This past weekend there were 2 races to choose from: Kleinmond Half on Saturday - a bit of a drive out of town, but a very scenic area, or the UCT Memorial 10K on Sunday. I decided to try out the Kleinmond race, as I'd never done it before. And the views along the way made it worth the drive (even counting the bad weather!) I haven't done the UCT Memorial either, but I run in this area regularly with all the Hillbillies. Claremont, Rondebosch, Rhodes Mem...
So off I went to Kleinmond at half-past-stupid on Saturday morning (or still Friday night for some!) Got there in plenty of time, even had a brief snooze in my car waiting for the start to get a little closer. The start was delayed a few minutes by the traffic officials - a slight morning rush hour decided to happen just then and we had to wait for the cars to clear out before heading down the main road through town...
A surpring lot of this race was off-road. We even had a section along the beach, although this was not on the beach sand itself like the neighbouring Bettys Bay Half (December)- we ran along the paved foot path. It was a scenic route, but I'm beginning to wonder if this part of the world has any 'road' races! One big advantage of running all the way out here is that the fields are very small - most people opt for the races closer to home. I think that estimating 250 runners for Saturday would be pretty optimistic!
Most of the rest of the race was run around this area, along the dirt road. Lots of up at first, followed by a fairly steep descent. It was also round about here that the kay markers started going crazy - now we see 17km (and my Garmin says 9.5!), then we see nothing for a while but find a couple of refreshment stations. Now suddenly here's 11km, then 10! We're going backwards? Wrong turn somewhere? Thankfully it wasn't just me - EVERYONE took the same wrong route, I guess one of the marshals was a little confused...? But we eventually found our way back to the town roads (18km according to the race signs, 14.5 according to Garmin - with confirmation from another runner that he had the same values recorded). When we finished we were congratulated on finishing 17.7km - not bad for a Saturday morning, sometimes warm and sunny, sometimes cold and raining!! And we got a beautiful sea-shell shaped medal (try saying that fast 10x!!)
All in all a very enjoyable race, well worth the long drive and early morning.
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Ha Ha!! it seems like it was still Friday night for one Mnr. Marshall!!:)) well done, Angela!
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