011: Running PBs is a lot like drinking unicorn blood.

Running for health is really simple in theory. You only need to elevate your heart rate for roughly 150 minutes per week. You can engage in light cross training by swinging a padel racquet with three equally chilled friends, hitting a singletrack with your mountain bike or attending a hot yoga class where you are guaranteed to be the least attractive person in the room. You never need to worry about planning and suffering the blood-taste-in-your-mouth agony of interval speed sessions. You never need to submit yourself to the syrupy nightmare of gut training by stomaching many, many gels. And, most importantly, you never need to wake up at a time that a teenage version of yourself would’ve deemed a reasonable bed time.  All to do a run so long that even your car’s fuel indicator would drop by one bar.

Ever since I ran my first sub-2-hour half marathon in September 2017, I’ve had the idea to run the 21.1km distance in under 100 minutes. Why? When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, the British mountaineer, George Mallory simply said:

Mallory attempted the feat three times in the 1920s and disappeared off the face of the earth with his climbing partner Sandy Irvine in 1924. We still don’t know if they actually reached the summit.

Running a 21km sub-100 minutes is nothing like climbing Everest. It is best achieved by staying away from anything that resembles even the slightest incline and while cold weather is encouraged. No special gear is required. And - conveniently - no-one dies waiting to reach the summit while others take their turn at the top. It is also not a massively impressive goal in the context of running performance. It is very far away from being the pinnacle of the sport, but for a capable and committed amateur athlete it represents a very realistic, yet challenging target.

The sub-100 was therefore a goal that frightened me just enough to get started with training and remained attainable enough that I kept coming back to it every time that I had recovered from the siren’s song that is the Comrades Marathon. Since 2017 I’ve slowly improved my 21k Personal Best (PB) and on 13 September 2025, almost exactly 8 years to the day of my first sub-2, in the same streets of Pierre van Ryneveld (PvR), Centurion, I ran my first sub-100 21k.

I was joined in the run by two champion friends, Michael Strydom and Marius Potgieter. While Marius missed the mark by a slight margin, Michael also ran a sub-100 and a PB. It wasn’t as part of an official race. It was just three friends who looked at a goal time, said “because it’s there” and gave it an almighty shot. We ran 4 laps of a flat 5.3km loop in the quiet streets of PvR. The sub-100 was never really in doubt after the second lap and by the end of the third lap, with newfound belief, Michael and I decided to put down the hammer. Michael finished in 1:38:05 and I stopped the clock at 1:37:22. 97 minutes and 22 seconds. Well clear of the 100 minute goal.

In the aftermath I have been reminded of the simple hard truth that running for PBs is a lot like drinking unicorn blood.

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco Malfoy get detention for being out of bed at night and need to do curfew with the bearded half-giant groundskeeper, Hagrid, and his bloodhound, Fang. For some reason, someone at the school decided that it would be appropriate for 11-year-olds to go into a forest at night to look for wounded unicorns. After some searching, Harry stumbles upon a hooded figure – who it later turns out to be Professor Quirrell with Lord Voldemort attached to the back of his turbaned head – drinking unicorn blood. Quirrell turns to attack him, but flees when Harry is saved by a centaur named Firenze. When Harry asks what happened and why it was drinking the unicorn’s blood, Firenze explains:

Chasing PBs is the lifeblood of ambitious runners. The world is complex, ambiguity reigns supreme and it is often difficult to know if you’re “making a dent in the universe” (as Steve Jobs once said) in work and social matters. Running a specific distance in a specific time gives a clear, uncomplicated goal to measure your progress - it's a pure goal. When it feels like you’re the one being unraveled in your efforts to unravel life’s complexity, a PB gives you a lifeline.

But it comes at a price. The hypothetical runner created at the start of this essay who runs for health is one who never dares to challenge their own abilities. They simply run for fun and fulfilment. Contrastingly, PB chasing runners walk a permanent tight rope of physical and mental exertion. If your body doesn’t develop a niggle, your mind will start to play tricks on you in the hope of convincing you to rather aim for a more humble goal. When you start to develop a taste for chasing PBs, you need to admit the following cold, hard truth:

Ever since I tasted the unicorn blood of my first sub-2-hour half marathon, I have committed to running and trying to improve my performance, but have experienced the curse of ambition. I have had debilitating injuries and complete mental meltdowns. I am not a “unicorn” in the sense that I am unique in this regard. Many runners before me have tasted the unicorn blood and continued in this cursed manner and many more will follow, each adamant that they will be that one runner that will be different from the rest. One day, they say, they’ll stop worrying about chasing PBs. Come the next race, though, they’ll be there with an ambitious Garmin PacePro plan loaded on their watch, a semi-deranged gleam in the eyes and an on-the-edge-of-injury-wobble in the knees.

Once a personal best is achieved, euphoria is reached. Coming down from the high, the "post-production blues" follow shortly thereafter and instead of simply saying, “You know what, that’s me. I’m going to embrace the yoga pant life and simply run for my health” even if only for a little while, the PB runner swiftly moves on to the next goal, completely in denial of being absolutely shattered from the attempt to achieve a remarkable personal ambition. The personal worst then starts to become the personal norm when the next training block begins with no regard for mind, body or spirit.

And after going sub-100 for the first time guess what I did? I immediately intended to jump into marathon training. And within a single, miserable run, I was floored by another Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URTI) brought home by my darling boy from his kindergarten - my gazillionth in the last 18 months. Other runners are cursed by delicate muscles, tearing hamstrings and calf muscles at will. My injury is one of the immune system. I produce snot as if I am the only customer of Twinsaver tissues in the whole world and they need my use of their product to stay afloat. As I recover from this latest bout and  navigate the consequent descent into a pit of mental turmoil, I am already planning my onslaught for the Waterberg Marathon in November. If there were a PB Runners Anonymous, I would have to stand up and say,

Running PBs is like drinking unicorn blood. It gives a lifeline of measurable progress amid life’s uncertainty, but it comes at a price of physical and mental stability. Rather than trying to understand the desperate need for the lifeline in the first place, the PB runner keeps accepting the cursed life. They navigate the injuries – and excessive tissue use in my case. Someone else can fill up the padel team, the mountain bike can gather dust in the garage and the beautiful yoga class partners will have to wait another training block.

Why? Well, the late George Mallory said it best: “Because it’s there.”

And that’s probably more than enough reason to keep going. Someday we might also disappear off the face of the earth in the effort, but what a way wouldn’t it be to go by leaving your watch unpaused as you perish. And with that final act leaving everyone who loves you (and follows you on Strava) to wonder, for the rest of time:

For the cursed PB runner, that might just be the perfect justification for taking another thirsty gulp of unicorn blood.