities.


happy happy happy to be done with beautiful UCT in the background--the only difference between us is that I had a number and he didn't...he still got a medal though!

check out 82 year old oupa (grandpa in Afrikaans)! He definitely had a lekker run and finished not far behind us!



if you look closely you can see my Afghanistan registration



We chilled for a while and waited for the ultra marathoners to come in. THIS was the most incredible part of the entire day. The first ultra runner finished in around 3 hours 10 minutes. UNBELIEVABLE. 36 miles! In barely over 3 hours. The ultra followed the same southbound course as us, but instead of turning back to UCT, the ultra went all the way to Muizenburg to Simon's Town, across the peninsula to Hout Bay and Chapman's peak, then back towards UCT. I cannot fathom how one does this. We had an amazing view from the top of the footbridge over the finish line and got to see the winner make his way to the finish.


here he comes...


VROOOOOOOOM


I love this picture--I think it captures the energy of the race so well


the first lady to come in. She's Russian and has run the race with her twin sister for the past eight or nine years. One of them wins for the women each year.





Yesterday was undoubtedly one of the most incredible days I've had in Cape Town. The positive energy of both the runners and the spectators was so contagious. My race was amazing and so much fun, but it was definitely watching the end of the ultra marathon that made the day. The dedication and strength of those runners blows my mind. I know I'll be back for another Two Oceans some day...maybe I'll even be crossing the finish line as an ultra marathoner then!

lekker run!

Two Oceans half marathon, done. I have a million pictures to upload but right now I am riding on the waves of post-race elation and looking for a shower and a trip to Old Biscuit Mill to refuel.

balloons and flags

What a beautiful fall day in Cape Town!
This morning I ran in the Two Oceans International Friendship Run, which took runners from all different countries on a nice 5K from the Waterfront to Green Point and back. Emily joined me for the run but definitely ran a lot faster than I did, since I kept a really slow pace the whole run as to not wear myself out before tomorrow.
I got to chat with participants from all over, including a guy from Costa Rica who told me he's run 10 marathons but never an ultra, and that he cries each time he finishes. I also heard announcements of how many runners from each country--ONE FROM AFGHANISTAN. That's me. Unfortunately neither Emily nor I had any clue what the Afghanistan flag looks like so we couldn't pick it out from all the flags at the start of the run, otherwise I would have gotten a picture representing my country.






There was a wonderful stop halfway through where I got to help this lovely little lady find a new pair of shoes. Old Mutual donates a portion of the money it makes on the Two Oceans entires to help kids in Cape Town get new shoes for school.


Afterwards Emily and I used our race goodie bags of candy to pay our minibus fare back to Mowbray. I should really start carrying bags of M&Ms instead of cash because the caller seemed a lot more excited to get his payment in candy instead of in five rand!

afghanistan?

The Two Oceans half and ultra marathon occurs in just two short days. UCT's upper campus rugby fields are covered in tents and Old Mutual flags leading up to the finish line in preparation for 23,000 runners to cross on Saturday morning. I will be one of them!

I made my way to the expo in the city today to pick up my packet and score some cheap clothes and t-shirts. Upon picking up my registration, I found the following information:
Name: Margaret Katherine Winthrop
Race: 21K
Birthdate: 11/07/1989
Country: Afghanistan

Huh. I'm guessing that in registering for the race, which I distinctly remember doing on a frigid and dark December afternoon in Bixler Library, I failed to select my country from the drop down menu, and thus it was left at the first country on the alphabetical list, Afghanistan.

As I was flipping through the Two Oceans pamphlet I saw a list of numbers of runners from each country. Guess how many from Afghanistan? One female registered for the 21K. That's me! Margaret Katherine Winthrop of Afghanistan.

So even if I place #22,999 in the race, I'll still have the honor of being the number one Afghani woman to run the Two Oceans. Forget the other 250 Americans. As far as the Two Oceans administration knows I'm straight out of Kabul!

parents

My German housemate Jonas's parents are currently visiting him here in Cape Town, and for some reason, they're staying in our house. While it is a little bit weird to come downstairs in the morning to see two middle aged people sitting at our kitchen table sipping coffee and reading the newspaper, having adults around has been an absolute delight. Mostly because they wash all their dishes, dry them and put them up. A dream come true, considering the contention and strife (the pro-dishwashing campaign led by me and Lindsey versus the lazy opposition) that dishes have brought 4 Selby Road in the past few weeks. Our kitchen has never looked so clean thanks to the presence of parents. The sound of running water and clinking glasses downstairs brings me such joy and so much appreciation for grown-ups. I don't want them to leave!


Obviously not our dishes (hence the watermark indicative of stock photography) but since I've been lacking in pictures recently, I think this conveys what our kitchen normally looks like in the absence of adults.

Now with Jonas's parents around, it's more like this. Man I love stock photos.

"you think you are better than me, white bitch?"

I had a bizarre experience last night. As I was walking through Rondebosch on my way back from my beloved Pick 'n Pay, an obviously intoxicated man looked at me and yelled in my direction, "It must be nice to be white, isn't it?" I try to engage strangers as little as possible, so I continued walking in the other direction.
I returned to Rondebosch a little later last night to make a stop to buy airtime, and the same man approached me. This time he got closer to the point that he was almost in my face. "You think you are better than me, white bitch?" he asked. In a gesture that probably pissed him off even more I sidestepped him and moved in the other direction as quickly as possible.
While I wasn't directly threatened or anything, the whole experience perplexed me. Each time I was alone, wearing pretty plain clothing and carrying only a canvas tote bag for groceries. Since I wasn't speaking with anyone, my accent wouldn't have been obvious. I wasn't checking my cell phone (which is honestly a piece of junk) or showing off anything. I realize the guy was probably just drunk or high and angry, but for some reason, getting called a bitch in reference to my race by a stranger affected me more than getting called a bitch by my housemates for asking them to do their dishes.

