Author: Modern Athlete

Cape Town-based endurance junkie Miguel Netto has completed two Comrades Marathons and will be aiming for a third this year, but he has never actually flown into Durban for the race. That’s because he has always ridden there on his bike, and is set to make history by doing so once again this year. – By Sean Falconer

When 1931 Comrades Marathon winner Phil Masterton-Smith climbed on his bike in 1933 to ride from Cape Town to Pietermaritzburg to go run the Comrades, because he could not afford the train fare, he could not have foreseen that nearly 80 years later his incredible feat would become the inspiration for an annual ride that not only commemorates his journey, but also raises a huge amount of money for charity. And he definitely would not have predicted that somebody would repeat his gruelling trip three times… but that is what 31-year-old marketing executive Miguel Netto is set to do this year.

Known as Unogwaja – Zulu for a hare – Phil took 10 days to cover the 1600-plus kilometres to Maritzburg, arriving the day before the Comrades, which he then ran and finished a remarkable 10th. That story inspired Red Sock founder John McInroy and friends to take on the first Unogwaja Challenge in 2011, to raise money for the Comrades charities, and every year since then they have repeated the trip, with athletes from all over the world applying to be part of the team and riding to raise funds for the Unogwaja Light Fund, which channels money to various causes around the country. A few athletes have completed the trip twice, but this year Miguel will become the first to do a third Unogwaja!

ENDURANCE JUNKIE

Miguel’s sporting background includes playing cricket in the UK, but his focus has always been on endurance sports, notably in ultra-distance triathlons as well as ultra running – he did his fifth full Ironman this year, rode the Absa Cape Epic in 2016, and prior to his first Comrades in 2015 he had completed the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon as well. In that first Comrades, he posted a time of 11:31:53, following the gruelling 10-day ride from Cape Town, and the following year he improved his time to 9:39:46, remarkable given that he had once again done the long ride to get there. When asked why he would want to put himself through this gruelling trip yet again, Miguel simply shrugs his shoulders and smiles…

“There are a few personal reasons, and a few practical reasons. On the personal side it’s the best way to experience the mind-blowing beauty of this country we live in, and it’s a channel for me to make the biggest difference in the field of what I love doing,” says Miguel. “Also, what I’ve gone through with Unogwaja for the past two years has been simply life-changing, so going back and adding a personal tribute by becoming the first to do it three times also adds a little bit to it. But it’s more about signing off on what is probably going to be my last Unogwaja – at least for now – and trying to make sure that my chapter closes with a bang, both charitable and personal.”

From a practical point of view, Miguel explains that the Unogwaja team likes to take some ‘experience’ out on the road each year, hence asking some riders to return for a second year. “At the farewell breakfast after my first Unogwaja in 2015, I was asked to return in 2016. I had a week to consider it, but I’d already decided on the flight back that I wanted the whole experience again… it was a no-brainer! It is a long and daunting journey, so my role in 2016 was as a second to Stoff, John’s dad and the leader of the trip, and if someone had a puncture or needed help, I was the guy to help them. This year may be Stoff’s last Unogwaja, and we’ve walked a special journey together, so it’ll be special to finish off with him. Also, the team this year is perhaps stronger in running and not as strong a cycling team, so there is an element of being able to help them out on the road again.”

Mainly, however, Miguel admits that he is driven by the goal to become the first South African to do three consecutive Unogwaja rides to Durban and he also has some unfinished business with the Comrades route. “My first Comrades was not great – I only just got to the finish – but last year I finished in just over nine hours, so this year, if I could do a sub-nine, that would finish off the personal goal. But the first priority on any Unogwaja is to get every single team member to Durban, and then get them to the finish line of Comrades. If you have to go back to fetch someone on race day, than that’s just what you need to do. Whatever happens on the day, if I can finish, that will be great, and I can go out with a bang!”

