So what do you do when you’ve shattered the Comrades Marathon women’s record, won the Two Oceans Marathon in near-record time, and posted the fastest marathon by a South African in years? You go after the SA Marathon record… and you don’t let a global pandemic get in the way. That’s what Gerda Steyn did in the recent London Marathon. – BY SEAN FALCONER
They call it South Africa’s toughest mountain race, a life-changing adventure, and that’s why the K-Way SkyRun 100km is on many a trail runner’s bucket list, and winning it is one hell of a feather in the cap of any runner. And that makes it all the more impressive that Lucky Miya will be going after a third win this November. – BY SEAN FALCONER
Under Armour is looking for an elite group of long distance runners to join their families of athletes. They know that the rules of engagement have changed, and get that it takes a lot more than sponsorship to build a champion. Submit your application and you could be part of an inspiring group of runners to help you stay motivated and in the lead.
“If distance is your calling, speed is your stride and the podium your destination, you are an Elite Runner.
Apply here to become a part of Under Armour’s Elite group of runners who enjoy the benefits of product and support from one of the best performance brands in the world.
Be. Elite.
IS RUNNING SOMETHING YOU WERE BORN TO DO?
Is it the beat of your heart, the sharp point of your being?
Do the Kilometres build-up effortlessly in order to define the sweet moment of victory?
Because only you know what it takes to be the best, and being in the front is the only place to be.
Under Armour is Looking for an ELITE group of runners to join our family of athletes.
Because the rules of engagement have changed and it takes more than a sponsorship to build a champion.
WHAT WILL I RECEIVE AS A PART OF THE UA ELITE GROUP
T’s&C’s Apply”
WHAT IT TAKES:
Do you qualify to be one of Under Armour’s Elite Athletes? This is what it takes:
Athletes must have run in a minimum of four official South African marathons per calendar year for the past two years. Be registered to an official running club.
Able to run in accordance with the following distances and times:
Successfully appointed Elite Athletes will receive the following:
Not only have we revamped our look and feel in our September edition, we have also included a new ‘Live Well’ section, providing amazing advice from phenomenal trainers, nutritionists and life coaches! This section is all about living your best life, and we have specifically brought in contributors that offer something relatable to all people. (And we still have all the inspirational ‘people stories’ that you love.) Check it out by reading the magazine below!
The newest edition to the Huawei smartwatch family, the HUAWEI WATCH FIT, offers a device that really has something for everyone. Our Marketing Director Roxanne Martin, a sporadic 5km runner, cycling lover, mom of a three-year-old, working 10-hour days entrepreneur, put the watch through its paces to see how it faired in her busy lifestyle.
I’ll be totally honest: I love getting something before anyone else. It’s like getting a pass to a secret party that no-one else knows about! So, when the new HUAWEI WATCH FIT landed on my desk a month before it ‘officially’ launched in SA, I was more than excited to put it through its paces.
Unboxing is ‘Almost’ my Favourite Part
I think it’s part of the human psyche to get excited when you get to open something new, and it was no different unboxing this watch. First impressions on any product are important, so here is what stood out immediately for me:
I immediately started setting it up, which was as simple as downloading the Huawei Health App and syncing it to my phone, and after a simple update, the watch was synced. Having an iPhone, I was worried about the process, as Huawei is android-based, but I had no issues, and the watch was able to sync with no issues. It even gave me a comprehensive list of notifications that I could select to receive if I wanted to, which I appreciated, as you don’t want every app pinging your wrist every five seconds.
Features and More Features
I love versatility, and this watch offers a lot. In the set-up alone, I did a stress test, measured my SpO2 (blood oxygen saturation) and read more about what my sleep actually meant. I wanted to charge the watch fully, as they claim the battery lasts 10 days and being a little sceptical of such claims, I wanted to test this properly. Good news is that the charging took literally no time at all, just over 30 minutes to get to a full charge.
The sleep monitoring really appealed to me, because with a three-year-old and hectic work schedule, my sleep is not great, and my present watch needs to charge at the end of the day, so no chance of sleep monitoring there! Excited to start, I dutifully went to sleep with my watch on my wrist, which thanks to its lightweight didn’t impact my sleep, as I am a light sleeper (no pun intended). After a week of sleep monitoring, I had amazing new insight into not only how many hours I was sleeping, but also how much REM sleep, light sleep and deep sleep, I was actually getting.
