Don Lock Memorial Race 2026 is a 15 km race on Sunday 25 October, starting at 06:00 at Water Street, Claremont, Cape Town. The course climbs about 84 m in total and has 3 water points.
Celtic Harriers' 65th Don Lock: from Claremont Primary through the leafy streets of Claremont and Rondebosch, two kilometres up Milner Road, once round Rondebosch Common under Devil's Peak, and home down Camp Ground Road.
06:00, Water Street beside Claremont Primary School, Palmyra Road, Claremont. The 8 km starts at 08:00
On the sports field beside Claremont Primary School. Cut-off 08:30, prize-giving at 10:00
It climbs about 84 m in total. The highest point is 32 m above sea level, at km 14.
Water and Coke at 4, 8 and 12 km. Carry your own if you can; no personal seconding
km 4 · 8 · 12
Claremont Primary School: Friday 23 October, 16:00 to 19:00, Saturday 24 October, 10:00 to 16:00, and race morning from 05:00, with late entries
Online until midnight on Thursday 22 October: R150 licensed, R235 unlicensed; free for licensed runners over 70. Age 15 and up. Every finisher gets the 120th-anniversary medal, Tia's muesli and a Cadbury ice cream
Run the 15 km and the 8 km for a special Double Deal medal, and R1,500 each for the man and woman with the best combined times. No Double Deal runner may start the 8 km after 08:05
06:00 · km 0
You start on Water Street beside Claremont Primary School, eight minutes after sunrise. Celtic Harriers member Alex Jones started the race in 1960, as a five-mile race, in memory of his good friend and clubmate Don Lock, who had been killed in a car accident. It is the club's oldest race, and in 2026 it is run for the 65th time. About 1,450 people finished the 15 km in 2025, and more of them were women than men.
km 1.7 to 2.4 · Squirrels Way
Round the edge of Keurboom Park, named after the old Keurboom estate, with its wide lawns and Table Mountain beyond. In March 2012 it hosted the African Cross Country Championships, where Kenya's Clement Langat and Joyce Chepkirui won the senior titles.
km 2.4 to 3.6 · Chess Road to Avenue de Mist
Along the grounds of the Western Province Cricket Club, which goes back to 1864. The club once owned Newlands Cricket Ground, a kilometre west of here, and still owns its members' pavilion. Its sports centre on Avenue de Mist opened in 2003. The avenue is named, it seems, after Jacob de Mist, who governed the Cape for the Dutch in 1803 and 1804.
km 3.9 · Oakhurst Avenue
Rondebosch Boys' High School, founded in 1897, has been here since 1947. One of its old boys, Marcello Fiasconaro, born in Cape Town in 1949, started running at Celtic Harriers and broke the world 800 m record for Italy in 1973, in 1:43.7. The first water point is just ahead at 4 km.
km 4.4 to 6 · Weltevreden Avenue to Stanford Road
Celtic Harriers was founded in August 1906 by young Cape Town runners, many of Irish descent: hence the name, the harp on the badge and the green and white hoops. It is one of the oldest running clubs in the Western Cape. On 2 May 1970 the club put on the first Celtic 35 Mile Road Race, which grew into the Two Oceans Marathon. Every finisher this year gets a new medal for the club's 120th year.
km 6.2 · Belvedere Road
In the little park beside Belvedere Square stands a steam locomotive built in 1896. It worked at a coal mine near Witbank, then shunted at Cape Town's Dock Road and Table Bay power stations, where it was nicknamed Dyna-Mo, and came here when the power stations closed in 1962.
km 6.7 to 8.6 · Milner Road
Almost two kilometres north on Milner Road, past Micklefield School and the Marsh Memorial Homes, a children's home since 1903. At km 8.2 you cross the Black River, which rises in Arderne Gardens in Claremont: the lowest point of the course, 11 metres above the sea. The second water point is at 8 km.
km 8.6 to 11.9 · Rondebosch Common
Out along Park Road to the rock at the Common's south-west corner and back, then all the way round it: up the Milner Road side, across the top and down Campground Road. Batavian troops camped here in 1795 and British soldiers for years after, which is why it was the Camp Ground. It has been a National Monument since 1961, and its 40 hectares keep a rare patch of critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, with more than 300 kinds of plants. The first Don Lock started and finished here, and Celtic Harriers still run their Wednesday time trial from the rock.
km 10.4 to 10.8 · Klipfontein Road
The Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital is a living memorial to South Africans who served in the Second World War: soldiers waiting in Italy to come home were moved by the war's orphaned children, and many gave two days' pay towards it. Its first patients arrived in June 1956. It now sees more than 250,000 young patients a year. Then west along Klipfontein Road, the top of the course, with Devil's Peak straight ahead.
km 11.2 to 13.4 · Camp Ground Road
Down the Common's west side past Rustenburg Girls' High, back past the rock for the last water point at 12 km, then south on Camp Ground Road. St Thomas's church on your left was designed by Sophy Gray, wife of the first Bishop of Cape Town, and opened in 1865 as the Camp Ground mission chapel. Rondebosch Park beside it was part of the Common until 1870.
km 13.4 to 15 · Palmyra Road
Palmyra Road is the highest point of the course, all of 32 metres, at km 14. Then St Leger Road past Claremont Primary, St Michaels Road and across the sports field to the finish. In 2025 Edward Jack won in 45:32 and then won the 8 km as well, his third double in four years; Ebeth Marais won the women's race in 55:51. Every finisher gets the club's 120th-anniversary medal, a bag of Tia's muesli and a Cadbury ice cream.
Route: the organisers' Garmin course matched to OpenStreetMap, with the run across the field to the finish from runners' race-day GPS tracks (2023 to 2025, Ride with GPS). Times, water and entries: the official flyer