Jonkershoek Mountain Challenge - 21k
On May 5th (Happy Birthday Grandmom!!), I ran my first long distance race. Since I ran cross country in middle school and high school, I am pretty used to running 5ks, but this race was considerably longer. I was originally going to run the 10k Mountain Challenge, but after running with Neil almost every day and doing weekly hill repeats, I felt that I needed more of a challenge. It worked out too that one of my friends had signed up for the 21k but got hurt, so I ending up taking his place. The race started pretty early and the course took me around 2 hours and 45 minutes which put me finishing just about in the middle of the pack. The race was literally up a mountain. You started running for a while and then everyone formed a single file line and started hiking - rather quickly. Once you reached the top, everyone started running again because now is was down hill the rest of way. In this race there was just over 900m of elevation change. It was actually pretty nice on the way down although the way up was definitely a challenge. But I finished before my goal (3 hours) and didn’t want to die at the end. Also, I bloodied my knee (it was really just a scrape, but it bled a lot) so when I finished, I looked pretty hard core. All in all, I thought it was a success.
I had to carry all of this in my pack just in case I got stranded.
Some of the people I ran with. Toke, Sarah, Thomas and Amanda.
Here's what the course looked like on it's side. It very clearly shows that the race was up a mountain and then down.
Helderburg Mountain Challenge - 15k
Right after the semester ended I ran another mountain challenge. One my friends had signed up for it and then hurt her ankle, so I took her place and pretended to be her for the race - so when I crossed the finish line they said her name and not mine! This one was awful. Although there was actually less elevation change (a little under 900m), the hike up was much steeper (as in some minor rock climbing was necessary in parts) and the way down was rather treacherous. At least 3 people got pretty seriously hurt during the race and there were two helicopter rescues. I was much less prepared for this race which may have part of the reason it felt so bad. I spent the week prior to the race finishing all the work I had to do before the semester ended, staying up late, not running everyday and eating much more junk than usual (I’m pretty sure I finished a jar of Nutella in a week). But I finished and I only was slightly bloodied and the scenery was beautiful.
Dirt!!
Battle wounds.
What the race looked like!
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