The annual The Herald/Friendly City Marathon and 10km road races took place in Port Elizabeth on Saturday, with a number of Grahamstown athletes taking part to qualify either for the Comrades or Two Oceans marathons.
The annual The Herald/Friendly City Marathon and 10km road races took place in Port Elizabeth on Saturday, with a number of Grahamstown athletes taking part to qualify either for the Comrades or Two Oceans marathons.
One of the locals who started Saturday’s race as part of her training for the Two Oceans was Terri-Lynn Penney, who ended up winning the women’s race.
She started the marathon as a training event, but when told by marshalls along the route that she was in fourth place and the top three women were just ahead of her, she decided to give chase before the half-way mark.
Managing to reel the women in one by one, she took the lead with about 8km to go and went on to win by over four minutes.
Running for Run/Walk For Life Athletics Club, Penney finished in a time of 3 hours 23 minutes 20 seconds.
Another local on top form on Saturday was Comrades legend, Frith van Der Merwe (also of Run/Walk For Life), who went on to win the 10km event in a time of 43:28, finishing as 15th overall.
Van der Merwe is well known for finishing the Comrades Marathon over a distance of 89km, in 15th position when she set the Comrades woman’s record in 1989 which still stands today.
Starting from Holmeleigh Farm, the marathon and 10km events took place in the Kragga Kamma area. The events started in cool conditions but soon warmed up, especially for the back markers, as the weather also picked up in the early part of the marathon.
The event also attracted the biggest field in its 31 year history with an increase of 1109 to 1512 in the 42km, 10km and 5km events.
In all, four local athletes finished in the top ten, Simphiwe Tana and Thembinkosi Ndyogolo of Nedbank Running Club finished seventh and eighth overall while Jene Banfield (Run/Walk For Life) was the sixth woman home.
Ndyogolo was also the first in the 40-49 age category, while Banfield was second in the women’s 35-39 age category.
There were 485 finishers in the 42km event and 403 finishers in the 10km.The local results from the 42km event are:
7. Simphiwe Tana (Nedbank)
8. Thembinkosi Ndyogolo (Nedbank) 55. Terri-Lynn Penney
(Run/Walk For Life) 3:23:20, 83. Jene Banfield (Run/Walk For
Life) 3:32:58, 168. Martin Bekker (Albany Road Runners) 3:54:10,
171. Richard Hall (Run/Walk For Life) 3:54:37, 479. Mike Loewe
(Run/Walk For Life) 5:18:59
Local results from the 10km event: 6. Desmond Witbooi
(Nedbank) 37:54, 15. Frith van der Merwe (Run/Walk For Life)
43:28, 16. Stephen Penney (Run/Walk For Life) 43:29, 22. Richard
Alexander (Run/Walk For Life) 45:02, 80. Johann Coetzee (no
club) 53:44.
