Author: Modern Athlete

Every now and again, Matt Daneel posts a ‘Throwback Thursday’ pic of his ‘Fat Matt Days’ on Instagram, to remind himself where he has come from, and where he is going with his promising multisport career. 

Matt was always a good runner. He took it up while still at school when his mom joined a local running club in Stellenbosch, ran the time trial regularly, then did a few 10km races, and in 2003 and 2004 he ran the Old Mutual Two Oceans Half and clocked times of 1:28 and 1:29. However, having gotten into a typical student drinking lifestyle and then working in the hospitality industry, Matt’s weight had steadily climbed until he tipped the scales at 107kg in 2011, and he knew he had to do something about it.

“My friend Mia Mocke, a personal trainer here in Stellenbosch, convinced me to start exercising, and I actually tried to run a half marathon. I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack!” says Matt. “That was the last straw for me, so I bought the cheapest bike I could find on Gumtree and started pedalling with friends. A short while later Mia suggested a triathlon, and since I had done some running back in the day, I now had a bike, and I swam in primary school, I thought maybe I can string a triathlon together.”

Latent Talent

To Mia’s great surprise, Matt didn’t just finish that BSG Sprint Series event, he actually did quite well. “She said, ‘Hang on, you’re heavy, and you just started triathlon, but you beat most people I know, so you should do more of these!’ I had enjoyed it so much that I actually entered my next one that same day. Then I did my first Totalsports XTERRA off-road tri in February 2012 and had the most fun imaginable, even though it was a long day out, and at prize-giving I watched the age-groupers collecting their prize money, so I thought this is cool, and set myself the goal of finishing on the podium in my 25-29 age group.”

He duly claimed third spot in his group in 2013, and at prize-giving the two guys in front of him were handed envelopes with an entry to the XTERRA World Champs in Hawaii. “I sat there thinking, I only just didn’t make it, and that sucks, so next year I need to go World Champs!” And so the 2014 race saw a still leaner, meaner Matt at 75kg go all-out, and he finished 11th overall and first non-pro, earning his Hawaii slot – but still he was a bit disappointed. “The pro’s had a minute head-start on us, but I didn’t know the Italian just in front of me at the finish was actually only a few seconds ahead of me, so I came trotting into the finish, taking in the vibe, and walked over the finish line, just to see that I missed the Top 10 by three seconds! Still, I was the first guy with a day job over the line!”

Success has also come to Matt in other events. He can boast a half marathon PB of 1:16 and a 10km best of 34:50, and has finished on the podium at many events, including third in the Totalsports Challenge Terra Firma, second at the Slanghoek off-road tri, and first in the Die Burger mountain bike race. He is a product tester for sponsor First Ascent and also has nutrition, shoe and bike sponsors, and says he still can’t quite believe what has happened to him. “I am so incredibly lucky to have sponsors that make my sporting career possible, and I can’t believe I am now being asked to do interviews as well!”

Trying Again

Matt had a sponsor lined up to pay for the Hawaii trip last year, but that unfortunately fell through, so this year he says he will just have to qualify again. He will also race the SA Cross Tri Champs, along with various other tri events as well as trail runs and mountain biking events. The ProNutro AfricanX three-day trail run is another must-do on his list, with great friend Al Leslie, but that one is just for fun, as they literally laugh from start to finish. Then again, Matt is pretty much always laughing these days. Seems being lean and successful agrees with him.

Multiple ultra-marathoning SA, African and event record holder Johan van der Merwe likes to go long. In fact, the longer the event, the better he gets, be it chasing records on the road or going round and round the track in pursuit of 60-year-old SA records set by the late, great Wally Hayward. 

Ask multiple ultra-marathon record holder Johan van der Merwe what he thinks about running ultras, and he responds with an interesting cricketing analogy. “It’s like test cricket, really. Sometimes, things will be going smoothly and you could be going through a seamless partnership. Then, suddenly, things go from good to bad and your opponent grabs three or four quick wickets. It can change in a blink of an eye.” That said, this man obviously doesn’t hit many bad patches, judging by his impressive list of wins and records.

Johan only took up running in 1999, at age 27, due to being an overweight 87kg while working on the police force in Mokopane and joined Potties Athletics Club. “I had to get my health in check, and after starting to run, I lost 26kg in six months,” he says, adding that at first he just ran to lose weight, but then it became something he really looked forward to. “I was already onto my first Comrades run a year later in 2000,” and after coming home for an 8:38 Bill Rowan medal on debut, Johan realised that he had a natural talent for running ultras. By 2010 he had his Comrades Green Number 39957 and four silver medals to go with six Bill Rowans, but it was only in 2011 that he stepped up to his first 12-hour circuit race at the Dusk2Dawn and really found his niche. “I guess it was a tester,” he explains, “and I told myself if I did well, I’d up my training. If not, at least I tried.”