INSPIRED BY HISTORY

Miguel’s path to the Unogwaja Challenge began when he met John through the weekly Red Sock Runs. He saw the Red Sockers out running one Friday morning and by chance happened to meet John a few days later, where they spoke about Unogwaja. “The story captivated me right from the beginning. Apart from the history, it struck a huge nerve with me, given my personal endurance background of pushing the body to its limits, plus it had the charitable and empowering point of view, of doing something for this country. At the time I didn’t actually think it was possible to cycle to Durban and run the Comrades, but now I’m about to do it for the third time!”

Unsurprisingly, Miguel says his first Unogwaja was quite an eye-opener, given that he was going into unknown territory that he had not even experienced in his Ironman or Cape Epic events. “It’s such an interesting thing that goes on in your head. The cycle is so daunting, but with nine strangers you’ve just met, you get on the road and you make it through day one… Everything is sore, but somehow you get through day two, and everything is still sore, and then your body just adapts, and it becomes a rhythm. Then you arrive in Durban to take on the Comrades – and everything is still sore – but the great thing is that there is no expectation on you. Having cycled there, no-one is looking at you to do a great time, your goal is simply to get to the finish line.”

“In my first Comrades, the team got me through to halfway and then we just did what we could to get the rest of the team home. It felt like my teammates were kilometres ahead or behind, but the support group told us afterwards that we were actually just a few minutes away from each other most of the day. The whole day we were passing each other and helping each other, and it was the most special way to run my first Comrades.”

LOOKING AHEAD

If all goes smoothly this year and Miguel ticks off his third Unogwaja, he says he already has plans for the next goal on his bucket list, and says his wife, Rosalind, knows all about his plans. They met through mutual friends while both studying at Stellenbosch University, but went their separate ways until meeting again by chance some years later on a boat cruise in Hermanus. They’ve been married now for nearly two years, and Miguel says she is the best race second he could ever ask for. “Shame, she has to put up with my bucket list of endurance events, but thankfully I’m ticking things off quite quickly.”

“After Unogwaja, I want to go back to triathlons, because I’ve had an overwhelming desire for a couple of years now to go to Hawaii for the Ironman World Champs. I fell just short this year, but my dream is to qualify for Kona, even if it takes a few years. I might also try riding the Epic again.” And his fund-raising efforts for charity will also continue, even if he is no longer riding and running for the Unogwaja Light Fund. “I started my own charity a few years ago called Miles for Miracle Kids, when I did my first Ironman, so I’d like to get something like that going again, but I also want to keep the balance between giving back, and personal achievements and having fun.”

“That’s why I have so much respect for John and his Red Sock and Unogwaja initiatives. Anyone can start a charity to raise money for something, but to make sure it has a living legacy and to make it about more than just charity – about using what we do to empower the nation – and to bring a story to life and make it grow all over the world, that is why I’ve hung around so long. Unogwaja is not just a South African thing, it is made up of six or seven different nationalities at any given time on the road, and it just shows that people believe in what we are doing. That’s really special.”

To learn more about the Unogwaja Challenge and to support Miguel and his fellow rider-runners, go to http://unogwaja.com

One of the highlights of the 2017 Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon was Jenna Challenor finishing second overall and first South African in the women’s race, in her debut ultra-marathon, but few people know how hard she had to work just to be able to line up for the race. – BY SEAN FALCONER

Running a 56km ultra-marathon for the first time and finishing as runner-up is an incredible athletic feat in itself, and Durbanite Jenna Challenor deserves credit based on that alone… but achieving that on top of being a mother of three young girls, having to overcome an injury in the weeks leading up to the race, and overcoming the disappointment of only just missing out on the Rio Olympics a few months earlier, make Jenna’s feat all the more remarkable. And she did it with a smile on her face most of the way – it was only in the last few kays that the strain began to show on her face!

Jenna moved up into second place around the 27km mark when she overtook Tanith Maxwell, and says she only realised she was second when the ‘2nd Female’ bicycle went with her. “I really didn’t expect it, but I just backed myself to stick to my plan. I didn’t know the gap to the Belarus leader, or how far behind me Tanith was, and I didn’t know Caroline Wörstmann had pulled out, I was just running my own race and enjoying the moments. That’s because I didn’t have a goal position or time in mind, I just wanted to stick to my plan in my debut. I had taken all the pressure off myself because you can do that in your debut… there are no expectations on you, and you can just test it out.”

