‘Special’ wins for Kyle, Marion

by Stephen Granger

Kyle Bucklow put his COVID woes behind him to race to an impressive victory at the Special Edition 25km on Table Mountain this morning (Saturday 28 May), while German athlete Marion Leiberich won the women’s competition after new rising star, Rebecca Kohne, took a wrong turn while leading shortly before the finish.

British-born runner Alasdair Leslie, now resident in Cape Town, and Lisa Pringle took the respective line honours in the ‘double trouble’ 50km.

The Special Edition comprises two separate loops of 25km in the northern section of Table Mountain National Park, starting and finishing at Homestead Park in Oranjezicht. Unusually, the event allows runners to choose their lap sequence if they are running the 50km, while in the case of those entered for the 25km, runners can choose to run either lap.

In a reversal of trail-racing norm, the emphasis for the Special Edition is placed over 25km, the distance raced by the invited elite athletes on a designated loop. The Atlantic (western) loop was up for today’s elites – along the Pipe Track, up Corridor Ravine and along the back Table to Maclears Beacon before a rapid descent down Platteklip Gorge to the finish.

Almost two hundred runners completed the 25km in cold, misty conditions. Most finished before the forecasted rain fulfilled its promise, adding to the weather diversity experienced by the slower 50km runners.

“I was supposed to race the Addo 76km race in March,“  Bucklow, explained. “I travelled up to the Eastern Cape for the race but went down with COVID just before so had to miss out. It took a while to recover, and I missed out on a few other races. But I competed in a local trail series and raced a few road races (he won the Milkwood Half Marathon  and gained a top ten position in the competitive UCT Memorial Run 10km) and started to feel stronger. I’m really pleased at how it went today.”

A year after winning the Special Edition 50km, Bucklow was determined to atone for his difficult start to 2022, racing into the lead from the start and was never seen again by his rivals.  He climbed strongly up the steep ascent of Corridor Ravine and was three minutes clear of Josh Chigome at the check point at the top of Kasteels Poort. Remarkably, Chigome was running just seven days after winning the Jonkershoek Mountain Challenge 53km.  Charl Cronje was third, with Ultra-trail Drakensberg 32km winner David Krone a further minute behind in fourth.

Leading American ultra-distance athlete and past winner of both the Ultra-trail Cape Town 100km and 65km races, Cody Reed, was just behind Krone in fifth.  Reed had opted to remain in South Africa for some weeks following his win in last month’s Ultra-trail Drakensberg 100km, opting to race the 25km as his last competitive outing before his departure for a season of Alpine ultra-trail racing in Europe.

Bucklow maintained his lead on the climb to Maclear’s Beacon and although Chigome closed a minute on the descent in an impressive run just a week after winning the Jonkershoek Mountain Challenge 53km, he was never going to catch the leader. Bucklow crossed the finish line at Homestead Park in 2 hrs 25 min 11 sec – 2 min 4 sec clear of Chigome with Krone third another minute back.  Reed finished fifth behind Cronje, admitting to struggling with the intensity and technical nature of the shorter-distance race.

Bucklow’s time is just over two minutes inside Kane Reilly’s winning time last year, albeit on the loop that is widely recognised as the easier and faster of the two. He is looking ahead to Ultra-trail Cape Town 100km in November, which he ran last year as an easy ‘recce’, as an important target event.

Stellenbosch-based Krone struggled to match his performance in the Drakensberg. “I didn’t feel as strong today,” said Krone. “I have not been able to train much this month as I’ve started a new job as an environmental, social and governance consultant. I let Kyle go in the early stages as I felt we would catch him later, but we never saw him!  I passed Joshua him on the more technical sections but he was much too fast for me when we reached the runnable section near the end of the race.”

Leiberich, researching rhino translocation in South Africa, recorded her third trail win in as many months following victories in the AfricanX Team Run and the Ultra-trail Drakensberg 32km, after George-based Kohne, lost the trail and her lead in the final stages of the race.

Still a teenager, Kohne excelled on the track in her high school years at York High before suffering a stress fracture in her hip in 2019. She was advised to switch to trail and started out in her new running discipline in November last year.  Just five months later she had recorded the fastest time ever for the gruelling Six Peaks Challenge in her ‘back garden’ in the southern Cape mountains, which she completed in 7 hrs 4 min 44 sec.

Kohne and Leiberich exchanged the lead several times until Kohne broke away on the climb up Corridor Ravine, recovering from a near-navigation error near the top of Platteklip Gorge to start the descent with a narrow 30 second margin over Leiberich.

A close finish was on the cards until Kohne ran off the trail, inadvertently adding some four kilometres to her journey. “It was my fault entirely,” admitted Kohne, who remained positive on her performance, which still earned her second place, three minutes clear of Lee-Ann Persse and 24 minutes behind Leiberich’s impressive 2:59:09.

At 47, Leslie has enjoyed a rich decade of ultra-distance running since emigrating from Oxford, England. The Comrades Marathon became his key running focus and passion, with Leslie having earned seven silver medals for the classic 90km event between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. A keen member of the Outliers Club, Leslie ran consistently throughout to race to record an impressive victory in 7:01:48.

“I enjoyed running with Matthew (Clarke) for much of the first loop then managed to open a gap before the halfway mark,” remarked Leslie. “We were a few minutes behind Juan Carstens but he ran the easy leg (Atlantic) first, which I think was a mistake on his part, and we made up the time on him in the second half.”

Carstens reached half-way in 3:18:39, taking an eight minute lead over Leslie into the second half, but found that the ‘Devil’s Loop’ was true to its word, eventually placing third, 11 minutes behind Clarke, who was just two minutes behind Leslie at the finish.

Results

Special Edition 25km

Men:  1 Kyle Bucklow 2:25:11; 2 Joshua Chigome 2:27:15; 3 David Krone 2:28:23; 4 Charl Cronje 2:35:42; 5 Cody Reed 2:36:52; 6 Oli Morris 2:41:58; 7 Mike van der Merwe 2:43:33; 8 Oliver Stapleton-Cotton 2:45:07; 9 Joshua Blackshaw 2:51:15; 10 Chesney Huskisson 3:04:55

Women: 1 Marion Leiberich 2:59:09; 2 Rebecca Kohne 3:23:27; 3 Lee-Ann Persse 3:27:05; 4 Caro Jordaan 3:28:40; 5 Catherine Flanagan 3:36:34

Special Edition 50km

Men: 1 Alasdair Leslie 7:01:48; 2 Matthew Clarke 7:03:42; 3 Juan Carstens 7:14:31; 4 Evan Strauss 7:34:53; 5 Zander Prinsloo 7:36:20

Women: 1 Lisa Pringle 7:41:08; 2 Elaan Coetzee 8:16:41; 3 Melissa Laing 8:28:38; 4 Erica Terblanche 10:17:45; 5 Debbie O’Mahony 10:51:09