One glance at this year’s adventure racing event calendar on AR and you know you’re in for a good year. From this weekend already the year kicks off with events of decent distance. While super-dooper fun, sprint races at 20-30km are just not adventure racing. You need a good couple of hours and a number of kilometres to really get you into the thick of things. So let’s see what this year is going to dish up…
This weekend (28-29 January) is the 150km Red Ants Rumble in the Magoebaskloof area. It’s organised by Team Red Ants and they’ve presented races in past years. As a team with a ton of experience from many, many years of racing you are guaranteed a challenging and interesting race. The race reports coming out of this are going to make for good reading.
The WCAD (Western Cape Adventure) bunch in Cape Town are getting things rocking in the Cape. They presented a number of events last year and are back with a series of races. Their first is on Sat, 4 Feb in Franschhoek and they’re offering two courses of 60km and 100km. Cast your eye down the calendar for their other events, which are scattered evenly throughout (see April, June, July, November).
The Senseless Summer Adventure on Sat, 11 Feb only just hits on my distance radar for their longer course option of 80km. The shorter course, which leaves out the optional checkpoints, clocks in at 50km to make this a friendly event with that little bit extra. It’s an hour outside Pretoria, which makes it easily accessible and Team Senseless have a bit of experience after presenting some events last year.
March (1-4) kicks off with the first of Heidi and Stephan Muller’s longer Kinetic events, the Kinetic Double Moon – our first >200km race for the year. It’s in the Vanderkloof Dam area of the Northern Cape, 200km South of Kimberley. And, as an event presented by this experienced pair, you’re guaranteed a well-organised event. All of the Kinetic events are unassisted and race crates and boats are provided so it is easy-peasy for you to take part. Later in the year are two shorter 120km Kinetic Full Moon events on 1-2 September and 27-28 October. Thoroughly enjoyable racing.
The Dark Horse 30hr race in the Drakensberg (starting from Bergville) will be a humdinger – good, classic, no-frills adventure racing with a well-planned and considered route. Clinton ‘Hardy’ Hardenberg is known for his solid ‘Ystervark’ races, which he first presented about two years ago. The Dark Horse will be in a similar vein. And being in the Drakensberg and presented by Hardy… you just can’t go wrong with this combination. Scheduled for 13-15 April, expect it to be chilly at night.
Expedition Africa is the big one on the calendar. It dominates the month of May (5-13). Also organised by Heidi and Stephan, this year it is part of the Adventure Racing World Series (ARWS). The race will take you to the Port Alfred area of the Eastern Cape. Again you can expect this pair’s attention to detail and both their experience from racing and desire to show you great locations in the course layout. Good logistics and organisation at this race is without question.
August (22-25) presents the next blimp on my radar with Ugene Nel and Trevor Ball’s ‘Quantum Energy Leap‘ 250km in the Western Cape. These two old ballies have been racing together for over a decade (Team Energy). They’re tough, they’re gnarly and they’re wickedly devious so start sharpening up your navigation skills now. The promise of 26km of Grade 3 white water rafting has me sold. This event is also gloriously unsupported, which makes it convenient for racers travelling from up country.
So much to choose from! Decide now to definitely do one or two and rope in some buddies to join you. Sharing is caring.
Happy racing,
Lisa