KOMrades Backyard Ultra Race Report by Brett Eaton
This is the inaugural Komrades Backyard Ultra race report. Most runners wouldn’t recognise this event as a race. It lacked all traditional race-like features. There was no parking traffic jam, no waft of Vaseline, no finishers medals, no port-a-potty, an approximate start time and no definite start or finish line.
The concept was simple. Run or walk the KomRun 5km route as many times as your heart desired. To use Strava speak, put the Local Legend algorithm to the test for the KomSurf 5km segment. Make no mistake, the KomSurf 5km route offers a genuine challenge and has a little bit of everything.
The route starts with an immediate uphill leaving Kommetjie towards Scarborough. After that uphill warmup, the runners leave the tar road and join the Switchbacks trail that zig zags upwards to the Cobra Camp blockhouse. Heading past the Cobra Camp, the trail flattens out and is a runnable single track through the fynbos. At Big Rock, the trail starts the steep descent down to the church where it rejoins the tar road. From there, the runners wind their way through Kommetjie, past Long Beach and kelp fly corner back to KomSurf.
Its 5km’s but has a blend of intriguing ingredients. To make the 5km route, you combine equal parts trail and tar, knead in some mountain uphill and a pinch of steep technical downhill, let it marinade in some ocean views, and then turn up the heat on a flat and fast tar section.
The run itself was fantastic with the completion of each loop being wildly cheered by all those who added to the “gees” at KomSurf and throughout the streets of Kommetjie. For most of the morning, the route was scattered with chatty runners, all doing varying distances. The casual atmosphere of the run made the loops tick past. It certainly provided the glorious strain and pain that we runners delight in, but there was something comforting about returning to a base after each loop and breaking the run down into 5km bite size chunks.
Some basic facts:
1. Distance: The event offered distances of 5km, 10km, 15km, 20km, 25km, 30km…….50km.
You get the picture.
2. Field Size: An impressive number – even more if you include the dogs.
3. Entry Fee: R0, but R250 got you a Komrades T-shirt for bragging rights.
4. Start Time & Cut-off: You could start whenever you wanted to. 07:30 was suggested for the 50km and 09:00 for the 25km. Cut-off time was closing time for KomSurf. Any finisher after cut-off didn’t get a medal, but neither did any finisher before cut-off.
5. Winning Time for the 50km: The first person to earn the Local Legend wreaths was indeed the Local Legend DVG in 5hrs 11 minutes – an impressive time that has set a lofty benchmark for future attempts.
6. Winning Time for the 25km: Cameron Mackintosh could see his house for most of the route and sprinted to 2hrs 19mins.
7. Venue: The race village was at KomSurf shop. The vibe was strong! Each runner was
welcomed with big cheers, music, Kommetjie market fare and high fives.
8. Water Tables: 0
9. Beer Tables: 1 – Jack Black provided beers to runners and supporters in keeping with their awesome support of the Kommetjie running community.
10. Notable Mentions: Ty and the Kom Run Club. Special mention to Daniel Grebe who added serious professionalism to the rustic event through the epic photograph’s.
11. Your’s Truly’s Strava Stats: 10 Laps, 51.04km’s, 1 459m elevation, 6hrs 05mins.
