Pulling up their SOX

TRAIL RUNNING NEWS - The tenth instalment of the annual Southern Cross Trail Run, a three-day stage race, was held with great success last weekend, 6 to 8 August.

Known as SOX, the trail run is organised by TriSport and was first held in 2012. It has become a mainstay on the Garden Route and South African trail running calendar and a bucket list item for any trail running athlete in the country.

While it has had various race village locations over the years, the one thing that has remained unchanged is that Wilderness has been the home of SOX since day one.

Considered by organisers as the most diverse three-day trail run in South Africa, runners take on pristine SANParks hiking trails in the mountains and indigenous forest, and along the stunning coastline of the Garden Route.

Each day of the run offers up a different set of challenges and scenery for the runners across three different distances - Lite, Sport and Full. Day one was the mountain stage.

It started at the NMU George Campus and runners were taken all around the foot of the Outeniqua Mountains, enjoying surreal views of the Garden City.

Day two was the forest stage, and runners started at the Millwood Hut (Lite and Full) and Krisjan-se-Nek (Sport) in the world-renowned Knysna forests, traversing tough yet breathtaking terrain.

PHOTO GALLERY: Sox, the annual Southern Cross Trail Run

On day three, the coastal stage, runners started at Kleinkrantz and ran along the beach toward Wilderness before heading inland at the Touws River mouth.

The longer distances enjoyed parts of the Kingfisher Trail before all three distances crossed SOX's famous floating bridge to finish at the historic Fairy Knowe Hotel, which doubled as the race village this year.

It was a great weekend of running to commemorate the 10th anniversary of SOX, and runners wasted no time out on the trails. Men's and women's winners were crowned across all three distances after the final stage wrapped up on Monday.

There was a fantastic vibe among the runners throughout.