Sport	Off Road
Event	Springbok Vasbyt
Date	14 July 2012
Where	Pretoria, South Africa
Distance	10 Km
Finishing Time	01:15:03
Race Number	800
Result	415/1012
Top %	41%
Pace	7:30 m/km
Speed	7.99 km/h
Click here for details about Springbok Vasbyt
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My experience at the event:

Since I moved to South Africa I wanted to visit the Voortrekker Monument. Too many times in the past we drove in early mornings to get to races past this gigantic building.
Finally thanks to Jill, my running companion, I had to a chance. The Springbok Vasbyt is a traditional race that, in the 10.5 km form, takes place within the park surrounding the monument. Unlike the 25km, the 10km is mostly a race on dirt, rocks and dried grass, with maybe only 2 km (start and finish) on tarred roads.

Trying to get any speed, if you start from the middle of a huge group, is practically impossible: after 3km the road turns into a single lane rocky climb, and it has only few areas where passing people without risking your life is possible. This is probably way is graded 5/5 in difficulty.

Knowing that I had a game planned for few hours later, I decided to take it easy and enjoy with Jill the beautiful route that takes you to all the nice spots in the park, included the fort used by Afrikaneers back in the time, at a much higher location that the actual monument. 

I finished around 1.15, by sprinting only in the last km. Jill finished probably 2-3 minutes behind me. The result wasn't important, but it was nice to be back running after almost 3 months! 

Some pictures from the race:


The voortrekker  monument


Old airplanes flying over before the start

View of Pretoria from the hill


Posing by the monument


Another medal for the huge collection!

Details of the race here, as usual: http://runkeeper.com/user/olafek/activity/101763211?&mobile=false

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