Well, he did do rather well – he broke the event record by 19km! And that win convinced Johan he could improve still more. “I guess from that point, one thing led to another. I was encouraged to do my first 100 Miler at Golden Reef and despite some niggles, I won it! But believe it or not, I was down in the dumps after that, needing to recover for a good three weeks. I knew I had to tackle another challenge, and that’s when the Washie dream was born…”

Washie Welcome

Johan says he knew the Washie course record was beatable. In fact, before his Washie debut, he was so confident about smashing the record that he posted about his planned record attempt on Facebook. That prompted a call soon after from a stranger who happened to know then record holder Manie Saayman way back when he set the course record of 13:13:38 in 1982, and the caller told Johan he’d never break what was considered an unapproachable record. “I was arrogant about it, I must admit,” says Johan. “I remember telling the stranger on the phone that I intended to better it and reminded him that he didn’t even know me! Before it all, I ran my Comrades PB in 6:24:35 so I knew I had it in me, and I got the Washie win that year in 13:07:05.”

After that, he managed to grab an equally impressive 13:18:02 in 2013, the all-time fourth-best Washie time, and this past year he clocked 13:21:49 for the fifth-fastest time. And it tested his endurance and willpower along the way, choosing the complete last year’s race without seconds beside him. He also put aside a foot niggle that he sustained during a 6-day race earlier that year. “I remember the constant headwind and me being alone,” says Johan, “it was a difficult one!” Johan also heaps praise for his online coach Nic de Beer who assisted in 2011 to get Johan to step it up before taking on anything more than the Comrades distance.

Breaking Wally

With the Washie record behind his name, Johan began looking for new challenges, and soon his eyes turned to Wally Hayward’s 24-hour SA record of 256.4km, set way back in November 1953 in England. No other South African had passed the 250km mark since then, and on his first attempt Johan just missed the record by 3.4km when he ran 253.076km in a race on his home track in Polokwane in April 2013. Putting that record aside temporarily, he then chased down the 48-hour SA and African records while competing in the EMU 6-day race in Hungary in May 2013. He completed 333.02km in just over 46 hours to beat the previous African best of 332km set by Namibian Johannes Gawaxamab in 2001, before leaving the track for scheduled rest in preparation for the next four days of running. Then on 7 December he went after Wally’s record again, this time in the Soochow International 24-Hour circuit race in Chinese Taipei, and coming home third overall, he finished on 258.064km to claim the SA record as well as beat the previous African record of 257.881km. (In the same race, he had also claimed the SA 200km track record in 17:34:20, taken as a split during the 24-hour race.) Even though he didn’t win that race, Johan rates it as one of his best performances, because he had achieved what he had set out to do, break Wally’s record! “Before trying it, it looked easy on paper. I needed to break that record, so when I achieved that, it was like a huge monkey off my back!” My wife went the extra proverbial mile during the last four hours. The eye contact was important. She also chased me out of the loo after I realised I had the record in the bag at 22 hours. My mind was playing tricks on me, ordering my body to go to the loo after every 400m. She ordered me to get back out there.”

Back home, Johan also continued to tick off the 100 Milers, and he currently holds the course records for the Coaldust Dreams and Capital Classic races to add to his Washie record, and he also celebrated circuit race records at the Dawn2Dusk 12-hour, Hout Is Goud Day Breaker 12-hour and Jannas 18-hour events. And somewhere in between this he still managed to run consecutive Comrades silvers from 2009 to 2014. “People keep thinking that doing Comrades must be easy for me, but it’s never easy keeping up your form on the day,” he explains. “That said, 2015 will probably be the first time I’ll take it easy and use Comrades just for training for Washie, where I’ll be looking to dip under 13 hours.”

What Wall?

So what preoccupies the mind of an athlete trudging along for 160km or circling a track for days on end. “You think of Washie and running through night-time and it’s hard to keep motivated, but I have this ability to hang in there! As for circuit races, I love going around and around, because there are no surprises, like a big hill after a corner, and you can measure yourself by taking lap times to ensure that your pacing is correct and that your goal is maintained,” says Johan, adding that his game plan is to approach each event aggressively and hang in there when the going gets tough – and it does get tough!

