Century City parkrun
Century City parkrun
Greater Cape Town, South Africa
Century City is a suburb of Cape Town, and its parkrun starts in Ratanga Park, heading round the park before getting on to the Canal Walk, going anticlockwise round both sides. There are a couple of sections running through the Canal Walk shopping centre - just the foyers, they’re very brief and marshalled - for entertainment, but otherwise the route is a mixture of narrow and wide paths.
South Africa does extremely well at attracting large fields of participants to many parkruns, most of whom walk the courses. The picture above is highly misleading as a result, and you can perhaps tell it’s early still because the sun is low. The start is at 8am, but this was over 20 minutes before that, and most people hadn’t arrived yet. I was early, making sure I didn’t miss out. Uber is a cheap and easy way to get to the start, but I hadn’t actually used it before so wanted to make sure I had time to catch a ride - I’d decided not to pay the extra to book ahead. Once I booked it, he arrived in 2 minutes, which was always the indicated wait time when I’d checked in the days before. I was staying in Green Point, which is pretty close to the centre and tourist areas, so it was never likely to be a problem, particularly as road closures for Two Oceans were further South. The roads near the park were slightly confusing for the driver’s sat nav, which wanted him to take a footpath, but we got to the car park right next to the start without any trouble.
We had a first-timers welcome at about 7:55, with a decent complement, and then the main briefing, necessarily amplified through a loudspeaker, on the start line. Parts of the course were marked by wide tape, and they had a rope across the front of the start line to ensure no shenanigans. Given it was the day of the Two Oceans Marathon and anyone running that was a few hours into their run, to have 653 finishers here shows how well the inclusive nature of parkrun in SA is working. Attendance fluctuates quite a lot, as you might expect with those numbers - it was below 300 in mid-March - but today was 50 more than last weekend. SA’s ultras are a big deal and the subject of everyday conversation, so perhaps the presence of one of the big ones had convinced more people to come out today.
We were instructed strictly and sensibly that we were to walk/run on the right, pass on the left. “That way, only faster people are at risk of falling into the canal.” It worked well where I was, though I can’t speak for further back. The run director gave all the instruction I needed - ‘faster people - 20, 25 minutes, near the front’. Yep, I ran a smidge over 25 and in the first 50, so that was good advice. I passed some, some passed me, but we all had enough space to do our thing. There are narrower parts. Most are later on, but the first bit along the canal winds a bit, which means you can’t guarantee anyone will stick rigidly to the right-hand side - if you want to be quicker, get nearer the front.
The end has a last loop round the park, before turning on to the grass to finish. There’s a huge finish funnel, to allow for numbers, and good encouragement from the marshal on the last corner. And in the background, the star of essentially any view you have round Cape Town - Table Mountain.
The sun was glorious, the temperature pretty ideal for a short run at 15 degrees, with a heavy breeze against us on the last bit of the canal. It was warming up nicely still afterwards - we were, after all, mostly done before 9am. I had chatted before the start to a gent running a coffee van who had just moved back from doing the same job in England. He had been sufficiently welcoming that I headed back for a bottle of water and a muffin - total cost 22 rand, which he translated as about £2, but at current exchange rates is actually 98p. He was glad I came back, and so was I, and I sat for a while in the park where I’d started before catching a ride back. I was back in time for breakfast (ends at 10), which made the morning pretty much perfect. By the time I’d wandered down to the waterfront farmer’s market for lunch with a couple of new friends, it was already feeling like a long day.
Results from Century City parkrun #251, 15/4/2023; 653 finishers