Prince Alberters Do Well in Meiringspoort Races

- Abigail Modra -

At 4:30 am on the 17th October twelve Zwartberg Runners set off in a convoy of cars for De Rust on the other side of the Meiringspoort. We were an interesting group, half of us huddled in tracksuits and yawning fiercely, the others alert and ready to go. This was the third consecutive year that Zwartberg Runners had supported the De Rust Striders in their well known event - the Meiringspoort Half Marathon and 10 km.

By the time we reached the Meiringspoort it was light and we took note of the route, water points and kilometre markings on the way. After checking in and pinning on our numbers we headed for the “loading zone” where runners were piling onto trucks, bakkies and buses. We (the 10km runners in our group) were extremely lucky to get seats on a bus!
At the start I was surprised to see how many runners there were - probably twice as many as last year! We spotted a few other Prince Alberters as well, including Charles Roux, Sonja and John Mckenna, Angela Ashworth, Dolla and Karel Grové and Delene and Riaan Coetzee. It took us a good five minutes to get out from behind the walkers and then we were able to pace ourselves all the way to the finish.

The event was well organised and our athletes all did very well, all finishing before the cut-offs.
The times of the Prince Albert participants were as follows:

10km
Joshua Swanepoel 42.34 mins
Louisa Mokoaqo 54.10 mins
Terry Barnato 56.12 mins
Abigail Modra 56.12 mins
Matthew van Heerden 1.01.10 mins
Dalene Coetzee 1:12:39 mins
Karel Grové 1:15:31 mins
Dolla Grové 1:15:31 mins
Hannes vd Westhuizen 1.18.10 mins
Zelia Mullins 1.19.36 mins
John Mckenna 1:20:01 mins
Riaan Coetzee 1:20:07 mins
Iona May 1.25.53 mins
Sonja Mckenna 1:29:22 mins
Angela Ashworth 1:29:38 mins


21.1km
Johanna Mokoaqo 1.45.10 mins
Tracy Swanepoel 1.57.00 mins
Sandy Bower 2.05.11 mins
Charles Roux 2:13:15 mins
Juliana vd Westhuizen 2.16.12 mins
Marushka Erasmus 2.51.35 mins
Charlotte Bothma 2.51.36 mins

Well done Zwartberg Runners and all those other Prince Alberters on the road. By the way, we’d love to have you run or walk in our colours next time! Please join us next year and support the club and so, our community.