Sporty Roots
Jenna grew up in a running family – her mom has done 10 Comrades – and ran middle distance at school while also doing lifesaving. She was part of the SA team, alongside future husband Brett, that won the Lifesaving World Champs in New Zealand in 1998. She studied teaching, but decided to concentrate on photography as a job once her three daughters, Nicolette, Rylee and Tao, were born, as it allowed her to spend more time with the kids and still run competitively. That saw her win multiple KwaZulu-Natal provincial championship titles at 10km and the half marathon, as well as in cross-country, and she competed for SA in cross country in 2009. Then in 2013 Jenna finished third in the SA Half Marathon Champs and booked her spot in the SA team for the 2014 World Half Marathon Champs in Denmark.

In 2015 she joined the KPMG Running Club, and having focused on the marathon in recent years, Jenna says she felt the time was right to step up to an ultra. “I’ve always wanted to run the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon, and the Comrades, and this year the opportunity arose to run Oceans as a tester and see how my body will respond. The great news is that I felt absolutely fine, and I really loved the run, even though I was a bit nervous before the start about the extra distance.”

Interestingly, she says that extra distance and slightly slower pace actually allowed her to enjoy the run more. “People often ask if I saw the scenery in this race or that race, but you don’t get to look at the scenery in shorter races. At Oceans, the pace is slower, so you can take in the incredible views and the crowd support along the route. I will admit I was worried about the extra distance, as my longest training run was only 44km, but I used the crowd support to get me through it, and the kilometres just kept coming. The last few kays were a bit hard, because that’s when the extra mileage hit me a bit, but what a feeling running into that finish! And then the incredible messages of support started coming in from the whole of SA. As I said to my husband Brett, if coming second brings you this much praise and love and support, I can only imagine what would happen if I’d won!”

Tough Times…
What most people don’t know is that Jenna had a disrupted build-up to her ultra debut, with a number of weeks out injured and much time spent with her doctor and physio. First she picked up food poisoning in Dubai, which forced her to bail at the 27km of the Dubai Marathon, and then she ran the PDAC 25km race in Durban too hard, clocking 3 minute 20 kays on the downhills, and injured her foot. And that all came after she had suffered persistent knee problems after her three previous marathons, which ultimately saw her doctors find an enlarged fat pad in her knee that was becoming enflamed after longer runs. “It took seven to eight weeks to heal after my first marathon, and again after my third one, to the extent that I had to be on crutches. Thankfully, surgery to cut it down in size sorted it out, so my knee is ‘thinner’ now,” jokes Jenna.

“But having come through that, the foot injury was a huge letdown. It felt like I just kept getting knocked back down, even though I thought I was doing everything right and working so hard. I started questioning if this is the right journey for me, or if I should just be a mom, but something in me would not let me give up. I couldn’t run for four weeks, but I was still in the water every day, pool-running to maintain my fitness, and I did bio every day as well. Mentally, I had to really buckle down to keep on the path to Oceans, but that hard work and overcoming those obstacles is worth it when you get that race where it just comes together. Somebody actually said to my coach after Two Oceans that I must have had a great build-up to the race, but it wasn’t great, it was actually incredibly hard. But where there’s a will, there’s a way!”

Naturally, Jenna says she would not have had such a brilliant run at Two Oceans if not for the support she receives, from family, friends, her coach and medical team, and her sponsors. “I believe it’s not just the athlete that succeeds, it’s the team that makes the dream work, so I owe a lot of credit to all my sponsors – KPMG offers me the opportunity to go to these races, 32Gi keep me fuelled to perform, and I just love the adidas brand. My coach Ernie Gruhn has guided not only my running, but also looks after the training of my girls, making sure it is manageable and fun for them, and I really appreciate that! Then there are my physio Wayne Holroyd and doctor Kevin Subban, who both put a lot of work in and did wonders to get me through my injuries. Wayne has been a best friend since our lifesaving days, so I probably get extra TLC as a result, but he still often tells me to eat some cement and toughen up, since he knows me so well. And I just love the Regents Harriers running group in Durban North. I’ve been doing their long runs since I was 18 so they have been a big part of my journey.”

