Jumping Kids : Jackrabbit Charity Trail Run

Date Held: 18 November 2017

Distances: 5km / 10km / 13km

Terrain: Trail running

Venue: Hoogland Health Hydro

Website: My Road Less Travelled and Jumping Kids

Photos by:

On Saturday 18  November I joined My Road Less Travelled and Jumping Kids to take part in the Jumping Kids Jackrabbit Charity Trail Run at the beautiful Hoogland Health Hydro.

Hoogland is a family owned and run Health Hydro, established in 1977 by Abraham Kruger and his wife, Annette. Hoogland is a peaceful haven where people from all walks of life come to manage their health and wellbeing holistically in a homely yet professional environment. Hoogland is set in the heart of a large private game reserve, close to both Pretoria and Johannesburg. They are less than an hour’s drive from both cities but being in a conservancy and nature reserve, there several gravel roads and many GPS databases do not have accurate information on the area. Visit their website for more information.

The run and all profits made from it was donated to Jumping kids organisation. At Jumping Kids, the dream is to provide prosthetic solutions geared for optimum results while boosting awareness and advocating for change. Most young South Africans living with amputation are limited more by health policies than their actual physical ability. Jumping kinds provide these young South Africans with prosthetic solutions to help them live a full and productive life filled with the possibility of being able to do anything their hearts can dream and bodies can achieve.These Kids ran the race with us and did the same challenging routes we did, which is amazing and inspiring to see!

I was very excited for this race as it would be my first proper trail race in weeks, I’m 5-months pregnant at the moment so I opted to run the 5km with my Trail Buddy Ingrid Hauger. She made sure I didn’t go all out, run to fast or get hurt, which I’m very grateful for, she had to remind me once or twice to relax and slow down, haha but it was so much fun to just be on different terrain than boring road.

I entered the race with the help of Entry ninja online, and collecting my tag on the day was very easy and efficient.

I had this idea in my head that because it was a 5km it would be a fast easy one, I mean I’m used to little longer things. But I was pleasantly and out of ‘breath-ly’ surprised to find that the route was allot more tricky than I expected – but to be honest , It’s nothing less to expect from My Road Less Traveled Events.

The views were beautiful as be made our incline onto the kopi, we stopped to catch our breath at the top and when I turned around to look down it was beautiful. 360Degree view, different shades of brown and greens. We continued running ahead and Ingrid let me pas and run in the front, as we reached a decent. I enjoyed the thrill so much, but also trying not to run to fast, with my growing belly my balance is a little off, and I didn’t have the best balance to start off with, I usually fall. Luckily this day I got away with just a stumble and a muddy knee, and Ingrid went in front again. It was a nice and hot day as we ran down the Kopi towards the river beds – We ran on a nice and flat ridge through grass and then we made a steep decent with loose mud, rocks and grass, so steep in fact that we opted to carefully walk down.

We entered a nice and cool area between lots of rocks and boulders, it appeared to be a dry river bed beneath big trees. The temperature cooled down considerably and it was nice and refreshing. Green foliage and big Aloes framed the sides with big rocks creating a sort of tunnel path for us to follow. The path and tunnel opened up onto an open field of grass, where we could see all the runners that were still to come. I was so happy to see the water table, there was water and cold drink with yummy sweets. I had cold drink, water and two sweets, haha, one I ate immediately and the other I would keep for in a kilometer or so. I found that breathing, running and trying to chew on a fizzer like sweet doesn’t all really work well together! Haha, I had to almost choose between chewing and breathing!

We made our way up, up, up, and up again for the last time, at this point my legs were burning and my breathing was that of a unfit person, but strangely my heart beat was 125bp. We stopped and looked around before we made out final decent on a very loose rocky path.

I’m so glad Ingrid was with me, I was concentrating on my feet so much that I didn’t look up to much, so I would definitely have gotten lost if I ran alone, haha not good as the heat was starting to get intense.

We enjoyed the last stretch – I always think of it like horses that run home, that excitement and instinct that kicks in. We smiled for out last picture – or I tried at least haha but in the picture you can see it was a tough one for me. I really enjoyed the race and I actually came 3^rd with Ingrid in 2^nd place.

After the race we waited for everyone to finish and then we had some fun, again in true My road less travelled style there was great spot prizes and cash prizes for the podium positions, there were also free race entries to be won as well as some great running shoes, 4 lucky runners got to walk away with a pair. One lucky Runner won a Elephant experience!

Again this was a wonderful race, and lots of fun. I can’t wait to run one of these races again as a lighter version of my current self, it going to be epic!

Keep an eye on My Road Less Travelled and Entry ninja for more races to come!

Below is my Relive Video of the race.

I forgot to stop my Strava, so I ran longer in the video than the actual race.

Hope to see you at the next race!

Happy Running!

Jani

X