Author: Modern Athlete

UTi Rhodes Trail Run
52km, Rhodes, Border, 14 July

There was talk on the way down to
Rhodes about extreme weather in the Cape and everyone was getting excited (and
a little nervous). As all Rhodes runners know, this is the one race that we all
pray for bad weather. We want it cold, we want snow, and we want ice – and this
year we got our wishes!

Friday dawned crisp, clear and
beautiful, and we all met up at the local school, in full costume, to hand over
a ‘box library’ to some of the kids that we could rustle up in holiday time.
Lots of fun was had by all, and we also gave some moral support to the amazing
team from DM Kisch Attorneys, who had been painting the school classrooms for
two days already!

And then the weather arrived… As
the day got progressively more cloudy and cold, we rested (and ate) for the next
day’s race, and I made final tweaks to the Polar Bear costume that I would be
wearing to raise funds for the Run to Read Challenge. It started raining in the
evening, and it rained and rained and rained – my first experience of this in
10 Rhodes runs. “The rivers are gonna’ be fun,” I thought. Race organiser
Darrell Raubenheimer also informed us that he had various routes mapped out
“just in case…”

WEE BIT WARMISH

Actually, the 5?C start was
disappointingly the warmest I have experienced at Rhodes, especially given that
I was wearing a ‘fur duvet’ and oversize fibreglass head! However, this was
soon to change. The route had been adjusted to two ‘out-and-backs’ because the
top of the mountain was completely inaccessible (and still was at the time of
writing, two weeks later), so we all managed to see the top guys flying past us
on a couple of occasions.

About an hour into the run the
rain started, then the sleet, and finally the snow, much to the delight of the
runners, and this was accompanied by much photo-taking. As we ran on, the snow
got thicker as we progressed ever upwards. This wasn’t ‘African snow,’ this was
proper Northern Hemisphere-like snow! We ‘ran’ on into the biting wind and snow,
not to mention several freezing river crossings, and the polar bear suit
started to get wet. And heavy.

The checkpoint tables were as
always amazing, and deserve a medal themselves for being out there in that weather.
The Polar Bear, his trusty vet (physio) Jane MacKinnon and my good friend from
KZN, Lionel ‘Farmer Brown’ Howard, had a long, slow run, but everyone who
passed us gave us heaps of encouragement and all were slightly jealous that I
was so warm in my rug.

BEARING UP

After experiencing the first ever
‘rolling checkpoint’ and trotting back towards the wonderful hamlet at Rhodes,
I got a serious ‘bear hug’ and an amazing cup of tea at the last checkpoint,
which nearly reduced me to tears – but as we all know, real bears don’t cry…
Then we came down the street to the finish, to huge cheers from the amazing
supporters who had braved the elements. This had been a shorter but very tough
and hugely memorable Rhodes.

To all the fantastic Rhodes
runners, friends of Rhodes and other supporters, thank you for your generous
support of our ‘Run to Read’ challenge for the local school. We raised over R20 000, and you have all made a big difference to
some very special children in a wonderful but very poor part of our Country.

Randburg Harriers Running Club, Johannesburg, Central Gauteng

“Run
days are fun days! That’s the motto of our club,” says Randburg Harriers club
secretary Michelle Knotzer. “And this is a very family-orientated club. Running
is an individual sport, and since athletes put so much of their time and energy
into their sport, we like to make their families a part of it as well, so we
make sure they feel welcome to attend any event and to offer moral support to
their loved ones. We therefore involve the families as much as possible.”

That’s
how Michelle herself got involved in the club, despite the fact that she says
she is not a runner. Her parents are both long-time members of the club – her
father is a runner and her mother a walker – so she has spent a lot of time
there since a young age, but little did she know back then that she would eventually
be running the club. “I’ve now been club secretary for nine years and all the
hard work I’ve put into the club has turned it into a passion and a family
thing, more than just a job.”

RUNNING AROUND
RANDBURG

The
club was founded in June 1982 by Dave Jack, who felt the need to start a new
club in the Randburg area, and he convinced three of his friends to come in
with him, Tony Kirby, Tony Turner and Leon van Wyk. Leon is more famous for the
clocks and trophies he makes as special gifts for runners with Comrades Green
Numbers, and he still makes all the club’s trophies all these years later. The
longest standing member of the club today is Rod Pearson, who was the very
first member to sign up for the new club, even though he wasn’t even a runner
then, but 30 years down the line he has completed 22 Comrades Marathons.

In June this year, the club celebrated
its 30^th birthday with a big gathering of both former and current
members, the latter now numbering 490. This year at Comrades, the club had 215
entrants, the fourth-largest club contingent, of which 133 made it to the start
line and 123 finished the race. Amongst them was Reform Ndlovu, whose excellent
6:46:42 saw him finish as first Randburg Harrier home and 24^th in
the men’s veteran category. The fastest female finisher in the club with a time
of 8:24:24, was Paula Quinsee (17^th in the women’s veteran
category), who earlier this year took part in the 9in9in9 Challenge. This saw
her run nine marathons in nine provinces in nine weeks, along with Eric Wiebols
and TV weatherman Simon Gear, to raise funds for the Starfish Greathhearts
Foundation.

