Dear Club Member
Welcome to the October 2014 newsletter. Happy running everyone!
Save the dates !!
Wednesday, Oct 29
Halloween-themed Time Trial! Bring your scariest costume for a Halloween time trial and see what lies in store: tricks or treats?!
Wednesday, Nov 19
Our end of the year function will be at Fratelli Family Restaurant in Craighall Park (corner Conrad Drive and Hillcrest Avenue). Stay tuned for more details...
Wednesday, Dec 10
Our end of the year pub run. A time trial with a twist, and liberal amounts of alcohol en route ....
Happy Birthday parkrun
On Saturday, Oct 4, the free-running event parkrun turned 10. It now attracts around 70,000 people who turn out every Saturday at hundreds of venues in 10 countries for a free, timed, 5 km run - an idea that sprang from South Africa's club time trials. Our vice chairman Bruce Fordyce was instrumental in bringing parkrun to South Africa three years ago. If you are both a Nedbank runner and a parkrunner, you can update your profile to include your Nedbank club details.
Potjie competition win
The NRCCG team was a winner at the annual Potjie contest at George Lea Park, taking first prize in the fish category!
Part of our prize-winning potjie team: from left to right, Iain Ruic, Ed Stoddard and Llloyd Priestman.
NRCCG helping for a good cause
Max, the barman at the Sandton Sports Club for over 30 years, has been bravely battling a serious illness and the community here has rallied to his cause. Nedbank Running Club Central Gauteng gave him a cheque for 3,000 rand earlier this month to help with his treatment.
From left to right: Bruce Fordyce, Max, Romy Menter
If You Fail To Plan You Plan To Fail – NRCCG at Golden Reef 100 Miler
Four Nedbank Club members participated in this year’s Golden Reef 100 Miler Team Relay on 19-20 September at the Tarlton International Raceway in Krugersdorp.
Grant Schuleman, Lisa Mackenzie, Paul Cosser and Shaun Naidoo entered the race as The Green Machine. Only Shaun had previous experience at circuit racing.
The relay event started at 8pm the Friday night and the teams had 24 hours to complete the 100 miles. This equated to 23 laps of the 7km course.
In the weeks leading up to the race we had put together a race strategy that would see us completing the distance in just under 17 hours.
Each runner would complete a 7km lap and hand over the race bib to the next runner; based on the estimations this would give each runner about 2 hours rest between turns.
After setting up camp and listening to the race briefing the team set-off. First up was Grant, followed by Shaun, Lisa then Paul.
As the night progressed it became colder and more windy, making the route all that more difficult to complete in good time. However, the Green Machine had planned for this eventuality.
By half way, we were 15 minutes ahead of our planned schedule.
But none of us expected the race to be so tough and grueling. Running in such windy conditions and trying to get in rest in-between took its toll – our bodies got wearier and wearier.
But we persevered! We were, after all, The Green Machine!
Lisa was the lucky one that took us to the 100km mark and saw the awesome sunrise. But the race still had a long way to go.
As the morning progressed it got a lot warmer, but still very windy. By this time we had dropped the gazebo as the wind had tried to take it away during the night, but fortunately our tent was still standing allowing those not running some much needed shut-eye. During the last rest period we had a team discussion and came to the agreement that we would each run a section of the last lap; allowing us to do a reasonably quick time, little did we know we would be running the last lap at the same time as another team.
At about 11:20 we started our last lap. Grant did the first section and then handed over to Paul, who had just found out that the guy a few hundred metres ahead of him was on his last lap too. Paul was not ready to go down without a fight and by the time he handed over to Lisa he had put almost 500m between him and our rival. When Lisa handed over to Shaun for the last leg our rival was miles behind.
The Green Machine finished in an impressive time of 15 hours 57 minutes and 1 second (49 minutes ahead of our planned time). An average pace of 5:57 per kilometer.
We finished 9th overall and 2nd in the mixed category.
Left to right: Grant schuleman, Lisa Mackenzie, Paul Cosser, Shaun Naidoo
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