Unsurprisingly, she reserves special praise for Brett, saying that she simply would not be able to pursue her running dream without his love and support. “Brett comes from an elite athlete background, so he knows what it takes. He often has to step in and help with the family, but he never complains. In fact, I sometimes think he believes in my dreams even more than me! He knows that I love running, that it sets my heart and soul on fire, and this run at Oceans made all the work and sacrifice worth it. I am so happy and forever grateful to everyone that helped me achieve that second place.”

Olympic Inspiration
There was one other disappointment that Jenna says actually inspired her in the year leading up to her Two Oceans debut. In the build-up to the Rio Olympics she ran a 2:37 marathon PB and was in contention for selection as one of the three SA women to run the Olympic Marathon, but in the end she had the fourth-fastest time and just missed out. “It was a big disappointment, but then again, you have to keep in mind that when I joined the Endurocad Programme, and they asked us to list our running goals, Elana Meyer still questioned me about the fact that I was one of the only athletes not to list the Olympics as a goal. I told her that I thought the Games were bigger than me, but then to get so close and miss out was a bit of a kick in the teeth… but it also motivated me greatly. I decided to back myself and see how far I can go as an elite runner.”

Of course, Jenna’s success at Two Oceans has sparked many a question about her stepping up to the Comrades this year, but she says she isn’t ready for that. “Much as I would love to run the Comrades, it won’t be this year. That would be asking too much, too soon of my body. I’m dying to run it, but I’ve only just stepped up to ultras, and think Comrades would be a step too far. Also, I don’t feel I’m finished with the marathon yet, and can still try to get faster over 42 kays. I think that when you step up to Comrades, you say goodbye to faster marathon times. So for the rest of this year I am going to focus on the shorter distances, like the Spar and Totalsports women’s races, and I’ve been invited to run the FNB Cape Town 12 ONERUN, and then I’ll get into another marathon training block towards the end of the year. But for now I just want to enjoy my Two Oceans result!”

In spite of working 12-hour shifts most days at a petrol station and struggling to fit in training, suffering an injury shortly before the race and then being mugged as well, Anele Mnukwa still put in a solid performance at the Cell C AfricanX Trailrun presented by ASICS in Mid-March, and stole the hearts of the rest of the field. – BY SEAN FALCONER & JACKY McCLEAN

When Anele Mnukwa was called up on stage during the AfricanX Trailrun to receive the Sanet Wentzel Spirit Award, he wound his way through the packed hall, along with teammate Francois Groenewald, to a standing ovation. His fellow runners had just heard his inspirational story of overcoming great adversity and running through the pain barrier to be there with them, participating in the three-day stage race that he had long dreamt of running. They stood to applaud his spirit and strength, and pay tribute to a running hero.

Each year at AfricanX, the participating runners are invited to nominate one of their fellow runners (or a team) for the Sanet Wentzel Award, which was introduced in 2010 in memory of Sanet Wentzel of Oudtshoorn. She had run the first AfricanX in 2009, and towards the end of that year, just one day after phoning her running partner to convince her they should enter the 2010 race, Sanet was tragically killed by a drunk driver while out training. The award honours runners who persevere in spite of adversity.

Talent Spotted
Anele works as a petrol pump attendant in the small Western Cape town of Grabouw, just a few kilometres up the N2 highway from the AfricanX venue at Houw Hoek Inn. He started running in 2010 when his work manager noticed his running talent and asked Francois to try coach him, because he was doing well in spite of running long distances in overalls and boots. With proper running gear, Anele soon started making the podium at local Boland races, even winning a few.