“My bonus is my mental state. My training buddy can beat me in a session, but when race day comes, beast mode kicks in. If you decide to break through that ‘wall,’ then your body can accomplish anything!” And with that attitude, it’s no surprise that Johan has the six-day world record pencilled in as a goal for the next few years, in between travelling the globe for more ultra events. “My golden rule is to believe in myself. It’s corny, but there is no such thing as a wall if you back yourself. Like cricket, a running event can swing either way, but once you get going, it’ll all work out.”

He comes bounding down the road in his Carbineers club colours and red socks, a huge smile on his face as he hugs friends and exudes a lust for life. He’s AJ Spieringshoek, high school teacher and hockey coach, runner, Red Socker and Unogwaja, and everyone he comes into contact with can’t help but catch his good mood and enjoyment of running. 

Shocked… that’s the only way to describe the reaction of the Spieringshoek family in November 2012 when AJ told them he had entered the 2013 Comrades, and what’s more, that he wanted to ride a bicycle for 10 days from Cape Town to Pietermaritzburg as part of the Unogwaja Challenge before running the 90km ultra. After all, he had been a good 400m hurdler at school, as well as playing first team cricket and hockey, and had carried on playing club hockey after school, but he had never done any road running, nor had he done any cycling!

It all started when AJ heard Red Sock and Unogwaja founder John McInroy speak at the school where he was teaching in Cape Town. He was so inspired that he decided to enter the Comrades that same day and apply to become an Unogwaja. “I started training and did the Sundowner 10km in December, finishing in 52 minutes. There were a lot of people running and the race had a festive feeling, and that really gets you in the mood to run more, so it was a very positive start to my running career,” says AJ.

“I ran 2:07 in my first 21km at the Kloofnek Half in January, and then in February I did my first marathon at the Peninsula, clocking 4:26. Then came Two Oceans in 6:27. I only started cycling after Two Oceans, and most of my training was on a bike that was too big for me, until I got my KTM two weeks before Unogwaja, and it carried me through the ride. Then I ran the Comrades and finished in 11:46, the last Unogwaja home. The others finished in 11:42 and they were a bit concerned, as they hadn’t seen me for a while. Thinking about it all now still gives me goosebumps!”

Familiar Face

Nearly two years after Unogwaja, AJ says he still gets people walking up to him to say they followed him in that 2013 journey, or saw him in the videos online, and how much he has inspired them. Typically humble at all times, he says that kind of feedback still blows him away. “We really were not aware of what we were getting into in terms of hype with Unogwaja. For example, at Comrades I met Greg Dove of the Royal Marines, who was stationed in Afghanistan. He walked up to me and said he recognised me from the videos on YouTube, and that our message was spreading all over the world. That’s just incredible!”

AJ (28) studied B.Ed at CPUT, taught at Fairmont and is now at Bishops, intern-teaching Maths and Information Technology, while also coaching the under-16 hockey team and third cricket side. He also coaches the under-18 Boland indoor hockey girls, the Foxes, who recently finished second in the National Pro Series. While teaching and coaching give him great satisfaction and joy, it is running where AJ now looks for his own sporting highs, and since his remarkable entry into running, he has improved his running times markedly. “I’ve learnt a lot in two years of running, and this year I will be looking to go sub-3:30 for the marathon, run 1:33 for the half and sub-40 for 10km. I would also love to run a Bill Rowan at Comrades, but for now a sub-10:00 will make me very happy. With Comrades, it is such a long way – you can set goals, but then the race will decide for you.”

“I just love being alive, and want to live my life as best I can. That’s the type of person I am – I go in wholeheartedly,” says AJ. “Every time I run, I want to smile, because I am using my god-given ability. I’m not going to win races or go to the Olympics, but I think I can inspire the average runner by being out there, sharing the same pain and joy on the road, and that makes me happy.”

She’s been setting the Collegiate athletics and cross country circuits alight while studying in the USA, and now Dominique Scott is hoping to turn her good form into a ticket to the Olympics so she can race in the green and gold.

