Runners Platform SA

100km from Hermanus to Stellenbosch Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. There's a new race on the WPA calendar. Cape100, a point to point road ultra, Hermanus to Stellenbosch, 100km. The organisers say they're building "the world's premier 100km ultra marathon." I'd normally roll my eyes at that, and I sort of did, but the route is genuinely good and the distance is a real gap in the local calendar. Most Cape runners top out at the marathon, or they sign up for Comrades and spend six months training for a race that happens 1,600km away. A hundred on home roads is a different proposition. Whether it becomes a great race depends on things nobody can promise yet: the seeding, the cutoffs, whether the water tables hold up at 70km when the field is strung out and everybody is walking. That's where ultras are made or ruined. The scenery doesn't save you at 70km. And the scenery is good. Winelands, then farmland, then the sea somewhere ahead ...