Saturday, 3rd of March saw the inaugural Howick Trail Run take place at 11Karkloof just a few km’s outside the centre of Howick. A collaboration between locally based KZN Trail Running, the Howick Mountain Bike and Trail Running Club and SAPPI, the event attracted an impressive turnout of 430 runners and walkers. Participants were treated to the cool and quiet SAPPI forests and scenic interleading grasslands of the Midlands and they certainly relished every kilometre.
An event of this nature usually attracts some serious competitors and the Howick Trail Run was no exception, with the podium finishers posting some blistering times.
Results for the 20km event were as follows: Mens 1st – Perfect Dlamini (1:22:26), 2nd – Kwenza Ngubane (1:22:35), 3rd – Muzi Madikwa (1:22:54) and Ladies 1st – Isla Shill (1:48:30), 2nd – Lisa Daniel (1:50:17), 3rd – Kim Westbrook (1:53:56).
In the shorter distances, the Durban Green Corridor-Inanda Athletics Club put in a brilliant show and all but cleaned up. For full results visit http://www.kzntrailrunning.co.za/2018/03/04/howick-trail-run-2018-results/.
Built and maintained by Howick Mountain Bike and Trail Running Club, the trails thread through SAPPI land and receive praise from runners and bikers who travel from far and wide to experience them. The passion that the organisers have for their home trails and supporting all things local contributed to the fantastic energy around the event.
The accessibility of the Howick trails, both in terms of location and variety of distances on offer, contributes to their popularity. With 11Karkloof set to become a permanent trail head and annual events such as this one, the WildSeries Three Cranes Challenge (hosted at Bushwillow Park in February) and the Karkloof100 Miler (hosted at Yard41 in Howick in September), Howick is becoming cemented at the trail hub of the Midlands!