Harvest Trail Run - 15 March 2015

Afterwards!

Daughter, Taz, and I ran this one.  Taz was visiting from the UK, having come out a week or so before this run for the Cape Town Cycle Tour event.  Her hubby, Nick, and my hubs rode in that 47km event, much shortened due to the horrific mountain fires that had created such devastation over so many hectares the previous week, and renamed the Solidarity Ride.

Taz and I were entered into the 12.5km trail run.  Neither of us had done a trail run of this length before, in fact, Taz had never done a trail run before.  There were four events - a 15km, 12.5km, 7.5km and 5km runs.  Our event was starting at 7:45am.

Just before the run - preparing!

Taz couldn't believe how early races started in South Africa, but she did really well and managed to reach the trail centre at Delvera in Stellenbosch in time to pick up her number, although she didn't have time for a 'comfort break'!  Hope she doesn't mind me writing that!

The gun sent us off, and the 50 of us in the 12.5km race made our way up the road and out into the vineyards.

Taz - the first kilometre

I HATE warming up and running uphill!  There I was, huffing and puffing my way upwards through the vineyards and edge of the forest, and there was Taz with her iphone in her hand taking selfies and pics of mother struggling up the hill!  AND she runs with non-stop chatter ALL THE TIME!  HOW does she do that?!  After a kilometre or so, she obviously got bored and went off ahead of me, and that was the last I saw of her until the end of the race.  (And to think that just a couple of years ago I had to keep stopping for her to catch me up.  I'm so proud of her!)

Me - the first kilometre

We ran upwards, winding around the hill (?) for about 7 or 8km, the vineyards and forest changing from jeep track to single track, with fantastic views of the surrounding area.  At last, we started to come down again but as we were very spread out now, it was difficult to work out which way we ought to be going - in one or two places there appeared to be a lack of direction arrows.  Still, we kept going and hoped for the best.  Eventually, we came across a water point, so felt we couldn't be too far off, and then ran along a narrow track through a forest.  Eventually, we came out the other side and were back in the vineyards.

Nearly finished (yes I am in there somewhere!)

I kept running, meeting up with others from the other races, and could see the Finish across the dam, about 500 metres away.  Trouble is, we had to run about a kilometre to actually get to it.  Finally made it and staggered across the finish line!

We had been given a temporary trailtag to wear for an official time.  Trouble is, they didn't seem to be working properly and both Taz's and mine showed a totally incorrect time for each of us.  Taz's showed a time of nearly 2 hours, and mine showed a time of over 2 hours!  Not impressed as our actual times were:

Taz: I'll put this in when she reminds me what it was, about 10 minutes quicker than me.
Me: 1:37:06

Analysing the race afterwards!

It was a great run, and reasonably well organised, but it was a shame about the trail tag results.  Still, so far as I am concerned a trail run is more about the experience of running somewhere that has stunning scenery and somewhere where you wouldn't normally be able to run.  It's about the enjoyment of it, not about the time.

But they could get the time right!