Sport	Race
Event	City2City Ultramarathon
Date	27 September 2015
Where	Pretoria to Johannesburg (South Africa), South Africa
Distance	50 Km
Finishing Time	05:19:57
Race Number	2373
Result	696/1861
Top %	37%
Pace	6:24 m/km
Speed	9.38 km/h
Click here for details about City2City Ultramarathon
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My experience at the event:

This was a hard 50km. I decided to do it once again after 2011 and 2013 mostly to qualify in advance for Comrades 2016.

The race somewhere in the past year lost the main sponsor (Bonitas) and it was "rescued" by the South African Athletic. Unfortunately, just like in the case of the terrible Soweto Marathon, the lack of private sponsors almost ended up in a disaster. On a very hot day, with a late start, with no clouds and with 50km on hot roads, the organization did some miscalculation and, towards the last 20km, had little cold water (none after my group passed), and too much warm coke, which is not the greatest thing to drink. Also, no ice after 3 hours, and very little food.

So my collapse started around the 30km mark (until then I was easily staying under 6mins/km), and a combination of sun and pain in my tight achilles (still suffering from some injuries) made my finish somehow under 5.20, 25 minutes above my personal, 6 minutes below the 2011 score, and well within the Comrades qualifying limits. I basically walked and lightly jogged in the last 10km, hoping for some water from any source.

Andy, who started with me, suffered even more. The 35 minutes gap was enough for him to get to stations that had no water or no coke. He basically suffered under the sun, and only a good amount of sunblock  helped him in surviving, and finishing few minutes before the 6 hours mark.

Out of 4000+ people that entered, only 1860 showed up or finished...

Some pictures from the race:

Start in Centurion

With Andy

During the race

During the race

During the race

With my medal

Details of the medal

After race burns

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