Trail running champion of Centurion wants to win challenging The Munga again – Centurion Rekord
Trail running champion of Centurion wants to win challenging The Munga again Centurion Rekord
Forget about ultramarathons like the Two Oceans or the Comrades marathon. Trail Running supporters and experts will testify that the toughest athletes will be …
Forget about ultramarathons like the Two Oceans or the Comrades marathon. Trail Running supporters and experts will testify that the toughest athletes will be found among those who practice this fairly new – but very popular – sport.
Trail running refers to any running that takes place off-road, including fields, dirt tracks, lush forests, coastal paths and rugged mountainous areas. Some routes might be very technical with slippery roots, loose shale and other obstacles to negotiate, while others will be less taxing.
Distances in races vary widely, from 5 km, to over 100 miles (161 km). Many trail races are ultramarathon distance.
The number of organized trail races has become very popular over the past few years throughout the world. However, the Munga Trail, a race over a 402,4km route in South Africa, is considered the most difficult and toughest trail run in the world.
This trail run starts in Belfast in the Mpumalanga Highveld and ends in on the rim of the Blyde River Canyon north of Graskop on the border of the Mpumalanga Lowveld and the Limpopo province. The race is limited to single runners. There is no seeding and anyone can enter, while everyone starts in one bunch at the same time, and the race is non-stop. This means more than 400km with only one stage.
The Munga Trail is semi-supported. There are five race villages along the race route, spaced roughly 80km apart from the start. At each of these villages runners will be able to eat and sleep, but they do not have to stop at the village or sleep if they don’t want to. It is totally up to them.
Apart from the five race villages runners will also have access to water points every 30 to 40kms. No runner will be allowed to have support from outside in any physical form. Runners will not have access to a bag during the race, only at the finish, so everything they will need outside the support stations will have to be carried with them.
The route will make use of forestry roads, jeep track, single track, the odd railway line and virgin grassland on occasion. The route will use district dirt roads only when necessary.
A local athlete from Centurion and defending champion, Bennie Roux, is one of the favourites to win the Munga Trail again this year.
Roux is deservedly regarded as one of the toughest trail runners in the world. His victories in the Munga over the past two years are only a small part of this remarkable athlete’s achievements.
Since 2000 Roux has finished the Comrades marathon eleven times. At five of these Comrades marathons he won a silver medal, which means he has finished the 89 kilometres between Durban and Pietermaritzburg in less than seven and a half hours.
However, it is as a trail runner that Roux has already established himself as a legend.
This remarkable athlete, who is known among his friends as “Yster”, admits that he was an overweight IT programmer before the jogging bug bitten him. He started out as ordinary road runner for about seven years, but after a friend introduced him to trail running, he fell in love with this relative new sport.
Today he boasts gold medals as overall winner in almost every well-known and important trail run in South Africa. These include gruelling events like two world-famous South African trail races, the Kalahari Augrabies Extreme 250km Marathon and the Addo 100 Mile Trail.
Other races he won were the Namaqua Quest four-day 120km trail race, the Karkloof 100 Mile Trail, the Wolkberg two-day stage trail, the Skyrun 65km near lady Grey in the Eastern Cape, the Red Barn Trail Marathon in Gauteng and several other races of different distances.
Due to the unique nature of Munga, Roux sees the race as the ultimate test for a trail runner in South Africa. That is why he will be there again this week between 10 and 15 April. Not only to defend his title as a two-time champion, but to test himself again against the challenge of extremes that is offered by this murderous race.
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