Off the road and running

Those of you interested in all things celestial might have noticed that the sun is finally setting a little bit later now every night. Yip, the winter solstice came and went last week, and our daylight hours will be getting longer. But for the early risers, the sun only comes up earlier after the 10th of July – go figure!

There’s been some complaints that the Diaries team have not been doing enough in the Deep South itself. Well boohoo to you, and to prove it we have some evidence from Saturday’s “Old fishermen’s Trail Challenge”. This is one of the hugely popular events on the so-called trail running calendar, and was very over subscribed. The course is:
Hout Bay Harbour
Hout Bay beach
Chappies to East Fort
Up Blackburn Ravine on the ‘Jeeptrack’
Still going UP
Down to the Silvermine Dam
Follow Silvermine River Trail to Ou Kaaps
Take jeeptrack till Ridge peak and the Amphitheatre
Down Echo Valley through Enchanted forest
Boyes Drive to Main road
Clovelly River to Fishhoek beach



All in all it’s a 22km slog, with Start and Finish at a Yacht Club, so everyone is stoked with the cheap beer. They are really super stingy about the safety kit to carry, and were insistent on compulsory attendance at the briefing in the week. They alternate the route and consider this year the ‘down’ run – which is fair enough if you consider a nor’ wester.



To prepare I found myself doing a few long runs after work up in the Muizenberg/Kalk bay mountains. It’s still quite special to be up there alone, with sweeping views over False Bay down Peck’s Valley and then later a burnt orange sunset through to Noordhoek and the Atlantic. Coming back I almost stumbled into a porcupine, who had all quills splayed out and ready to defend. He looked like a huge bush in the half-light and only once I fully recognized and comprehended what was infront of me did I let out a very girlish scream of sheer fright. This ended our brief mexican stand-off as he ran down the hill at full scurry, leaving me with a maxed out BPM and a smile.



The big pre race decision was how to tackle the deep and dirty Disa river in the middle of the beach. Some went for plastic bags over shoes; others hopped into black bags at the spot and waded through but most just got wet. I followed the few who went barefoot and put on shoes at the end of the beach; much better than the squelch-squelch and weight of wet feet, not to mention some pretty scary blisters on shoe at the finish. After that the bulk of the field was dispatched and I pushed it through main road and the beach to come in under 2:13, just 20 minutes behind the superscary skinny winners. The sun has set on Hout Bay Trail entries, but there’s still daylight for The Crazy Store Table Mountain Race, so get keen kids and hit the trails.