Race Report 2009
Congratulations to all those who completed this year’s HANSA Hout Bay Trail Challenge! It was a great day out for all and an exciting one at that with two new winners to top the leader board this year.
Hout Bay’s very own “Desert King”, Ryan Sandes, has finally earned the tile “King of the Mountain” in his home town winning the HANSA Hout Bay Trail Challenge in record time of 4:17:17. The “Queen of the mountain” is also a home town favourite Linda Doke, who came through the finish line in a time of 05:05:07.
Almost all the 250 entered trail runners lined up at 7:00 last Saturday for the start of the 9th HANSA Hout Bay Trail Challenge. The weather conditions were perfect this year with clear skies and 100% visibility which always helps when you have to circumnavigate the mountains of Hout Bay and have an elevation of 851m to climb!
The competition was strong with William Robinson and Ryan Sandes neck and neck most of the way. Robinson was in the lead for the majority of the race but Sandes took him as they left East Fort Passport Control at the cannons and managed to get a 2 minute lead on Robinson on the beach – sand what Sandes nows well!
Robinson was disappointed yet pleased with record breaking finish time which was 4 minutes faster than last year’s, despite the extra loop around Constantia Nek due to the steps being washed away. Yes, even Will got a five minute penalty for not clipping at Constantia Jeep Track, so his official time does not match what he actually ran, sorry Will.
Linda Doke and Katya Soggot (HANSA OFTC title holder) also played cat and mouse throughout the race, with Linda taking the lead on Hout Bay beach. Tie third place was Prins and Davison who were closing in on Soggot at Constantia Nek until Davison took a fall on the jeep track road which set the two back, not to mention the blasted clip point on Constantia Nek!!
The competition was rife amongst the Men’s Teams with Archies Team (Warren Petterson, Andrew Payne and Trevor James) winning this year’s race in a record time of 4:06:30, breaking last year’s record holders – the Men’s Health Team (Greg Goodall, Ryan Scott and Raoul de Jongh) by 35 seconds.
Mike Redington of New Balance Flyers Mixed Team set a new record for leg one in a time of 1:14:11. Petterson managed to take the lead quiet quickly on leg 2 and managed to set a new record too for leg 2 in a time of 1:33:41, despite nearly taking the steps down and the extra loop around Constantia Nek! Greg Goodall of Men’s Health Team also set a new record for leg three 1:02:42, beating his time last year by 4 minutes! I know there were many of you who did a pb – well done to you.
This year with the conditions perfect there were very few injuries and only a few broken fingers, scraps and bruises – all part of the course when running through fynbos country – or as the trail runners call it pynbos!
I heard the odd rumour of a couple of people getting lost on leg 1 and a few on leg 2. I even had one trail runner phone me to ask me where Check point 1 was! Guess he didn’t read his race map nor listen in race briefing and missed the flags completely!!! Otherwise the race went by with pretty much uneventful for me and my marshals, thank you! And thank you to NetCare91 for being there throughout the day.
Thanks to Hammer Nutrition for being there on the day and helping a number of tired trail runners continue on after refuelling. I believe many of you even got the sales pitch from Sean on why Hammer is so good for you! ?
I have to give the last runner a medal for perseverance. He took 4 hours to finish the last leg, why he didn’t turn back when he was ill I am not sure and then insisted on walking right through the finish line would not accept a lift from East Fort! Well done GM!
The results on the website are currently provisional results and will be updated with deg times shortly.
There might be some of you that will notice that your times are different to what your watch told you! That is because we have given a time penalty of 5minutes to those that missed a passport control and 10 minutes to those that forgot to scan in at the start of the race! To those that decided that their pack was not worth carrying we have disqualified you!
For all the results and more information regarding the race, visit www.sports4u.co.za.
Some stats for your interest:
No. of withdrawals before the race: 40
No. of people that did not start: 9
No. per category:
Male Female
Seniors 60 28
Veterans 50 21
Masters 18 4
TOTAL 128 53
Mixed Teams: 26
Mens Teams: 21
Ladies Teams: 5
Happy trail running and remember don’t take short cuts – look after our mountain!
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