The app is incredibly helpful in explaining how much of each type of sleep you should be getting. My deep sleep is low and thus my sleep point score is low, which explains the fatigue I have been feeling. Also, I am now trying to deal better with my stress and anxiety, which is helping my sleep, and this is also thanks to what the watch told me, which in turn prompted me to investigate this important aspect of sleep-management. I would recommend the watch to everybody just based on this feature alone!
Your Own Personal Coach
Gym and exercise have altered a lot since we went into the Lockdown period, with many of us following online exercise programmes, as our ‘normal’ just wasn’t available. So, when I was told the watch featured a workout guide with actual visuals, I was excited – and I was not disappointed when I used it. Not only are there guided cross-fit workouts, but there are also guided running workouts as well as what feels like a million different workout types, covering literally every sport known to man!
The fitness courses are anything from three minutes to 18 minutes, and range from a simple reenergise session to neck and shoulder relaxation for us who sit hunched over our desks for too long. The visual is an animation of a man I now call Steve, who gives you a demonstration of how to do the movements, which was a game-changer for me. Sometimes we are excited to get going with exercise, but we perhaps don’t get the fundamentals right of the correct technique, which could lead to injury. Steve changes that in a big way, as the animation shows the movement clearly, and with enough time to really see how you should be doing it.
The guided workouts give you a demo followed by a countdown, and then a vibration counter to let you know how many reps to do. I did everything from a simple desk exercise to a rather hardcore ab workout. Also, having done cross-fit for six years, I was impressed that you can get in a good workout, safely and with correct technique, without the worry that you may pull something or do damage to joints. There is presently a total of 12 courses, giving you enough combos to work with to get two proper workouts in a week, which is generally my goal.
On the running side it was also great. I have been focusing on cycling on the indoor trainer during lockdown, as it’s not always ideal running alone, and so I enjoyed getting back into running by following the training programmes on the watch. This gave me a constructive guide to get going again without pushing me past where I should have been running as yet. I have gone too hard, too soon in the past, and my knees did not thank me. This watch puts the control on your wrist, and by listening, I found I got stronger a lot faster.
Things that I really liked…
When exercising, the activity screen shows you what heart rate zone you are in, which is incredibly helpful when you should be focused on long slow mileage training and keeping that heart rate down between zones two and three.
I used the GPS tracking during a four-hour bike ride out in the Cradle, it didn’t even use 20% of the battery, so when they say the battery can last up to 10 days, they are telling the truth, and that is even with activities and notifications.
What I didn’t like…
The one and only problem – and I really stress that word only – that I had with the watch was the step counter. In comparison with my other watch, there was a considerable difference in steps, with the Huawei coming in lower, but in retrospect, this could simply be down to the watch being more accurate on steps and not an actual fault. I’m giving the watch the benefit of the doubt here because it impressed me in every other way.
Would I buy it?
While this watch offers a similar ‘package’ to other smartwatches in terms of functionality, I believe that the app gives you a lot more insight into important health factors that are helpful in our busy modern lifestyles. And at a suggested retail price of R2999, the HUAWEI WATCH FIT offers a package that is hard to match, let alone beat in terms of what you get for your money. I would therefore buy this watch, as I feel it provides tremendous value for money as well as a host of features that support my lifestyle. It definitely gets my thumbs up for the Christmas List. (That’s a subtle hint for my hubby…)
Click here to check it out for yourself
Win with the Two Cities Ultra Marathon!
The Two Cities Ultra is giving two of it’s runners the chance to win a HUAWEI FIT WATCH! All you need to do to out yourself in the running to win is enter the race! Yes it’s that simple! Click on the banner below to go to the race website and enter today.
Elroy Gelant is much smaller in real life than he appears in pictures or on television. He is, however, as fast as his reported times. Perhaps even faster now. – By Matshelane Mamabolo
Late on a Tuesday afternoon in September, in the university town of Potchefstroom that he has called home for a little over a decade, I had the privilege of watching Gelant do a speed session that left me in awe. He completed all eight of the 1000m intervals in under three minutes, with the last two flashing by at the lightning fast speed of 2:37 and 2:25 minutes per kilometre respectively.
