Author: Modern Athlete

Back in May 1986, Willie
Mtolo and the late Zithulele Sinqe fought an almighty duel in the SA Marathon
Champs race in Port Elizabeth. Sinqe’s winning time of 2:08:04 was the fastest
ever by a South African, with Mtolo’s 2:08:15 second on the list, and their
performance really made the rest of the world sit up and take notice. “Globally,
only the Australian Rob de Castella, with his 2:07:51 in Boston, was faster
than Sinqe that year,” says SA athletics statistician Ri?l Hauman, current
editor of the South African Athletics Annual.
“Even though both the Boston and PE courses were considered assisted due to the
overall drop from start to finish, Sinqe and Mtolo were right up there in the
world rankings of the time.”

However, it took more than
11 years for another South African to go faster than Sinqe, when Josiah
Thugwane ran 2:07:28 in Fukuoka, Japan in December 1997. And since 1986, only
four SA men have managed to go faster than Sinqe: Thugwane, Gert Thys, Hendrik
Ramaala and the late Ian Syster – and Thys set the current SA record of 2:06:33
in Tokyo as far back as February 1999. Similarly, amongst the women, the days
of Elana Meyer, Colleen De Reuck and Frith van der Merwe are somewhat a distant
memory. In the 90s these three athletes ran 14 sub-2:30 times between them, but
we had to wait until Rene Kalmer’s 2:29:59 in 2011 for another SA woman to
repeat that feat.

“If you look at the global
marathon statistics, the world is getting better at a terrific rate, but South
African standards are not improving. SA has stagnated,” says Ri?l. “And for
that reason, we selected a 41-year-old Hendrik Ramaala to go run the marathon
at the World Champs this year. Yes, he made the qualifying time, but he is past
his best racing days now. The problem seems to be that there are few younger
athletes of the same calibre coming through to take over from him.”

WORLD MARATHON STANDARDS 2012

In the past year, South Africa’s top male and
female marathoners were substantially off the global pace overall.

Men            World   SA        Women      World   SA

Sub-2:05     11         0          Sub-2:20     6          0

Sub-2:06     23         0          Sub-2:22     18         0

Sub-2:07     50         0          Sub-2:24     44         0

Sub-2:08     91         0          Sub-2:26     89         0

Sub-2:09     152       0          Sub-2:28     144       0

Sub-2:10     224       1          Sub-2:30     210       0

Sub-2:11     307       1          Sub-2:32     313       1

Sub-2:12     432       1          Sub-2:34     407       2

Sub-2:13     562       2          Sub-2:36     522       2

Sub-2:14     706       3          Sub-2:38     656       3

Sub-2:15     848       6          Sub-2:40     798       3

FACTOR OF SEVEN

Ri?l believes that a
combination of interlocking factors is responsible for not only this lack of
marathoning depth in SA, but also the overall disappointing performances by South
African athletes in global track, road and cross country events:

1 Lack of season structure
and planning.

2 Lack of opportunities for
top class competition.

3 Lack of money and support
for athletes.

4 Over-racing, moving up to
marathons too soon and over-importance of ultras.

5 Lack of proper coaching
structures and guidance for athletes.

6 Dysfunctional and too
politicised national athletics body.

7 Overly stringent and
impractical qualifying requirement for Olympics.

“I see athletes all over
the country racing too much, weekend after weekend. They don’t peak for a big
race, they just race at the same level all the time, and I know it’s a question
of money for many of them, as they need to put bread on the table. Also, many move
up to marathons and ultras too soon, when they should ideally gradually build
up distance over a few years, focusing first on speed and strength on the track
and in cross country, then step up to 10km on road, and only much later move up
to half marathons, still later the marathon, and only much later the
ultra-marathons. But we all know the big money is in the marathons and ultras,
and that is where many young athletes go.”

Ri?l points to the success
of UK Athletics at the 2012 Olympic in London as a model which SA would do well
to learn from. “If we can get our season planning right and get a proper
coaching structure in place, with a national coach in place and coaches at all
levels working together, from grassroots to Olympic level, as they did so
successfully in the UK, then we can turn things around. And with more money we
can help athletes like Stephen Mokoka with a 2010 PB of 2:08:33 and Lusapho April
on 2:09:25 in 2011 to focus on the Olympics and World Champs, and then we could
see our marathoners challenging the world’s best again.”

