By Gae Tompkins
27 runners arrived at the meeting point at the cross roads – no-one hurrying to exit the cars and stand in the rain. Nice to see some runners back after a short break (Richard, Dawn and Tamsyn to mention a few), and even two runners whom I think have been removed from the speed check in – welcome back to Kerry and Lanesse. We even had at least one ‘newbie’ joining us – the designer of our Table Mountain T-shirts – my son Brian – who like his dad, seems to be a natural trail runner.
27 runners arrived at the meeting point at the cross roads – no-one hurrying to exit the cars and stand in the rain. Nice to see some runners back after a short break (Richard, Dawn and Tamsyn to mention a few), and even two runners whom I think have been removed from the speed check in – welcome back to Kerry and Lanesse. We even had at least one ‘newbie’ joining us – the designer of our Table Mountain T-shirts – my son Brian – who like his dad, seems to be a natural trail runner.
The Norwegians were wrong again – no rain expected – well,
luckily as good trail runners, we were prepared with our rain jackets.
We had lovely run from the Sunbird Centre
(definitely a favourite) – bit of light rain during the run, but it added
to the beauty of the run. Nice to see how the mountainside has recovered
and was lovely and green, but still plenty of evidence of the fires with the
burnt trees visible.
We split into 2 groups – the main group led by Julian and
Richard, with Hein offering to be sweep. I took the recovery group, with
Dawn and Randolph taking care of the back runners, and keeping an eye on
poor Marg who wasn’t well at all.
After our first regroup, the main group took off and we only
met them again on our way down.
When we got to the top of the rocky climb, I mentioned
to everyone to please take note of the rock and sign on the contour path
because that was the point where we would turn on our way back to go down
- more than one of us have missed this in the past (including Kerry).
We all made our way in an anti-clockwise direction to the
amphitheatre and then down the Crassula path. We did meet a few runners
coming in the opposite direction – it was the Fisherman’s trail run.
From the gravel path, the main group did an extra
loop, and the recovery group went down and we all met at our next turning
point. I mentioned again to everyone – “don’t forget the ‘rock’ to turn
down”, but unfortunately for Kerry, she missed it again, and was ‘split’ from
the group and landed up doing an extra km or two. We realised what had
happened, when she didn’t arrive back at the cars, but we were able to contact
her on her cell and all ended well. The rock with now be renamed as
‘Kerry’s rock’ for future reference.
The main group did 14.58 km in 2h04 and the recovery group
did 11.82 km in about 2h10.
Gae
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