01
The Journey
Not a finish line, just a long line of mornings. Midrand waking up, my own small footprints in the dew, and the slow accumulation of "I went anyway." The road isn't a place — it's a habit of returning to myself.
A long-form running journal. Less about the medals, more about the quiet work of becoming — sunrise kilometers, the questions I find at km 22, and the slow art of meeting myself out on the road.
It started as discipline. It turned into something quieter.
Not a finish line, just a long line of mornings. Midrand waking up, my own small footprints in the dew, and the slow accumulation of "I went anyway." The road isn't a place — it's a habit of returning to myself.
Around km 22 something interesting happens: the noise gets quieter and the questions get clearer. The run becomes a confessional. I find out what I actually believe — about effort, about patience, about why I started in the first place.
Past the wall the negotiation goes silent. There's a person on the other side of the long run who is steadier, kinder, and harder to rattle than the one who started. Showing up is how I keep meeting them.
Stories from training, races, and the negotiation table at km 22.
Two minutes late at the gun, a freezing morning at Irene, and the discipline of walking the first hundred metres. A 15 km lesson in why patience finishes faster than panic.
Rituals & RoutinesThere's a 16-minute swing between alarm and laces where the magic lives. A look at the protocol that turns a snooze button into a kilometre-crunching machine.
Long-Run ChroniclesMisty 10°C, 85% humidity, two gels, and one regrettable cheese roll at km 25. What I learned breaking the wall — and the route into 5 km "rooms".
Mind Over kmExpo day smells like fresh race tees and overpriced waffles. Here's the four-step calm-down protocol that actually quiets the noise on race morning.
"The version of me that finished the run is never the version that started it. That gap — small, daily, repeated — is the whole point."
— Field note, somewhere past km 25
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