"I'd rather be seen on my bicycle than on a park run" - Quote from the dark side

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Agape 32km Race Report

As promised in my previous post a short report of my 32km (20 mile) race I ran this past Saturday. The race was held in the North Eastern suburbs of Pretoria. When I arrived at the venue I thought we would run towards that mountain…


…and I was right, we ran towards that mountain.


This meant that there were quite a few hills on the route. We ran up and down towards and away from the mountain a few times. The hills were quite steep, but never very long.


At least there were some good downhills as well.


The morning got warmer and at about 17km the sun came out and stayed out for the rest of the way. Luckily these parts of Pretoria have semi-tropical weather so there were lots of lovely trees along the way to provide some shade.


In the last 7km I ran on the pavement next to the road for some extra shade and also to avoid a bit of traffic on some streets. I enjoyed the pavement running and was spying on all the locals in their homes and gardens.


I ran very comfortably the whole way, maintaining my planned pace for the Sani Stagger off-road marathon I’m running at the end of the month. I really enjoyed my run and never felt tired or experienced any problems. My base for the Sani Stagger is very good.

Too soon it was all over and we had this lovely downhill run under the trees to the finish.


Apologies for a few blurred photos…I was just moving so fast!

36 comments:

Unknown said...

feeling good during a race - priceless!

KovasP said...

Another interesting race! Awesome you were moving so fast you took blurry pics.

Emz said...

I'm with Kovas! Are you Kenyan?! ;)

Marlene said...

Looks like a beautiful route and a well-executed race! Congrats!!

Indi said...

great picture...even if you were moving so fast it was blurry :)So nice long downhills for sure
and can I say...I just love the name Pretoria!!!

Big Daddy Diesel said...

Looks like your running uphill the whole way!!!

Andrew Opala said...

Great scenery and sounds like a steadily challenging piece of running!

It should be getting quite warm now. When does it get unbearable?

Quinton J said...

Hahaha...moving so fast...nice...

Anonymous said...

Wow - beautiful scenery!

Julie @ HotlegsRunner said...

looks like a very scenic route! congrats! =)

Bethany + Ryan said...

nice. i love when you post pics of the SA landscape. I'm always looking for things that i've heard my brother-in-law talk about. For example, the fences. He says it's weird how we do not have fences here and that in SA everyone has a tall fence around their property. I loved how ur pictures showed that :-)

DRog said...

Great news on the good base for the upcoming off roader!

D

DoppieRunner said...

I see they kept all the interesting hills in the route.

Adrienne said...

Those hills look long enough to me! Nice work speedy.

Julie said...

What? Blurry pictures...welcome to my world:) I take so many pictures when I run and I would say at least 25% of them turn our blurry!

Awesome job on your 32K race Johann! You are such a rock star:) Take care!

Zaneta @ Runner's Luck said...

haha, a spy eh? nice ;)

Ewa said...

Blur just adds drama to the race.
Glad you had a good run. It looks very nice and green there.

Char said...

We'll forgive those few blurred photos but if you keep running that fast you'll have to invest in a better camera :)

ajh said...

Glad you had so much shade. We're lucky you get any photos at all! Great job!

Christina said...

I always admire how many pictures you can take during a run. One day I'll take my camera out with me.

The Turtle said...

That looks like such a wonderful place to run!

Jill said...

I love the blurry photos because you were so fast :). Way to go, great race!!!

Amy said...

Great job and good thing you had the shade! It looks from the pictures like the course wasn't really marked out - were there course markers or how did you know where you had to run?

Jennifer said...

Sounds like you had a great race- feeling good is the best! Enjoyed the race report and pictures. Cheers!

Jon said...

I love your race reports. You ALWAYS have pictures from DURING the race. Are you carrying a mini handheld camera with you or are you using a helmet cam?

Mark said...

Nice! Sounds like a good distance to race....

Giorgio said...

Beautiful scenery along the running track Johann!
Thanks for sharing this detalied report of your 32km race

misszippy said...

Feeling good last weekend will hopefully equal feeling great on your big race day! Beautiful pictures.

Unknown said...

As I look at your photographs, it seems like you had some long, long hills that weren't too steep but they go on and on forever! Kind of reminds me of the hills and bridges of NYC...maybe I should have trained in SA!

Tim Wilson said...

Nice to see so many pics of a run. My race reports end up being all words with a few pics, this looks like all pics with a few words :)

Like others said - it is cool to see pics of SA. I was born in SA (Vryheid Natal)but came back to the US when I was 5 so only know very little - mostly from pics and stories.

Nice job with the race, and keeping your intended pace - not always easy with so many hills.

Patrick Mahoney said...

Man you are a running machine. Awesome report as always...

Anne said...

Another great race report with beautiful scenery! You are a speedster, with the blurry photos :) How nice that you felt comfortable throughout the race.

Shellyrm ~ just a country runner said...

I love all the photos. It looks like a nice race with plenty of shade!

Frank Eeckman said...

Better blurry pictures than no pictures:) Looks like a great race.

Molly said...

nothing wrong with fast!

The Green Girl said...

Wow. That was a lot of hills!