Metropolitan 10K 2026 is a 10 km race on Wednesday 25 November, starting at 18:00 at Parc du Cap, Bellville, Cape Town. The course climbs about 225 m in total.
Metropolitan Athletic Club's #Toughest10K on a Wednesday evening: from Parc du Cap up through Hoheizen and Blomvlei to the top of Welgemoed, past Bellville Golf Club, down Lincoln Street into Boston and back up Carl Cronje Drive. 225 metres of climbing.
18:00, Parc du Cap, 1 Mispel Road, Bellville. Secure parking in the Parc du Cap parkade
Parc du Cap. Cut-off 2 hours 15 minutes (20:15), longer than before. Sunset is at about 19:37
It climbs about 225 m in total. The highest point is 211 m above sea level, at km 5.6.
Three water stations with water sachets on the course, and water and Coke at the finish. Please use the bins
Sportsmans Warehouse Tygervalley and Rondebosch: Saturday 21 November, 09:00 to 15:00. Parc du Cap: Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 November, 10:00 to 16:00, and race day until 17:50
Online on Racepass until 13 November: R120 licensed, R180 unlicensed; juniors R70 and R110; 70 and over free (R60 unlicensed). Limited entries at race-pack collection, electronic payment only. No entries on race day. Minimum age 14
Every finisher gets a medal and a TakealotNOW and Mr D mystery box. Open: R3,000, R2,000 and R1,000. Juniors and veterans (40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+): R600, R500 and R400
18:00 · km 0
You start inside Parc du Cap, the office park beside the N1 that is Metropolitan's head office, at six on a Wednesday evening. The Metropolitan Athletic Club's evening race goes back to at least 2006, and it came back in 2024 after six years away. It calls itself the #Toughest10K: 225 metres of climbing, between 82 and 211 metres above the sea. The sun sets at about 19:37, so the back of the field finishes at dusk.
km 0.5 to 1.2 · Elsieskraal River
Over Carl Cronje Drive, down across the Elsieskraal River and up past the Stellenbosch Business School. This valley was a clay and stone quarry: Brick and Clay mined it from 1930, and in 1936 a jail was built for about 600 prisoners who worked the pits. Mining stopped in 1973, and the land became the business school's Bellville Park campus (1986), an athletics track (1992) and the Bellville Velodrome (1997). The mining left two dams behind; one is now the lake at Tyger Waterfront.
km 1.2 to 2.5 · Hoheizen Crescent
Along Hume Street into Hoheizen and once round Hoheizen Park on Avery Crescent and Hoheizen Crescent. The loop rolls up and down between 109 and 127 metres, and by the time you turn into Lincoln Street at km 2.5 you are at 141 metres. Save something: the real climbing starts at that corner.
km 2.5 to 3.3 · Lincoln Street
Right onto Lincoln Street and up into Blomvlei: from the bottom of Hoheizen at km 2 to the top of Upper Lincoln Crescent the road climbs 83 metres in 1.3 km, and near the top, on Upper Lincoln Crescent, it rises about 12 metres in every hundred, the steepest of the course. Lincoln Street runs all the way down to Boston, the suburb an American company laid out in 1900, which is why its streets carry names like Lincoln, Washington and Cleveland.
km 3.2 to 4.0 · Van der Merwe Crescent
A loop through Blomvlei on Van der Merwe Crescent, Wolhuter, Sturke and Selborne Roads, at about 200 metres above the sea. The worst of the first climb is behind you, though the loop still rises and dips by ten metres or so. It is a good place to get your breathing back.
km 4.1 to 4.6 · Patriot Street
Down Patriot Street beside Bellville Golf Club, founded in 1957 on land that was the Welgemoed farm. Nicolaas Loubser farmed here from 1677, his son-in-law planted the first vines, and by 1823 Welgemoed was one of the largest wine farms in the Tygerberg. In 1881 two British princes, one of them the future King George V, hunted here as guests of the Duminy family. Sanlam bought the farm in 1948 to build the suburb, and the old farmhouse above the course was the golf club's clubhouse before it became a restaurant.
km 4.7 to 5.6 · De Mist and Sluysken Street
The second climb: west along De Mist Street and steeply up Sluysken Street to the top of the course, 211 metres, on Patriot Street near Jip de Jager Drive. Welgemoed climbs the slopes of the Tygerberg: its highest streets reach about 310 metres, with views over Bellville. Jip de Jager, a teacher and professor of education, was Bellville's mayor when it became a city in 1979.
km 5.6 to 6.9 · Lincoln Street
From the top the course drops almost all the way to km 8.4: down Upper Lincoln Drive and Lincoln Street, 90 metres in a kilometre and a half, and over the N1 on the Lincoln Street bridge at about km 6.7. On most late-November evenings the wind blows from the south or south-east, which means it is in your face on this stretch.
km 6.9 to 8.2 · 17th and 18th Avenue
A zigzag through the avenues of Boston. In 1900 an American company bought the land from a Mr Duminy, cut it into plots and named the suburb after Boston, Massachusetts. Many of its Victorian-style houses still stand. The road keeps dropping gently, from 114 metres at km 7 to 86 at the bottom of Langenhoven Street.
km 8.2 to 8.7 · Frans Conradie Drive
Along Frans Conradie Drive past Jack Muller and Danie Uys Park, the low point of the course at 82 metres. The park is named after a Bellville councillor, Jack Muller, and a mayor, Danie Uys. The botanist and former mayor Kristo Pienaar chose its trees, Cape weavers breed here, and it is where Bellville runs parkrun.
km 8.7 to 9.9 · Carl Cronje Drive
Left up Carl Cronje Drive beside the canalised Elsieskraal River, which rises in the Tygerberg Hills, and under the N1. The road climbs 36 metres in the last 1.5 km, and the steepest pull is the last one, back into Parc du Cap. A south-easter, the usual wind on a late-November evening, is behind you now.
km 9.5 to 10 · Parc du Cap
Back into Parc du Cap, past the start and up to the finish. In 2025, 1,253 runners finished. Bruce-Lynn Damons won the men's race for the second year running, in 32:44 after 31:37 in 2024, and Leani Potgieter won the women's in 41:05. The fastest times in the race's published results are 30:18 by the Lesotho Olympian Namakoe Nkhasi in 2016, and 35:21 in 2015 by Diana-Lebo Phalula, who ran the marathon for South Africa at the Rio Olympics.
Route: runners' race-day GPS tracks from 2025 (Ride with GPS), matched to OpenStreetMap; the race director confirmed the 2026 route is the same. Times, water, entries and prizes: the official race page