Last year was quite some
year for track and field star Ilse Hayes. Competing in the T13/F13 class for visually impaired athletes, she won gold in the long jump and silver in the
100m at the London Paralympic Games, an exact repeat of her medal haul at the
2008 Beijing Paralympics, to go with the bronze she won in the 400m at the 2004
Athens Games. However, she competed in London despite a badly torn quad muscle,
then in February tore a calf, followed by a disk in her back in May. That meant
she went to the IPC World Champs in France in August having done very little
training – and no long jump training at all – but came close to a PB in the
100m in a warm-up race in Germany, then jumped further in Lyon than she did
when winning in London! “So from now on, no more training!” she laughs.

“Before London, the physio’s
thought it was just a tight muscle, so kept rubbing it and making it worse. The
doctor was worried the muscle could rupture completely and end my career, but
luckily that didn’t happen. I took it easy in the semi-final to make the final
of the 100m, then gave it everything in the final and was fine for the first 60m.
After that it was just incredible pain. The next day was the long jump, but I told
myself I had trained for four years to be there, so I just had to put the pain
out of my mind and get on with what I came there for.”

At 28, Ilse is already
considered a veteran of international competition. Her first taste of
international competition came at the 2002 World Champs in France, where she
was the youngest member of the SA team at 16. “That was a real eye-opener for
me. Before the long jump, there was a Russian athlete with a red afro going a
bit crazy in the call room, teasing her hair in between hitting the wall and
screaming!” However, that didn’t put Ilse off and she brought home long jump gold
to go with a bronze in the 100m. “Your first
international gold medal is always special as you hear your national anthem,
but the Paralympic gold medals will always stand out.”

VISION PROBLEMS

Ilse ran her first race in
primary school, aged eight, and promptly smashed the school record. However,
when she was 11, her tennis coach noticed that she was struggling to see the
ball, and then her teachers also noticed she couldn’t read the board any more,
so they urged her parents to have her eyes tested. She was diagnosed with a condition called Stargardt’s Disease, which affects the retina and
causes exceptionally blurry vision. “Between the ages of 11 and 13 my eyes deteriorated quite quickly,” says
Ilse. “I was told I will never go blind, but even up close things are blurred, so
I read with a magnifying glass, and I sit close to the TV. However, the most
annoying thing is that I can’t drive. I’m lucky to have people that drive me
around, including my incredibly supportive husband, Cassie, who works flexi
hours as a financial advisor.”

Born in Johannesburg, Ilse has
lived and trained in Stellenbosch since coming to study Sports Science in 2004,
which she followed with an Honours in Paediatric Exercise Science. She married
Cassie in 2010 and is currently training full-time plus doing volunteer work
with local children as a sports co-ordinator at a University of Stellenbosch
community project. She is part of the powerful Maties-Helderberg
club coached by Suzanne Ferreira that dominates SA Paralympic sports. “Our
Stellenbosch group is incredible. We enjoyed so much success in London, and in
Lyon only three out of SA’s 18 medals did not come from our club. It is also a
privilege to compete overseas with so many close friends.”

“I know quite a few people
with disabilities who were told by doctors they wouldn’t be able to compete or
participate, and many of them proved the doctors wrong. I believe that if you
have the passion for something, then it’s no-one’s place to stand in your way
because you’re disabled. If you have the self-belief that it is possible, go
for it – or else you’ll always wonder what if.”

When Don
Charles won the grandmaster title at the 2013 Central Gauteng Cross Country
Champs in August, it was yet another age category win to add to his already impressive collection. In
previous years he has wracked up wins in the veteran, master and grandmaster
categories at top events like the Loskop Ultra-marathon and Cape Town City
Marathon, but Don says the most special victories came in his childhood ‘hometown’
of Soweto. In fact, he has won his category at the Soweto Marathon as a veteran,
a master and as a grandmaster. “These races have meant so much to me, as I have
an attachment to Soweto,” says Don.

SOCCER PRO

When Don
was a little boy, he looked up to his older brother who was always out on the
soccer field, and at the age of eight, Don decided this was the sport for him.
He spent many hours of his childhood doing what he loved most, playing very
competitive soccer in Soweto, and went on to enjoy a successful playing career, but after many years of
playing professionally, he grew tired of the politics in the soccer industry and made a decision to transition
from soccer to the more tranquil world of individual sport, specifically running.