In my time in Cape Town I have found that I learn the most not through tours or books, but by going about my day to day life in this place that is profoundly different than anything I have ever experienced. From getting called a white bitch on the street, to waiting for a minibus at the city bus rank in downtown Cape Town, to running miles and dodging Benzes and BMWs in the affluent Southern Suburbs, everything I have experienced is more personal thought-provoking than anything any CIEE tour could ever teach me.

In other news, I finished 11 miles this morning and am feeling pretty prepared for the Two Oceans half marathon this weekend. Off to read and rest my aching legs.

the golden bowl and faulty new balance shorts pocket

My house, like most in Cape Town, is protected on the outside by a large electric metal gate, operated by a remote control. When I first moved in, I was given a remote to open the gate that hangs on my keyring and basically looks like a garage door opener. Since I never got to experience an electric garage door growing up (we have a carport and an open garage), opening and closing the gate via a remote was particularly novel for me.

When I run, I normally remove the remote from my house keys and loop the remote control onto my shoelaces. Yesterday I decided to try out the Velcro pocket on my New Balance running shorts and place the key there instead. This turned out to be a poor idea (or just poor construction on the part of New Balance), because halfway through my run I realized I had lost my key somewhere on the streets of Observatory or Rondebosch or Mowbray. I traced my steps, but to no avail. My remote control has disappeared into the hands of some lucky (but hopefully unaware, and uninterested in robbery) Capetonian. Unfortunately I have to wait until Monday when my landlord returns from vacation to get a replacement. For now I have mastered the art of reaching my hand through the burglar bars on the front door, opening the gate from the inside all the way, pressing the close button and dashing out before it closes all the way.

It is still strange for me to deal with such a high level of home security, but at the same time, it will also be strange for me to return to the US, where everyone has open front yards and front doors that lead to the street, all unprotected by electric gates, barbed wire and burglar bars.

In other news, Nick and I attempted to recreate my favorite Grit golden bowl for dinner last night. It was a pretty successful albeit unattractive dinner. Nutritional yeast is weird and tofu is hard to cook. But the taste was the same!

hello penguins round 3

Yesterday my friend Nick and I took advantage of the beautiful fall weather with a trip to False Bay and Simon's Town to visit our friends, the jackass penguins.








Metrorail is only safe for such activities when it is stopped and uncrowded (and not headed in the direction of Brackenfell, as it was on our last train trip)

photos finally

I have to admit that I have been really not on top of it with taking photos, so the following photos were not actually taken by me. But I think they capture my spring/fall break trip pretty well:

Cape Town airport. Amazingly, I packed 8 days worth of clothing into my relatively small backpack.

Durban-the dude in the RVCA shirt is our friend Kulu, a Durban resident who we met on a night out in Cape Town. We met up with him in Durban for tacos and a trip to the most bizarre mall of all time.

Our safari in Kwazulu-Natal

observant

(ze)bras

I love rhinos--Hluhluwe Park in Kwazulu-Natal has the highest number of rhinos of any game park in Africa


Crossing the border into Swaziland--it was incredible how quickly the infrastructure changed in just a few yards from South Africa

Nick dangerously snapped this photo of the sleeping ladies--we obviously kept him good company on our drive

Beautiful Mozambique sunset

Emily and I have our own version of deep sea fishing


mermaidz

And lastly, the most thrilling part of my trip: flying the Britten-Norman Islander with my friends and 22-year-old pilot pal Simon:

apparently they stopped making these planes in the early 1970s? I guess this guy is pretty old





Finally!

the thrill of flight

I have just returned from my spring/fall break trip to kwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland and Mozambique. I will save details for when I have pictures, but for now I can give just a few (of many) highlights:

-I got lots of practice speaking Afrikaans; despite being sort of drunk most of the times I spoke, native speakers gave me lots of compliments and told me that I "praat baie goed Afrikaans"
-My three traveling companions and I got lost in our rental car in Zululand in a dark rain
-I got asked on a date by a five-foot tall man at the Swaziland border; unfortunately I could not accept as we were only staying in Swaziland for a day and a half
-I ran on a farm in beautiful Swaziland and watched the sun set
-I went deep sea fishing and watched a wahoo be caught in Mozambique (although we didn't catch it ourselves, we enjoyed the fish braaied for dinner and it was amazing)
-Thanks to doxycycline and particularly strong Mozambican sun, I am nearly five shades darker than I was when I left Cape Town
-I drove on the other side of the road in the terrifying city of Maputo

the highlight of my trip, however, was handling the controls of the island-hopper plane over the Indian Ocean from Maputo to Inhaca Island. I asked the pilot (who turned out to be 22 years old and someone we ended up hanging out with a lot once in Inhaca) if I could sit in the copilot seat; when I told him I was interested in getting a pilot's license, he offered to take off and land and let me control the plane for the 10 minutes over the ocean. Whatever words I type can't describe how thrilling, incredible and exciting it was to hold each side of the yoke, feel the plane's nose rise as I pulled back, and look out the window at the ocean below me and REALIZE I WAS CONTROLLING AN AIRPLANE.

On our way back to Maputo, our pilot Simon offered us to take us on a little bit of a joyride where we flew just a few meters above the beach and got to experience levitating cellphones/hats/bodies through negative g-force. Unfortunately, due to afternoon turbulence and a complete lack of experience, Simon let me make the flight and approach into Maputo, but he took the controls for the landing (I was really happy to hand them back after feeling a big turbulent bump).

I am completely enamored with the idea of flying right now. After years of watching my dad fly, I have always kept it in the back of my mind that I'd like to get a pilot's license. The thrill of my short flight in Mozambique has given me complete determination to do it.