It is the pace he plans to run at this weekend when he lines up for the highly anticipated London Marathon on Sunday 4 October. Manage to do that and Gelant could become the new South African marathon record holder, replacing Gert Thys, who is the current incumbent with his 2:06:33 set way back in 1999 at the Tokyo Marathon.
It would be a remarkable achievement for a runner who is relatively new to marathon running. While he holds the title of South African marathon champion, Gelant goes into the London Marathon with just two official 42.2km races under his belt, having run the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon in 2017 and 2019.
Fast Race Expected
With a Personal Best of 2:10:31 from last year’s national championships at the Cape Town Marathon, many would feel the 2:07 target he has set himself for London is a tad too ambitious. But there are a lot of factors that are sure to work in his favour. For one, the race is certain to be fast – notwithstanding the withdrawal of Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele. Also, the race is going to be run on a fast course – around the St James’ Park – that was among those considered for Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge’s historic Ineos 1:59 Challenge last year. Of course, it would be suicidal of him to try and keep up with the top guns who will be in the leading pack. All he needs do is stick with the chasing group and he should be able to achieve his goal.
Another reason to be optimistic is the fact that he is in great shape. “Elroy is in fantastic form. He has really trained well and hard for this. Even though the lockdown impacted on his training a bit, it was not the kind of impact to take him off track. He will do very well in London,” says coach Jean Verster as we watch Gelant fly through another 1000m, followed closely by his training mates from the North West University, a number of them 800m specialists whose speed helps keep the national champion on his toes.
Running in Circles
For the runner himself, it is the fact that the London Marathon is going to be run in loops that he sees as arguably the best factor counting in his favour. “The format of this race is right up my alley,” he explains during breakfast at Die Akkers following an easy 10km jog in the morning. “Because of COVID-19, we are not going to run it on the normal route that goes through the city, but we are going to do 19 laps of 2.1km with an extra 1300m straight going to the finish line. I have always been a track specialist, so it is much easier for me to keep my rhythm on the laps. So, I am pretty confident I will do well in London.”
Gelant’s preparations for the race have seen him mimic the race format and he has done 2km loop running every second week at 3:01min/km – a pace that will see him complete the race at 2:07. Also, he and his coach have picked up that Gelant’s biggest weakness is his finish, and thus they have worked hard at fixing this.
“When I went to last year’s Cape Town Marathon, the goal was to run a 2:08, but I failed to achieve that because I died in the last five kilometres. We realised that I’d done a lot of junk mileage prior to the race, as though I was training for the Comrades Marathon. I had no structure to my training, and I did not supplement properly. I remember feeling very bloated at 32km because I had taken a lot of supplements. To have run a 2:10 having made those mistakes was still a good achievement, and I’m sure I will be able to do much better now that we have trained right.”
Amongst the Best in the World
The mere fact that he is going to be racing with some of the world’s greatest marathoners – Kipchoge, Mosinet Geremew, Marius Kipserem, Mule Wasihun, Tamirat Tola and Shura Kitata – gets the 34-year-old from Pacaltsdorp in George, Western Cape pinching himself in disbelief. “I get goosebumps just thinking about the race. I am very privileged to be going to participate. I have been on a four-year plan towards the Olympics and we all know that to win a medal at the Games, you must race against the best. And the experience I am going to get from London is going to stand me in good stead for next year’s Olympics.”
Gelant has been to the Olympics before, but not for the marathon. “I made the finals of the 5000m in Rio in 2016, and that alone was a great achievement, because the heats were very tough. There were four East Africans in my heat, and it was incredible to have made it from that.”
Coming back to London, there will be a lot of Africans in the race tomorrow. Run anywhere near close to them, and Gelant could well add South African marathon record holder to the South African marathon champion title he already holds. And how they will celebrate that not only in Potchefstroom and Pacaltsdorp, but throughout the country.