It all
started on a Friday evening when Don heard there was a marathon happening
relatively close to where he lived that Sunday morning. Now he had harboured a
desire to run a marathon at the back of his mind since road running had been
opened to all races in the 70s, so that Friday he decided he would go and run
on the Sunday.

“I never
really knew what a marathon was and what the distances were, because road
running had been strictly for white people only for the longest time. Still, I
was prepared to run the marathon based on my soccer fitness,” says Don, who
duly arrived at the start line in his casual ‘tekkies.’ “By the time I got to
10km I realised this was pretty far. When I got to 15km, I asked the fellow
runners beside me how far there was left to go. When they told me we weren’t
even halfway, my enthusiasm dwindled, and when I got to 27km, I called it
quits!”

NATURAL RUNNER

Despite
such a negative first experience of long distance running, Don had still
enjoyed the race, so he decided to try again, but this time he would train properly,
having realised that his soccer fitness was only a base for this type of
endurance sport, and that he needed to put in more training before taking on
another marathon. Once he began serious training, however, Don proved to be a ‘natural,’
and his competitive nature soon earned him podium positions, and later many age
category wins.

Initially,
Don had a regular training partner, but when he grew tired of the sport and
threatened to quit, Don started hassling his wife, Muriel, to also take in his
much loved new sport. Muriel had no interest in running, but decided to humour her
husband, but little did she know that she would also prove to be a natural and become
a competitive age grouper! So these days, the Charles couple regularly do a
double sweep of the men’s and women’s grandmaster categories at races up to
half marathon distance. “Don is always training me,” says Muriel. “We like to
do some training sessions together, when our schedules allow it, and we also do
a lot of cross-training, which includes Boot Camp and gym work.” Their two sons
are also sporty, one being a runner and the other a cyclist. Meanwhile, Don’s
next big goal is to ride the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge with his son later
this year. He may just prove a natural at that as well…

DON’s PBs

10km          33:27

21km          1:11:22

42km          2:34:31

Thirteen years ago, in 2000, East Coast Radio (ECR) presenter Makhosi
Khoza tackled his first Comrades Marathon when he decided to enter the race on
the spur of the moment. But on race day, things did not go as he had hoped. “My
ITB got worse at Drummond and I was literally walking my way to the finish,
until I got stopped at the cut-off at Lion’s Park.” That was Makhosi’s Comrades
dream gone – and he never went back. But this year he vows to be back AND to
cross the finish line!

Makhosi, who has been in the radio industry for the last 21 years and
says there is no job like it, started running at university, because it seemed
fun, and a great way to brave a cold shower afterwards. Since then he has continued
running on and off. In preparation for the Comrades in 2000, he entered his
first race, the Hillcrest Marathon, and describes the whole event as a bit of a
blur. “It was relatively easy, notwithstanding the sharp pain in my knee, which
was later diagnosed as ITB. It still plagues me to this day!”

Running coach and mentor Norrie Williamson helped Makhosi prepare for that
first Comrades and Makhosi describes this process as Norrie having to ‘hold his
hand’ throughout his race preparation! It was therefore even more disappointing
that he never made it to the finish. Still, over the years Makhosi kept on
running, but only decided now to go back to the race that beat him 13 years
ago. He is still battling with ITB and is currently being treated for it, but
hopes to resume training with some beach runs along Durban’s Golden Mile soon.

FITTING IT
IN

Though he has demanding working hours, Makhosi says he doesn’t find it
hard to fit in time for training and usually trains after work, as he says he is
not much of a morning person. He prefers training alone and is still looking
around for a club to join, but is really looking forward to the Big C. “I am
more excited about Comrades than you can imagine!” And I realise that the
biggest hurdle to success at Comrades is not a physical one, but a mental
battle.” He adds that his passion for running stems from the fact that it is a
sport for everyone, does not require any fancy facilities or great expenses,
and that one can run anywhere.

For now, Makhosi just hopes to finish the race, but if all goes well, he
would like to finish within 10 hours, and his inspiration is simple: “I did not
complete my first Comrades, so I’m hoping to do it now 13 years later!”