Thursday 26 January 2012

Bobbies 25km

I ran another race this past Sunday. It was a first time for me which fits in with my plans for 2012. 

It was a late 7am start at the Police Grounds in Mayfair, A part of Johannesburg that I haven't seen.  I travelled to the race on my own but met up with Karen at the club tent before the start. We lined up together and ran the whole race together. We haven't run together in months or seen each other since before Christmas, so it was really great to catch up with all our news. Neither of us had a time goal to achieve so we were happy to take it as we felt and even joined up with a Zonkizizwe bus which seemed to slow down toward the end and got us into trouble when we speeded up.

It was a great route and I was really upset that I had left my camera in my bag. (I left my pre-packed SPI belt with my camera, Zambuck and handkerchief in my tog bag). We ran around the Calabash / Jhb soccer stadium, which is a really great looking and meaningful landmark.

Approaching the stadiumApproaching the stadium

Me running toward the water tower with the Calabash on the left 
(Karen took the picture with her phone)
Zoe holding up the water tower from the opposite side, 

on a visit to the stadium before the 2010 Soccer World Cup


It was also well organized - I did a quick and easy late entry at the start, the parking was well marshalled which made getting in and out of the park easy and the watering tables were well stocked and the volunteers were jovial and encouraging. The road Marshall's were at all the needed intersections and were also excited and motivating. 

Karen and I finished in a time of 2:54:13 not our best over 25km but it's all part of the training.

 

2 comments:

Johann said...

Sorry I missed this one as it is one of my favorite races. But as you know this January running took a back seat in my life for a change. My 32km pb was at Bobbies back in the day when it was still that distance.

Char said...

It's so nice that you had company for the whole race. It makes the time pass much quicker.