Lloyd Bosman finally brought the Gun Run to Pacaltsdorp with an emphatic victory in the 30th edition of the OUTsurance Gun Run Half Marathon in perfect running conditions in Cape Town this morning (Sunday 15 September).
Bosman raced to victory in 62 minutes 55 seconds to hold off a fast-finishing Adam Lipschitz by 34 seconds, with Tymebank Langa athlete Edward Jack a further minute back in third.
Twenty-two-year-old Durban athlete, Tayla Kavanagh, raced to an impressive win in the women’s competition finishing ahead of two Paris Olympians.
Stellenbosch athlete, Vicky van der Merwe, who finished 2 min 39 sec behind Kavanagh in second position, competed in the Olympic triathlon, while South Africa’s leading marathoner in Paris, Cian Oldknow, struggled to overcome a stomach ailment and finished third.
Both Bosman and Kavanagh recorded the third fastest times in the thirty-year history of the race. Bosman’s time was 24 seconds adrift of Joel Mmone’s 2015 1:02:31 race record, while Kavanagh was 2 min 11 sec off Elana Meyer’s 25-year 1:10:52, established during her heyday when Meyer held the world record on several occasions.
David Manja’s 1:02:51 in 2016 and Irvette van Zyl’s 1:12:11 in 2019 are the second-fastest in Gun Run history.
Like his friend and training partner, Olympian Elroy Gelant, Bosman hails from Pacaltsdorp, an unpretentious corner of the Southern Cape city of George, and both have enjoyed stellar performances on the road in Cape Town this year.
Bosman started his 2024 ball rolling with a competitive second place in the Bay to Bay 30km in Camps Bay in January and followed that up with an impressive victory in the Cape Peninsula Marathon the following month. He returned to Cape Town in April to run the race of his life at the Two Oceans 56km, challenging for the win in the final stages before finishing a close second.
Having developed and taken on an innovative, high-volume training programme this year in conjunction with Gelant, both athletes have reaped rich rewards, and Pacaltsdorp has increasingly featured prominently in high profile race results in South Africa.
But until this weekend, the Gun Run had been absent from Pacaltsdorp’s bragging rights.
“I’d not planned to do the Gun Run,” admitted Bosman. “But then Elroy phoned me and said that Pacaltsdorp had yet to feature at the Gun Run and that I should go to Cape Town to win the title.”
“It was just a couple of weeks before the race, so I had to rely on my base training, but I was confident I could come not just to win but also to take the record. It was close, but I think we started a bit too slowly and I also lost some time at the finish.”
Gelant was delighted with the outcome. “I’m really happy with Lloyd’s win this morning,” South Africa’s top marathoner in Paris remarked from his home in Potchefstroom. “A number of us from Pacaltsdorp are on the same training programme. I’m really happy with his sub-63 min time and next year’s goal is the Two Oceans!”
Earlier, Bosman and Jack had led the field through 7km, with the pair 28 seconds up on Lipschitz, Deon-Lee Hendricks and Bruce-Lynn Damons.
Bosman turned on the heat on the lengthy climb from 8km, racing through 10km 9 seconds clear of Jack with Lipschitz and Hendricks a further 35 sec back.
Bosman opened up on the descent into Camps Bay and was 20 seconds clear of Jack above the Glen through 14km with Lipschitz closing on Jack, a further 20 seconds down.
Bosman had the bit between his teeth as he galloped home, never looking like surrendering his lead as he raced to victory and a winner’s cheque for R30 000. Lipschitz moved into second place approaching the Sea Point Pavilion, 4km from home.
Durban-based Lipschitz, who has represented South Africa on the track and in cross country at junior level, was closing on Bosman, but too slowly to change the result up front. He was nonetheless pleased with his return to form following injury and ahead of a number of pacing contracts in high profile road races, including the Chicago Marathon in October, and an attempt on a marathon best time at Valencia in December.
“I’m pleased with my run,” remarked Lipschitz. “I knew the course had some hills and that it would be best to start conservatively. I told the other guys to run with me at a steady pace and we would reel in the leaders (Bosman and Jack), but they seemed to favour throwing in surges, which ultimately cost them time.”
Kavanagh made her half-marathon debut in Durban in March this year with a solid 1:14:50 victory and was pleased to have improved her PB by 1 min 47 sec in Cape Town. “My coach had advised me to start the first half of the race conservatively,” Kavanagh recounted.
“But I felt strong climbing the hill so moved ahead of Cian (Oldknow) around 9km. I found a bunch of four or five guys running my pace, so stayed together with them for much of the race.
“The conditions were perfect and I enjoyed the race, but won’t be looking to run longer distances for a while yet. I’m quite a bit younger than most of my rivals so will enjoy improving my times over shorter distances.
“We have our club race – the Hollywoodbets 10km – in Durban in two weeks’ time, which I’m looking forward to, and for the first time we are holding a Hollywoodbets 10km in Johannesburg later in the year.”
Kavanagh’s club manager, Manfred Seidler, was enthusiastic about his charge’s run. “I’m absolutely ecstatic with that great performance by Tayla,” said Seidler.
“She’s been battling with injury and this win is really good to see. It means she’s on the comeback to where we all know she can be. I was very excited to see her last 10k was run in 33:14 and she finished strongly.”
Spare a thought for Oldknow, at the top of her game and fresh from a superb gold-medal performance over 10km at the national cross country championships in Gauteng last week.
Hopes of a competitive 21km time in perfect conditions – potentially challenging Meyer’s record – were dashed by a virulent stomach bug she picked up in Cape Town two days before the race.
“I’ve fully recovered from the Olympic Marathon,” Oldknow remarked. “But I’ve been really struggling with this stomach bug. I haven’t been able to eat anything for a day and a half and had little energy out there today. Hopefully my next race in Cape Town (she races the Cape Town Marathon in mid-October) will go better!”
While Oldknow struggled, her fellow-Olympian, Van der Merwe, was delighted with her race, overtaking Oldknow in the final 4km to record her best-ever 21km time.
A feature of the day’s proceedings was the handing over of a cheque R100 000 from OUTsurance to the race charity – Animal Welfare Society – which will go some distance to enabling the society to continue its sterilisation campaign in areas of poverty in Cape Town.
RESULTS