“Some of his astonishing podiums came from the Bainskloof Ultra 63km, which he won by miles, and at the Matroosberg Skymarathon 36km, he managed two consecutive second places, just minutes behind AJ Calitz – all with no trail running experience or support gear,” says Francois. “He managed on a few occasions to be selected by Boland for national races in the 10, 21 and 42km distances, and he boasts personal best times of 32 minutes for 10km, 1:11 for the half marathon and 2:32 in the marathon. He also ran 3:38 in the Two Oceans, and in his first attempt at Comrades, he managed to stay in the top 15 for 70km, but had to retire eventually. His lack of training due to long shifts caught up with him, unfortunately.”

AfricanX Surprise
Originally, the two running friends had no plans to run the AfricanX, but just two weeks before the race, Francois received a wonderful surprise. “I’d had my heart set on running AfricanX with Anele since 2011. Unfortunately, we had not been able to cover the entry fee, as Anele does not earn that much as a petrol attendant. However, I mentioned our situation to one of the event organisers the weekend of the Fedhealth XTERRA Grabouw, and to my surprise I received a phone call the very next day, inviting us to run in the colours of one of their sponsors, Big Box Containers. I was speechless… but with just two weeks left to train, Anele and I started that same day!”

This is where the drama started. On their first training run on the XTERRA run route around Eikenhof Dam, Anele fell and seriously injured his leg, gashing his whole shin open. The injury became infected, but he told Francois he was OK to continue, so they scheduled a second training run on that Friday. However, Anele didn’t show up, and later that day Francois found out that while on his way to training, Anele was attacked by seven men who stole his shoes and watch. “Fortunately he got his gear back eventually, as it was his only training gear, but first he had to pay off one of the assailants to disclose who they sold the gear to! We were just thankful that he walked away unscathed, but needless to say, we knew that our dream of racing AfricanX and pushing for the podium would not come to fruition this year, given his injury and lack of consistent training, and our new goal was just to finish each stage.”

So the two friends headed to Houw Hoek on the Thursday afternoon to register, ahead of the Friday first stage, only to find another surprise waiting for them. “When we arrived at race pack collection, we were told there was a fully furnished Big Box container with our names on it. So instead of sleeping in tents like the rest of the entrants, we lived in luxury for the whole event,” says Francois.

Hitting the Trails
In spite of Anele’s injured leg, the pair started each day with a will to do the best they could, and they still managed a very decent placing of 12th pairing in the men’s race on the 37km first stage, 12th again on day two (33km) and 14th on the final day, over 23km, giving them an overall finishing position of 10th in the men’s category. Running in their colourful Big Box team colours, the pair really stood out from the crowd as they powered their way along the trails, still managing to smile when a camera was pointed at them.

According to Anele, it is the challenge that attracts him to trail running, and he says running the AfricanX was a dream come true. “I really enjoyed the AfricanX Trailrun, especially because Francois and I run really well together. Unfortunately this year we couldn’t go as fast as we wanted to due to my injury, but next year we will not hold back. Also, sleeping in the Big Box container was very special. We were really fortunate to be treated to such luxury. And I am really grateful for the Sanet Wentzel Award that I won during the Stage Two prize-giving. It has motivated me to train harder and really give my all at the 2018 AfricanX Trailrun.”

Francois echoes his teammate’s sentiments, saying, “Our AfricanX experience generated mixed emotions. Not being able to compete on our usual level due to my partner's injury meant that we had to postpone any ambitions for a podium finish, but we were still exposed to a realm of support and sportsmanship like never before. The support received from Big Box and the Stillwater Events organisers surpassed our highest expectations.”

The great news for Anele and Francois is that Big Box has extended a free entry to them for the 2018 race, and Big Box has already committed to once again sponsor their container accommodation. “The teaming up of Francois and Anele is really special, because it’s a partnership that is built on a friendship between two individuals who have totally different backgrounds, but share the same passion for running. We will continue to ‘run this road’ with this very special team and have already offered them a Big Box entry into the 2018 Cell C AfricanX Trailrun.”