CLUB RUNS

Randburg
Harriers hosts the massively popular Valentines Nite 10km in February as well
as the Kwai Half Marathon, 10km & 5km in May, both of which start and
finish at the Randburg Central Sport Complex on the corner of Republic Road and
Silver Pine Avenue, which is the club’s home base. The club is a big supporter
of charitable good causes, so a sizable portion of all money raised from the
entries at these two races is presented to the club’s two official charities, the
Ann
Harding
Cheshire Home for the Disabled in Randburg and the Whiggles and
Squiggles School for Special Needs Children.

The
club hosts two time trials a week, both of which start here as well, offering
8km and 5km distances on both Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. Then on
Sunday mornings there are long training runs of anything between 18 and 32km,
and the club also organises track sessions coached by Dave Coetzee for those
members looking to do speed work. While road running is the main focus, the
club has added a cross-country section, which has attracted more young runners.
Added to that, Cresta Wheelers have now sharing the club premises, and this creates
a perfect environment for those runners who would like to participate in
cycling or triathlons as well.

However,
it’s not all just ‘business’ at this club, says Michelle, jokingly explaining
that “Randburg Harriers members often joke that they are drinkers with a
running problem. We have a large number of social butterflies who love to have
a beer in the clubhouse after their time trial, and that creates a great club
vibe that anybody is welcome to enjoy with us.”

Go
to www.randburgharriers.co.za for more on the club, or contact Michelle Knotzer
on 011 792 7003  /
[email protected].

ANSWER

It seems like you are an active person taking part in
a variety of sports that involve a lot of running, therefore there’s a sense of
repetitiveness involved that can lead towards overuse injuries, especially if
you continue participation with niggly pains. Physiotherapists and biokineticists
work closely together and treatments normally overlap during the rehabilitation
period. One difference between the physio and the biokineticist is that the physio
concentrates on the specific site of the injury, whereas the biokineticist looks
at the cause of the injury and provides rehabilitative exercises.

Say you have been running consistently for the last
year, with no discomfort, and all of a sudden you get a sharp pain in your
right knee during your run. Your knee swells up and weight-bearing causes lots
of pain, so you would immediately consult your physio to help with the
inflammation and to get you pain-free. Now that the injury is better, you need
to correct what was causing the pain.

Your biokineticist then does a biomechanical analysis
of your whole body and picks up that your right foot has no arch (flat-footed
or pronated) compared to your left. Therefore the excessive pronation of the
right foot has created an unstable knee by collapsing inwards during running
and causing damage inside your knee. To correct this you have to do specific
exercises to build up the arch in your foot as well as correcting muscle
imbalances in your legs, thus improving the stability in your ankle and knee,
and keeping you injury-free.

It’s really
quite simple: We’re all ‘made’ differently. As Ian Craig, an exercise
physiologist and nutritional therapist who has helped DNAlysis Biotechnology
develop and pilot DNA Fit, puts it, “We all respond differently and what works
for one person won’t necessarily work for another. For example, some rapidly
attain fitness in a few cardio sessions, burn fat and improve cardio-respiratory
levels, while others, following the same cardio routine, are still huffing and
puffing months later, with little to show for it.”

And that’s
where DNA Fit comes into play, says Daniel Meyersfeld, founder of DNAlysis
Biotechnology. “Using DNA Fit, one can personalise your diet and exercise
programme, because we test if you are a power or endurance athlete, and how
quick you can recover, and then from this, how you should train and what
nutrition to prioritise.” And all it takes is quick, simple, painless check
swab for Ian and Daniel to take my DNA and check my genetic make-up.

I’M NO FORDYCE…

Now I know I’m no Usain Bolt, nor an Elena Nurgalieva – and my DNA confirms it. When I was in
primary school, I competed in the sprints and could hold my own, but as I
became older, I knew I just wasn’t built for the dash. I also felt nauseous
when someone mentioned cross-country laps… so I found my place on the hockey
field, the cricket pitch and the tennis court, and felt like I was made for that.
Now, looking at power and endurance, my DNA Fit test results prove that my
sporting choices were right.

My results confirm that I’m a mixed athlete, having
both endurance and power traits, but my physiology says I’ll be able to do
power and endurance events without excelling at either. (Oh well, there go my
Rio 2016 Olympic dreams.) Ian therefore recommends moderate training sessions,
and says sticking to hockey and tennis makes sense. The test also covers
recovery and tendon pathology, giving one info on inflammatory markers,
recovery time between sessions and what food to avoid and take in. My results
show that I am prone to soft tissue injury and slow recovery time after
exercise, so Ian is able to give me further advice and recommendations: Do weight
training, yoga, sprinting, speed work and skipping.

