Jonkershoek Loop+ Trail Run

Our trail grading: ORANGE 3A

Distance: 12km

Extremeness: Fairly easy jog with some tiredness from Helderberg jog

Location: Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Joggers: Deryck Nel, Cobus Potgieter & me

I cannot believe how I suffered during this relatively easy jog! I suppose that it was the tiredness from my previous jog (the Helderberg Red) still haunting me, since after about 500m on the trail my legs were jelly... and they stayed like that for most of the jog. Our route started on the Wes side of the normal Jonkers loop, but after crossing the river we took the jeep track to the right. After some climbing with jelly legs the jeep track ended and we took the single track back down to the loop on part of the Sosyskloof Hiking trail. Here I miraculously got a burst of energy when a tired cyclist tried to pass us on the slow climb towards the end of the loop. Needless to say the cyclist lost the mini-challenge and 50m further the jelly was back. The first 7km of this route is identical to that of the JMC 19km, but today we decided to skip the 900m climb via the Panorama Hiking Trail. We did however left the loop again, getting some altitude to setup an awesome downhill MTB single track (the Lower Canary Trail) to finish my jelly-run.