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New and bigger race

Mapaseka Makhanya and Irvette van Zyl

The Joburg leg of SPAR Women’s Challenge has found a new home.

On Sunday October 13, Joburg’s most beautiful road race will take place at Wanderers Club in Illovo. For many years this event took place at Old Parktonians in Randburg, but has now moved to its new venue.

Organizers of the event are also planning to enlarge the field of participants to 15 000 which will be more accommodating for a field of this nature.

The beneficiary for the race is Reach for Recovery who will receive a portion of proceeds from the SPAR Joburg Challenge entries.

The new route will also have the signature of well-known runner, Sonja Laxton, who created the 10km route. Laxton will be running her 80th SPAR Women’s Challenge when she lines-up for this event in October. The route will take runners along Corlett Drive towards Oxford Road as far as Riviera Road in Killarney, before zigzagging back through some of Johannesburg’s leafiest suburbs.

The 5km route meanders through the plush suburbs of Illovo, Melrose, Birdhaven and Atholl-Oaklands, giving runners a chance of peeking at some of the most beautiful gardens in Johannesburg.

“They are lovely routes,” said the evergreen Sonja Laxton. “I do most of my training in this area and I think all the runners will enjoy the new 10km route. It is not as challenging as the previous route. There are a few longish uphill drags, but generally it is quite a gentle route, and I think the layman runner will appreciate it. “You run past some beautiful gardens as well as the Killarney golf course and there are lots of trees. The jacarandas may be out by then, which makes it all even prettier.”

The cream of the crop will run in the Challenge and is the last of the five which will make up the SPAR Grand Prix. Leader of the pack will be Mapaseka Makhanya, who will most probably walk away with the grand prize which is a Nissan Micra. She finished the Pretoria leg of the series in record time ahead of last year’s Grand Prix winner, Rene Kalmer and 2012 Joburg’s leg winner, Yrvette van Zyl.

As runners complete the race, the lucky draw slip on their number will be torn off and automatically entered for a draw. Also, there are prizes worth about R200 000 to be won. Schools with the most entries will win Mecer laptops and accessories donated by Mustek Electronics, and the very popular Bring-a-Friend competition offers runners the chance to win New Balance running shoes worth R1 000.

In addition, the first 15 000 entrants will each receive a New Balance SPAR Challenge T-shirt on registration, and the first 15 000 finishers will be given a medal and a goody bag.

Online entries opened on August 1 and closes on September 27, but late entries will be accepted between October 10 and 13. Online entries are available at www.sparwomensrace.co.za

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