Capetonian Brendan Lombard waxes lyrical on the benefits of his local trail...
Location: Constantia Nek, Cape Town, South Africa
Distance: As long or short as you choose
Terrain: Trail, singletrack and jeep track
Running trails has always been my way of chasing adventure and exploring the amazing landscapes we have been gifted with by God.
I believe though however that in order to race them successfully one can’t just get out there everyday and ‘just run’ …
I live in the deep south of Cape Town, South Africa. We have a variety of gnarly trails and beautiful landscapes. One trailhead which is quite nearby to me is the Constantia Nek access point. This Constantia Nek route ticks a lot of boxes for me: rad view points and accessibility, but also it's great as a functional training ground.
From the trailhead one can access many different routes, each having their own outcome. On this day however, I had a hill session on the menu and there is a perfect ‘little’ hill one can use in order to build one’s climbing gas tank.
From the Constantia Nek sign or first boom I ran about 1km (past another boom) to where the jeep track forks. (From there you can either carry on and go toward Kirstenbosch Gardens, or you can take a left up toward the Overseers hut). The left is where the hill starts for a proper hill repeat session.
My session on this scorcher of a day was a 3km warm up, 5x800m hills of hard up and easy down, followed by 2km of threshold running and then a 2km cool down all courtesy of my coach Erin Van Eyysen.
My hill repeat goes something like this:
The hill starts out gradually making my breathing slightly harder. I feel my feet move onto my toes where I begin driving my feet into the ground to increase my cadence. I feel my calves start to burn and my breathing get heavier as the hill suddenly gets steeper and starts to hit back. I drive and drive and drive with my legs until I near the top overloaded with lactate and a sense of relief as I turn around and begin my recovery back down to the beginning of the hill, only to do it again. A whole five times.
After running five brutal hill repeats, I usually push the engine a little further and do about 2km of threshold running on the jeep track toward Kirstenbosch Gardens. (I this by doing a simple 1km out-and-back making sure I churn up some dirt and look crazy to other trail users as I pass by).
The jeep track takes me past some beautiful views and I look up for a split second to take it in so as to make sure I don’t fall.
After this I usually cool down for 2km. It's often an almost bittersweet ending as I am tired but get to take in such a rad view at a small peak just above the Constantia Valley. Then I walk, finally taking it all in: The smells, the feel, the wind, the sounds. Hope to see you out there.
I used the ASICS GEL-FUJI LYTE and cannot recommend it enough.
