Mnweni Marathon

ASL wrote: my entry is up for grabs.. 3 weeks off training due to a throat infection and I'm back to square one with a week to go

PM me if you keen

Dropped you an email

Does anyone need a lift from Hilton / PMB...? I got space for a few or alternatively if you have space for one more...?

Hey,

I'm running Mnweni on Saturday and looking for a lift to the Howick area (or PMB) on the Sunday, can arrange to be picked up along route. Anyone available to help please pop me a message (0604328090) thanks so much

Last minute substitution up for grabs if anyone is interested.

A friend whose entry I paid for has baled. Let me know if you keen. You just need to pay the substitution fee of R50 at Registration.

ghaznavid wrote: Good luck to those that enter. I have done it once, that is sufficient for me. Maybe I might do it again some day, but there are too many routes I haven't done to do this loop a 3rd time.

So after the not-so-GT a week ago, I decided that I had done a lot of training, so I might as well sign up. Thanks to ASL for the entry

I used the same race strategy as last year, but switched to a mostly liquid diet to ensure I got sufficient nutrition over the race.

My goal was sub-9h, with 5h30 to the top of Mnweni, and 3h30 to the end.

The race started well - much like last year, everyone disappeared off into the distance, including the sweeper (who presumably thought I wasn't a participant), and I fast-walked the road section.


Sunrise from last place

Just after leaving the road, I caught up with Kate, who I continued with till the Nceda River. My GPS told me I was averaging 6km/h at this stage - and that is with absolutely no running - so I'm very happy with that pace. My first stop was a brief water fill up at the Nceda River.



After the Nceda River, I started passing people more regularly, although I was never in a significant crowd.


I stopped to fill up water again at Chichi Bush Camp, making it to the cut off point 44 minutes before cut off (9:46).


The infamous waterfall below Manxome Pass

I passed a few people on my way up the pass.




My estimate of 1h30 on the pass was very close, hitting the top at 11:18 (12 minutes ahead of schedule). By this stage, I knew I basically had to just keep doing my basics, and 9h was in the bag. If only it were that simple!

Unlike last year, there weren't any crowds after the start, everyone was quite spread out. I walked the top section alone.



Near the top of Rockeries Pass, I met up with a doctor from Cape Town named Alison, who I did the rest of the race with. It was her first time at Mnweni, although her parents were regular hikers many years back. She is a road runner, so I was faster on rocky ground, and she caught up whenever we hit more runnable ground.



Rockeries Pass was slower than expected, and with 2h30 to go, I still had 13.5km left, so I knew 9h was slipping away. My 3rd and final break was at the bottom of the pass/junction with Nguza - where we both filled up.

We made fairly good time to the road, but lost time when we took a wrong turn and ended up in some overgrowth near the road.



When we hit the road, with 5.5km left, we had 42 minutes remaining to get sub 9h.

I was faster than Alison on downhills, but she was able to run more of the road, meaning that she finished ahead of me (incidentally she was the only person that overtook me on the entire race, if you don't count the first 100m).

I ran as much of the road as possible, but was pretty trashed by then - so running was a battle. I ran enough to keep myself in contention for sub-9h. With 1km to go, I had about 7m30 left, which I knew I could do, but was too fast to walk. With 150m left, I had about a minute left (well, my GPS said 2:58 - so I don't know how many seconds I had left), and somehow managed to jog a bit faster to get in with my GPS saying it was 2:59. As it turns out, we started after 6AM, so my time was actually 8h54m04 - so very happy with my time. My total stopped time was around 10 minutes, which I am also very happy with.

I enjoyed this year much more than last year. With everyone more spread out, and perfect weather, it makes for quite a fun race. I guess I will be back again in the future.

Clearly my running training is paying off, this year has been a very good year for gaining pace - with my fastest Park Run time having improved by over 2 minutes so far this year. If I keep plodding along, maybe I'll be up with the faster guys some time soon.

Also great to meet a lot of VE members I hadn't met before, and to catch up with many hiking friends from VE and elsewhere.

Spring Mnweni is on 1 September, sign up is at www.entryninja.com/events/event/26561-spring-mnweni-2018

Annoyingly the same weekend as Capital Climb, so it was a tough call as to which to enter. But in the end the Berg won that one.

Hope to see many VE entries again

Hi Ghaz, Ruth and I will be there as usual, there is also a group of Newbies from JHB joining us.

We did this in 2009 now coming back for the Spring version.
Should be fun I mostly walk but may jog some of the roads..

Looks like Ghaz, Dave, myself and Ruth heading through for Spring Mnweni on Saturday.

Anyone else planning on being there?

I will be running as well, had a great run in May. Just hoping the long grass on the approach is burnt?