Zwartberg Runners Romp Home

- Abigail Modra -

Meiringspoort’s smoothly tarred road weaves gently in the shadows of the spectacular Swartberg and crosses the Groot River several times. The craggy faces of the mountain are covered in rocks and little indigenous plants. Beside the river, the plants grow thickly and baboons are a frequent sight.
Unfortunately, you don't see much of this beauty when travelling half asleep in a car at 4 am!

Zwartberg runners travelled to De Rust on Saturday, 18 October, to compete in the annual Meiringspoort 21.1 and 10 km runs. At the registration, we joined 1 900 other competitors to sign in and were then transported to the starts in numerous ostrich trucks. The club entered three runners in the half marathon and eight runners and one walker in the 10 km.

3...2...1...BANG! We were off! The weather was beautiful, the course was gentle and there were many water tables. At the end each runner/walker was welcomed in with loud cheering and clapping and the aroma of freshly braaied wors. The food stalls must have made a small fortune that day.
Our lot did extremely well. Patrick Lottering was our fastest, coming 6th in the 10 km! He was joined by Joshua Swanepoel and Heindirie Bostander who both came in the top 15.

Thank you to Alex Barnato for driving us safely to De Rust and back and for cheering and photographing everyone. Keep an eye on the Zwartberg Runners website, www.zwartberg.com/runners, for the photos and results!

Our runners’ results and times were:

10 km:

6th Patrick Lottering: 37.13
14th Heinderie Bostander:44.28
15th Joshua Swanepoel:44.44
38th Johanna Mokoaqo:51.38
63rd Abigail Modra:55.17
82nd Cornelis Swanepoel:56.54
120th Matthew van Heerden:1.01.05
162nd Ellen Nicol (Joubert): 1.05.24
325th Ione May (walking): 1.23.39

21.1km(886 runners participated):

396th Tracy Swanepoel:1.56.08
736th Juliana vd Westhuizen: 2.26.57
829th Maruschka Erasmus:2.40.55