TRAIL Mag Cape Trail Clinic Nov 2016

This weekend I was privileged enough to attend my 2nd Cape Trail Clinic. Again there were lots of friendly banter between old (and new) friends, inspirational talks & tips and awesome sponsors like: Brooks, 32Gi, RUN Store, Rugani and StaminoGro. This time I swopped my Achilles injury for a shaky ankle, but that did not prevent me from working my glutes to where they still (2 days later) remind me of Devon’s special dynamic stretches.

Here are a few useful things I learned:

• Always hide in a Brooks store during a zombie apocalypse. If you can’t find a store, make sure you wear Brooks to run over water with Brooks’ DNA midsole technology. [Very educational Brad & Grant]
• Running technique and a cadence of 180 bpm are critical. If you’re a 110kg rugby player, 180 is tougher than it looks. See how close you can get. [Thanks Sean]
• Make sure you eat/drink to recover within 15min of your run. You may even recover with a beer after a run. Just one… make sure it is a 1l draught. ;) [Thanks Sean]
• Monitor yourself and stop before you get to your red-zone! [Thanks Nic]
• Be careful when rolling your trail snacks - you might end up with balls that are too big (like Sean’s). [Thanks Heloise] 
• Soak your almonds in water for an evening before you eat them – wow, they really do taste a lot different! [Thanks Deon]
• Do not volunteer for Heloise’s demos. Unless you would like to pose as a human version of a stomach - my condolences to the brave volunteers.
• Weird stretches on tables will cause copious amounts of banter and laughter. [Thanks Chris]
• The Marathon des Sables is a crazy stage race in the Sahara Desert where you may end up with 60% of your feet in blisters and a flesh eating camel spider chewing on you during the night. Was I the only crazy person thinking I would like to do that? [Thanks Kevin for the inspirational talk] 

If you did not understand any of my tips… good. Make sure you are at the next Trail Clinic, otherwise you will miss out again!

Go here to find out more: https://trailmag.co.za/clinic/

Sean talking about running technique

Ladder exercises

Nic talking about the awesome Addo 100

And some running...

More running above Coetzenburg

The rarely spotted Deon in his natural environment

Nic flying over this technical section

Trying out this awesome downhill single track

Jan Ham mid air

Chris demonstrating a stretch

Kevin showing us the Marathon des Sables camp