Road warriors up against taxing Masters challenge
AGE group runners take centrestage on Sunday at the 38th running of the Masters Half-Marathon.
The race organisers, the Border Masters Athletics Association, last year moved the race to a Sunday for the first time and changed the route of the now Caltex-sponsored event. The event still finishes at the Buffalo Club as it has traditionally done. The result of the former change was an increased number of entries, of some magnitude.
The half-marathon is divided into age categories of five-year groupings, starting from 35 for both men and women. Runners of 30-34 are allowed to enter and run, but there is no official masters age category for them and they will not win any prizes, and may therefore consider saving themselves for the upcoming marathon which, also finishes at Buffs, albeit arriving from the east as opposed to the Masters specific runners, who come in on the R62 from Winterstrand, west of the city.
The Masters race is unusually just seven days before the Buffs Marathon and Half-Marathon and just how this will impact upon either or both events remains to be seen.
Normally Discovery Surfers would have been sandwiched perfectly between the two, but Surfers has moved out to the traditional Buffs date.
The scenario means that predictions go out the window as athletes choose their target race, taking the other easy or not entering at all.
Most people involved in the sport, this scribe included, expected the new course in 2017 to be faster than the previous one, based largely on the fact that the Fleet Street Police Station hill had been removed and flat running in the East London harbour being added instead.
According to the runners themselves it did not work that way for many of them. They indicated after the race that they found the flat running after the long downhill of Settlers Way, to be rather taxing, while the dogs leg on the pier, a very uneven stretch on a crumbling surface, was said to be most difficult part. At least this year, none of this will come as a surprise and the athletes should be well prepared for what the race has to offer.
During the course of 12 months many runners move into a different age group and sometimes surprise their new opposition on the day of the race. This makes for interesting racing as winners seldom succumb without putting up a good fight.
Entries are still available tomorrow and Saturday. The race starts at 6am of the road down to Winterstrand before following the R56 to the EL Airport, down Settlers Way, into the harbour at Latimer's Landing, then joining the EL Esplanade off the Orient Beach. The finish is on the tough little hill to Buffs Club.