PIMP YOUR TRAINING

So, with a recommended training programme as well as
guidelines for lifestyle changes, it seems I could make the most of my genes, perfect
my tennis serve and get to Wimbledon. OK, perhaps not all the way to Wimbledon…
but using DNA Fit, athletes can alter their whole set-up to benefit their performance.
Based on test results, DNAlysis Biotechnology can put together teams of practitioners
to work together to give an athlete the whole package, from personal trainers
to dieticians, who will all know what works for you, without the need for guesswork,
nor trial and error.

“The test becomes an interaction between a network of
practitioners for one athlete,” explains Daniel, “and we can work out
everything from recovery time, sleep patterns and if the athlete needs to take
supplements. We
want to educate people about their body so they can enhance their performance,
from first-timers at gym to the pro athlete.”

For more info, go to www.dnadiet.co.za or call 011 268 0268.

Getting
up early to run is hard enough, and when you have to be up at 1:30am every day,
then it must be even harder, but 5FM presenter Nicole Da Silva still manages to
fit in regular runs. “Believe me, if I can find the time, anyone can!” says the
popular radio DJ. Every morning at 3am, Nicole’s fun and conversational
personality hits the airwaves. She’s comfortable behind the mic, a testament to
her experience on a string of community and national radio stations which all
began when she was at university. Listening in as a BSc student at RAU, Nicole decided
to tackle the broadcasting world, “I knew I could do a better job and
auditioned and got in. I couldn’t believe it. Radio just happened for me.”

While
presenting at UJ Radio, Nicole also worked on air at VCR, a community radio
station, as well as Pick n Pay corporate radio. “It was all at once, but didn’t
clash. It’s there that I was taught all the basics,” she says. Then in 2007
Nicole got her big break when she joined Radio 2000’s popular breakfast show
with Ray White. “I couldn’t stop shaking in my first show, which is a good sign,
because that means it matters!” Three years later Nicole joined 5FM to host the
3am to 6am slot, and after each show, she gets a few hours sleep before her day
job as Wits Radio’s Station Manager begins, where she is managing and mentoring
young DJs. “I get to work on young presenters’ content, presenting and
delivery. There’s a lot of training and it’s quite stressful, but I love doing
it!”

FIT AND FOCUSED

Always
active when she was younger, Nicole played netball, volleyball, touch rugby and
softball, but didn’t think she’d tackle endurance running. After school, however,
she spent a ‘gap year’ in the USA
and says she put on some weight. When she returned, she decided that running
was the best way to lose those kilo’s. “I entered myself in the Spar Ladies’
5km, and I did it in 38 minutes – my goal was 40 minutes, so I made it and I
didn’t die! Suddenly I was thinking bigger and I progressed to 10km, 15km and then
half marathons, and that still blows my mind! I’m not built to run, but I went
for it. Just look at race days – there are all shapes and sizes! It’s all in
the mind in the end.”

She
took on her first 21km at the Old Mutual Two Oceans Half in 2011, finishing in 2:36.
“I was a rookie, taking in only water and no electrolytes, so by the end I was
done! I learnt the hard way and after the race I was taking in so many M&Ms
and bananas.” She did things right when completing the 2012 Two Oceans in 2:38,
despite the mud and rain, and was a much happier athlete afterwards. Looking to
the future, Nicole says she is still prepared for new challenges. “I’d like to
say that I‘ve done a Comrades before I die, and because I love travelling, I’d
love to do the Paris Half Marathon.”

Nicole
runs three times a week as well as some weekends. “It’s not an optional thing –
what’s the point if you give yourself the option?” says Nicole, “I run for me.
It’s mental-time, it’s ‘me’ time.” She has also adjusted her diet as it helps
her running when she feels lighter. “I never want to feel heavy on a run. I
don’t do pastas or breads, rice or potatoes, and I try stay away from processed
foods.”

RUNNING FOR RHINOS

In
June, Nicole spent a few weeks in Kenya and ran the Safaricom Half Marathon, a real safari-style
race. With eight other women from Natal, she
joined Team Celebrate Life who set out to raise funds for the Tusk Trust, a
charity organisation that focuses on conservation in Africa,
but Nicole admits to be being a bit scared of being left behind. “Before the
race I asked, ‘The route is just full of buck, right?’ It wasn’t! While we were
running, there were helicopters and rangers to make sure the route was clear of
horns and teeth!”

So
far, Nicole’s efforts have raised over R500 000. “I don’t preach on radio about
it, but I think everyone should give back in some way. A lot of people feel for
rhinos, but do they do anything about it? If you feel strongly about something,
I say do something about it.”

Visit
www.tusk.org for more information on the Tusk Trust initiative and follow
Nicole at www.facebook.com/NicoledaSilvaPage or Twitter: @ThatNicole.