Brooks Sun City Trail Run
Who doesn’t want to go to Sun City for the weekend?
It’s the closest ‘sea’ we have here in Johannesburg. So when I saw there was a trail run at Sun City they got my money quickly (I don’t even remember how much it cost). 11 October 2015 I’m cheap and wasn’t able to spend Friday and Saturday night at the Sun City resort (two nights minimum on the weekend??). So I opted for a guesthouse outside the resort which was cheap and and kind of in a township. It wasn’t brilliant but did the job and I ticked off another thing on my list, ‘Sleeping in township’. Arrived Saturday evening and went to the resort where I took the sky train (quite slow), got lost in a maze trying to find beer (http://www.lostcitymaze.co.za/) and had some dinner.
Then Sunday morning had some toast and headed for the resort where we got free entry and a bus drive to the start of the race. Easy enough to get the race numbers and a goodybag which had the usual creams and etc inside. I missed the briefing and started in a hurry because I was dreaming; sitting on the ground cursing the beers from the evening. The first 5km was really beautiful going through the resort area where there are rivers, waterfalls and bridges. I’m guessing most of it was built or created by the resort but it looked good. Then we went up a hill with views of the hotel, water park and surroundings. We left the 10km runners (I did 21km) at the water stop and carried on further away to the golf course which was a sight. Green green short grass surrounded by thick african bush was an unusual sight for me. We also headed through part of the game park where some people (not me!) saw rhinos. This is also when the heat got to me and wheels came off (the race started 9:00 in the heat) on the long gravel road round the perimeter of the resort to the finish. I did a serious amount of walking towards the end.
At the finish we got a medal and there was prize giving which I skipped because there was also a beautiful pool full of runners and resort goers. Here I spent some time cooling off till I had enough energy to head back to the car. At Sun City to get to the car park you take a bus it’s that far. But this wasn’t the end of the day, included in the race entry was free entry to the Valley of the Waves! A water park with a huge wave pool and some slides. Beer, food and some more cooling off in the waves is what happened here. I really enjoyed the waves, the excitement and screaming just before the wave is set off by my fellow swimmer was great. I can only imagine if this happened at a real beach it would be seen as really strange behaviour. The big long almost vertical side was good fun too. The Valley of the Waves really put the cherry on top of this race. What a way to cool down after a race.
Do this one, but maybe splurge out on accommodation in the resort it looks like a fun place to stay.
See the video of the race (shaky as usual): https://youtu.be/bVXqBgM8S-8