The Old Mutual Om die Dam Ultra Marathon is the largest inland ultra-marathon in South Africa, offering a 50km ultra marathon, a 21km half-marathon, a 10km route and a 5km fun run. Due to the race’s scenic route – via the Hartbeespoort Dam – and family appeal, it attracts over 10 000 participants every year and is consistently voted as one of the top national races with the ultra being the flagship event.
Gold medals will be awarded to category winners, silver medals to men finishing in less than 3.45 and women finishing in less than 4.10, and bronze to all other finishers.
Races to be timed by ChampionChip include the 50km, 21km and the 10km – therefore all runners will be required to run with a ChampionChip in order to participate in the event and receive an official race time. To ensure that your race result is accurately recorded it is important that your ChampionChip is correctly registered in your name with the correct details. No chip – no result – no prize.
More than 30 of Roodepoort Athletics’ runners will be participating in this race, including the mother, father and daughter trio of Bonnie and André Posthumus and Janèlle de Wet. A father-son duo, Vincent Meyer and Vincent Meyer Junior, will also be competing in preparation for the upcoming Comrades Marathon.
It will be the 14th time Bonnie will participate in the race while Janèll will be tackling the race for the first time. Janèlle said she is not nervous about the race, she’s excited and cannot wait to be at the finish line.
“I’ve done some races such as Comrades so now I need a new challenge. My mom has been egging me on to do Om die Dam so I finally relented,” she said.
Janèlle is not the only novice from the club that will be competing, as Ronelle Heyns has also signed up for the race.
“I heard they offer milk tart on the roadside too,” she said jokingly, “but I’ve been training hard nonetheless so I can have a good result. I’ve heard from my clubmates that it’s an amazing race every runner needs to experience once, so I guess this year its my turn,” she said.
Dewald Pieterse is a young man who has also decided to take on the big races of the year. Not only will he be confronting the Comrades Marathon for the very first time, it will be his debut Om Die Dam race.
“I heard that this was a good training race for Comrades but I have a knee injury, so hopefully I just get to finish. The injury has been stressing me out but I am happy and looking forward to being at the start.”
Johan Kotze will be running his third race and said the race has a beautiful atmosphere and the spirit of the runners is amazing. “That is why I have enjoyed going back – I’m sure I’ll do it for many more years to come”.
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