Okay so you want to get fit but you find road running incredibly boring and monotonous…..now jump to trail running. Picture hiking trails, single tracks, jeep tracks, mountain ranges, forests, deserts and coastal bush. This can be your afternoon playground…
Find a like minded runner, or a naive clueless victim that can be easily convinced and a trail. Otherwise contact a running group. CRAG, Mates, VOBs or Celtics are good options if you live in Cape Town. Lungile Health is a brilliant group in Durban organized by a colleague Dietitian and his biokineticist wife. Most groups offer varying distances and experience levels.
Trail running shoes are definitely recommended, but if you want to try it out first use your road running shoes. Just be careful because trail running with no grip can be like ice skating, only with a huge cliff to your one side… I exaggerate! just go slow.
If you are doing a short run or anything less than an hour, you don’t really need to take water with you. However you can always get a camelbak or water bottle belt.
Sun cream, sunnies and a peak are essential.
Some great trails in Cape Town –
- Pipe track
- Lion’s head base run or up to the top
- Lion’s head to signal hill
- Tafelberg road and the table mountain contour
- Tokai
- Newland Forest
- Silvermine mountains
And there are lots more but I’ve gone blank…..