Just keep showing up!
We’re back in Cape Town! It will always feel a little strange to leave the northern hemisphere, where the leaves are turning autumn colours and the evenings are getting dark and cosy, and arrive in Cape Town, where spring is in full swing. The days are getting longer, the flowers are blooming, and the running…
A week of running through fields, forests and lakes sounds like a runner’s dream, until you discover that the one thing you actually need is a hill. Add a quarry, an airport fine for carrying a “small” present, and things get a little more interesting – and more expensive.
I lined up for this half-marathon with a vague hope of running a couple of minutes faster than last year. Ten kilometres later, I was suddenly doing very different maths.
With 3.5 kilometres to go, the church clock struck 11:15. The 1:30 pacemaker was getting closer. And I had exactly 15 minutes to find out whether ten weeks with The Colonel had changed my running more than I thought…
I had an 8-page itinerary, fully trained parents and a hotel just 800 metres from the Eiffel Tower. What could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot when you forget to factor in regular meals. Our week in Paris with my elderly parents involved sightseeing, cafés, running, sparkling Eiffel Towers and a very dramatic dash across Gare de Lyon.
At 58, I thought I was doing pretty well with my running and fitness. Then I spent two days hiking with our 73-year-old friend Wolli, who is training for a 60 km UTMB race, and suddenly my standards needed adjusting. After struggling to keep up with Wolli and Marion, I returned to Zurich and lined up for a 14 km race of my own. Maybe I’m doing alright after all. Or maybe Wolli and Marion are just making me look bad!
What do you do when you’re training hard but don’t know what you’re training for? I’m currently running 95km a week, doing intervals, hills, long runs and double-run days, all while my next big race remains undecided. Having no goal is harder than I expected. So I’ve had to find other ways to stay motivated – a half marathon that might just give me a reason to chase one missing minute.
Our Alpine crossing was everything I hoped for — stunning mountains, cosy huts, and unforgettable memories. It also came with surprise guests, a wrong turn onto a challenging route, and a wallet mystery with a very unexpected ending.
A lot has been happening lately: celebrating my parents’ 64th wedding anniversary at beautiful Lake Lucerne, swimming across Lake Zurich (with risotto waiting at the finish line!), cheering on friends’ cycling adventures, and starting a brand-new chapter in my running journey. Meet my new coach, a no-nonsense endurance coach who is already pushing me out of my comfort zone!
I signed us up for a “lovely scenic half marathon” in the Swiss Alps. Only later did I realise it meant 1,150 metres of climbing and a finish line high on a mountain. Somewhere in between forest trails, a shrinking glacier and a brutal final ascent, my husband slowly accepted his fate. And just when we were done, the weather decided to have its say too.
Two weeks after the Cape Town Marathon, I am still in that in-between space of recovery and restlessness. I look back at the moments that stayed with me from race day and what is coming next: a mountain half-marathon in Switzerland, a Hyrox race in Cape Town, and the possibility of another major marathon in 2027.