Home » Settlers Ultra, South Africa

News from South London Harriers

April 29th, 2007: Settlers Ultra, South Africa

Posted by Chris Phelan at 6:50 pm

Read Wayne’s report on the Settlers Ultra 60km race below: I took part in the Settlers Ultra last weekend. A 60km
run from Grahamstown to Port Alfred. The last time I ran this run I
vowed never to run it again because it was so difficult. This time
around it was great! Maybe the direction of the race had something
to do with it, also the weather.

As with Comrades, Settlers alternates it’s direction between the 2
towns, so effectively one year you have a down run and the other an
up run. So this year was down, and apart from 2 fairly lengthy hills
the 1st 40km was generally slightly downhill. Great! Also a cold
front came through the night before, so for once, we had temps of
about 14 on the days. There was actually some snow on the mountains
the night before. So perfect running conditions.

Since this is such a good trainer for Comrades I decided to try run
it at my estimated Comarades pace, which is 6 min/km (9.5 min/m). I
met up with a friend (who has the same 9hr target for Comrades) just
after the start and we decided to adopt the strategy of taking a
scheduled 1 min walk every 8km.

Everything just went perfectly, we went through the marathon in 4:02
and just carried on at the same consistent pace. The marathon time
was 13mins slower than my Two Oceans time 3 weeks before. 56km was
the next land mark (Two Oceans distance). At about 50km I started
feeling the burn in the legs now, but we were so close. We hit the
56km mark in exactly the same time I ran Two Oceans, 5:27. This just
left the last 4kms through the streets of Port Alred to the finish -
legs were pretty much knackered by now, but Saying that I probably
could have carried on for a little more, which has given me great
confidence for June.

So all in all it was a succesful run, I was even out for a 7km run
the next day, which was another objective - not to let the 60km run
disrupt my training routine, but just for it to be another long run.
Two more long runs left, a 50km this Sat and Isle of Wight(if I can
still enter) the next weekend, no injuries and no colds, so
everything is running on target at the moment.

Cheers
Wayne

Posted in Road Running

Comments are closed at this time.