Dawn 2 Dusk 12 Hour Circuit Race

On Saturday, Ian and I completed 83km in our second D2D 12 hour circuit race. (We did our first one in 2013 and then skipped last year because we were lazy and the weather was cold).

A relatively warm weather, early morning start to the 2015 D2D

I signed up a couple of months ago when my friend Lisa said she had entered, and gave me a gentle nudge to join her, for fun. Given that she was going with a support team and the much needed gazebo for shade cover and that I knew a couple of other people taking part, I was in - it took a bit of convincing to get Ian to buy in too.

Great fun keeping good company as we go around and around and around

The event wasn't much of a focus for me and Ian and I were certainly not training to complete the minimum distance of 80 km as a team. And then I started getting emails from Lisa and Asa and I figured I had to get sorted, and quickly. (Asa is a friend of Lisa's, from Malawi, flying on to Jhb , originally to do shopping for his family back home but as all runners can relate to, he found an event that he could participate in that coincided with his shopping trip). So, as a way of ensuring our committed attendance very early on Saturday morning, I offered to collect Asa at his hotel in Sandton and transport him to and from the high school in Akasia, Pretoria.

In truth, Ian and I had not been training with any purpose and as late as Friday morning I didn't think we would even attempt to complete the required minimum of 80km. Until Ian said, "Of course we will, it's just 9 parkruns!

Our plan was to run 10km each as a start and aim to get 40km on the board by 11am. Random numbers really. After a number of conversations with various participants the consensus was that it's best to run 2 or 3 km at a time and that is exactly what we did after we had our 40kms on the board at 10:30. We also slowed down substantially, mostly because it got really really hot (over 30 degrees C) but also because we knew that another 40km is a long way.

We were thrilled to reach our target in just under 10 hours. I walked another two laps and Ian walked one more lap before we called it a day at 83km. One whole lap more than we did previously.

Successful finishers of at least 80km, individual and teams

Successful finishers of at least 80km

In summary - Dawn to Dusk is organized by a running church minister, Gerrie (and obviously a supportive wife and efficient support crew). He puts on a fantastic event, thankfully supported by generous supporters like Anatomic Sports Wear and 32Gi. He runs a tight ship and sends out humorous emails with very strict instructions in which participants are quite often threatened with death if they do not obey. It is a friendly, community orientated event (money is collected and raised for a local school charity's). The toilets and porta-loos are spotless at all times. There are shower facilities available. A green water proof jacket is handed out to all first time finishers of the individual event and a white jacket is given to teams after they have completed four events. There is a brilliant watering-tent which tempts you on each lap - ice cold water sachets, a bucket of water in which to dip your hat, fruit, sweets and chips so that you don't even need your own support crew! And this year, they even offered a car wash for R25, money raised there was being given to the school.

And then to top it all off, spending 12 hours with crazy like-minded runners, supporters and good friends makes the day out an extra special one.

Ian and I will be back next year (if Namaquaquest doesn't shout louder) and we have committed to keep going for the full 12 hours to see what total we can reach.

You can read Lisa's race report here.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy