Awesome experience for first time 50 Milers
Both Scottburgh Athletic Club members performed well on debut.
Scottburgh Athletic Club members, Merrick Kennedy and Ricky Hulley completed the Karkloof 50 Miler trail run, a challenging race in which they performed well at the weekend (September 26 to 27).
“It was an awesome experience,” said Merrick, a first time participant in the race.
He praised the organisers, Andrew and Lauren Booth, Jack Davis and the KwaZulu-Natal Trail Running team for an amazing job in getting the event up and running in four weeks.
According to Merrick, the unique format of batch starts worked well under the new Covid-19 regulations and the event was run smoothly and successfully.
“The 80km trail run was tough mentally and physically but it was a day filled with great spirit.”
He said supporters from Toti and Scottburgh cheered on the participants and the friendly faces from the running community shared the experience of the challenging race.
“Mostly, it was truly inspiring to see the 100 Miler competitors taking on 160km, especially on the first day, which saw temperatures rising up to 38 degrees. Perhaps next year, I will set my sights on doing the full 100 Miler.”
He completed the race in 11:45.
Also a first time participant, Ricky described the race as a great day out on the trails.
“Amazing scenery, awesome atmosphere and a mixture of weather conditions made it a tough but memorable event. It was 82.6km of highs and lows with some serious ‘vasbyt’ need at times to pull through to the end,” he said.
He said it was great to meet up with Merrick on the route and they enjoyed a few kilometres of banter when the going was tough.
Ricky thanked his family and support crew for looking out for him. “The support and encouragement from them, every 20km brought me home.”
He completed the race in 10:28.
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