When Dominique Scott won the 2010 SA Junior Champs 1500m title in 4:36.94 (and the 3000m title), little did she know it was about to change her life forever. Her win was featured on the TV news that night, which prompted her proud mother, former Springbok triathlete captain, age group World Tri Champ and Comrades gold medallist Renée, to post the video on YouTube. It was seen by a number of university coaches in the USA who began trying to enlist Dominique to come run for them in the States on a full scholarship. “I was really fortunate that I got to go on a recruiting trip and visited my top three pick schools, and I ended up loving the University of Arkansas, which is in Fayetteville, a small town that reminded me of Stellenbosch, where I had really grown as an athlete,” says Dominique. “I really liked the girls on the Razorbacks team, and thought Coach Lance Harter would bring the best out of me – fellow South African Christine Kalmer also studied there and I had seen how she came in with certain times and was running faster by the time she left. That showed me that Coach Harter really develops athletes.” (She also met her soon to be boyfriend, fellow athlete Cameron Erfud, during that recruiting trip, and they have been together since she moved to the States.)

And so Dominique took six months off after matriculating at the end of 2010, then went over to the States in the middle of 2011 when the US academic year started, enrolling to study business marketing with a logistics minor. She will complete both courses in May this year, following which she plans to complete her Masters as well. “It is pretty challenging being a student-athlete, because I miss so much school due to travelling to meets, and we train like pro athletes, but still have to juggle classes and sport. I think most people in SA wouldn’t even be able to comprehend the amount of work that we put in. My high mileage weeks get up to 120km, and we don’t do junk miles, every run is a solid effort – and we race a lot. But they’re giving me an excellent and expensive education in exchange for four years of running for them, so you really want to run hard for your university.”

Starting young

Dominique took up running at the tender age of seven, thanks largely to her mother. “I started running cross country for fun on Friday afternoons when I was in grade one, because my mom was the cross country coach at Herzlia Prep School and High School in Cape Town. I started to get more competitive and eventually won the SA Junior Champs. From there I ventured into track when I was in grade eight and loved it, so my mom looked for a coach for me and made contact with Johan Fourie in Stellenbosch. I started training with him twice a week, so halfway through grade nine I moved to Rhenish Girls High and started training with Johan on a daily basis. That’s when my love of running really blossomed.”

Under Johan’s guidance, Dominique won several SA Junior titles, or finished second to her great rival at the time, Caster Semenya, and she also ran for her country twice. Then came her big breakthrough at the SA Junior Champs and being spotted by the coaches in the US, and she has positively flown since then, although she first had to learn a few hard lessons about pacing herself. “That was hard for me to grasp at first, because in South Africa I had been winning race after race, but when I got to the States, I came to realise that the girls who are going to win Nationals are just playing around at the beginning of the season, because they know how long the season is. I learnt how to peak at the right time.”

Success in the States

In her Freshman (first) and Sophomore (second) years, she did enough to keep her scholarship while competing in the three main seasons per academic year, for cross country, indoor track and outdoor track. However, she felt she still needed to prove herself and justify her full scholarship, and then in her Junior (third) year, she says things just went crazy as she made a name for herself. “I won the South Eastern Conference (SEC) cross country meet and also helped my school get the team win, then went to Nationals and finished 28th. I was really pumped up after that for the indoor season, where I ran 9:02 to break Christine’s school record for 3000m, and we also broke the school record for the Distance Medley Relay (DMR). I won the SEC 5000m title and finished second in the SEC 3000m, and then at Nationals, my school won the DMR, which we had never done before, and I was second in the 3000m. After that, I got the outdoor school record for 5000m, and finished sixth at outdoor Nationals.”

More success soon followed in the first half of Dom’s Senior (fourth) year as she won five out of her seven cross country races, including winning the SEC title and the Regional title, and then finishing sixth at Nationals. “I probably worked too hard early in that Nationals race and cost myself a few places, but my coach thinks it was the best race I had ever run, because I really went for it.” Dom’s great results also saw her awarded All American status six times thus far. In NCAA collegiate competition, a top 40 finish at cross country Nationals and a top eight finish in indoor and outdoor track events are rewarded with this elite recognition, and this has turned Dom into a sporting celebrity in her adopted state. Now she not only has her name on several honours boards at school, but is often asked to do interviews, and is getting more and more invites to top level meets, where she often races professional athletes.

Olympic dream

Looking ahead, Dom says her big goal in the upcoming track season is to qualify to run for SA at the Rio 2016 Olympics. “My goal as a little girl was always to go to the Olympics, so I was blown away when my coach recently sat me down to discuss what I want to run in Rio. We decided that my focus will be the 5000m in 2016, so this season I am going to work on my speed and look to get some international exposure in Europe. The next year and a half will be instrumental in deciding my future. There is a definite possibility that I will stay in the USA to run professionally when I finish studying, but I also miss SA – my family, the weather, the mountain and the sea, and the SA accent! But I am living my dream right now, and just enjoying every moment.”