Image: Elroy Gelant wins the FNB Maputo 10K CITYRUN in late 2019 – photo by Tobias Ginsberg
Marathoner Melikhaya Frans is going to stick to Britain’s Sir Mo Farah like a bad rash on Sunday in his quest to earn himself a ticket to the Olympics. – BY Matshelane Mamabolo
The 30-year-old Frans is one of three South Africans who will be participating in the elites-only London Marathon on Sunday 4 October, and plan is to run under 2:11:30 to put himself in line to be among those picked to represent the country at the Games in Tokyo, Japan next year. Gerda Steyn and Elroy Gelant are the other two runners from our shores who will be running the 42.2km race on the looped course of 19.6 laps of St James’s Park in central London.
Chasing Olympic Qualification
Farah will not be competing in his home marathon, which has been billed as a showdown between Kenyan marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge and Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, owner of the second-fastest time in history. Instead, Farah will perform pacing duties for the British athletes who are chasing Olympic qualification – and Frans intends making the most of this illustrious pacing service.
“My strategy for the race is to go with the group of British guys who will be running for a sub-2:11,” Frans said before his departure to London “It’s a dream of mine to go to the Olympics. From when I met with my coach, Michael Mbabane, in 2016, we agreed on a Vision 2020 plan.”
That plan saw the Ikhamva Athletics Club runner work his way up to become one of the top marathon runners in the country, with a personal best time of 2:14. However, he failed to realise his Olympic dream last year, ranking sixth overall in the country after things didn’t go to plan at the SA Championships during the Cape Town Marathon.
“In Cape Town, the problem was that the pace-maker was not honest. He raced, and that messed up our plans,” coach Mbabane reflected on Frans’s 11th place finish. Fortunately, the postponement of the Olympics due to the COVID-19 pandemic has provided the man from Port Elizabeth with a second bite at the cherry, and he intends to sink his teeth firmly into it.
“Corona was a blessing in disguise for me,” said Frans, who made his marathon debut in Cape Town three years ago. “London is one of the biggest marathons in the world, and now that I’ll be running against the guys who have the two fastest marathon times in history, I have a chance to qualify for Tokyo.”
First International Marathon
It will be his first marathon outside South Africa, but Frans is not perturbed, and his coach – who will be watching his charge on television – is confident Frans will deliver. “He’s ready to run a good marathon, even though it is his first time out there. He has previously run a half marathon overseas and that will help him. He knows exactly what he has got to do. It’s an open secret that Farah is planning to take the Brits to the halfway mark in 65:13, and that will be easy for Melikhaya to do, because his 21km PB is 61 minutes.”
The plan, the coach explained, is for Frans to stick with the Brits at least until the 32/33km mark, from whence he will probably put foot to the peddle to realise his goal. “There’s essentially only one space in the South African Olympic team to fight for, and we would like for him to get it,” Mbabane said.
Stephen Mokoka’s place is secured following his fifth-place finish at the World Championships in Doha last year, while South African Champion Gelant – who is gunning for a sub 2:07 – is also assured of his selection. Desmond Mokgobu is another one who should be in the squad after his brilliant run in winning the Beppu-Oita Marathon in Japan, and Frans faces stiff competition from Sibusiso Nzima for what could well be the stand-by spot in the team.
“We believe that a 2:10 will give him a chance to get into the team, and even if it does not, it is the kind of time that will open great doors for him. We also want him to run the Eastern Province record,” said Mbabane, adding that Frans had a great training camp where he ran loops of 45km, and thus should not have problems with the race structure.
Support From Fellow Athletes
His coach is also pleased that Gelant is doing the race: “Elroy is Melikhaya’s mentor, and he called us last Saturday to check on him. They will be together in London. We were also happy to receive a call from Stephen Mokoka, who had some words of encouragement for the young man.”
Of course, Frans said his confidence was boosted by that call: “This is exciting for me, a massive opportunity. I am ready.” But is the world ready for what Frans believes will transpire in the ‘main race?’ “I think they are going to break the world record. And in my mind, Bekele will beat Kipchoge. I saw him when he ran Berlin, and I could tell he has it in him.” (Last year, the Ethiopian only narrowly failed to break his Kenyan adversary’s record of 2:01:39 by just two seconds!)
Run your way out of Lockdown for a chance to win one of 300 pairs of ASICS running shoes and a trip to the 2021 Paris or Tokyo Marathon, by entering the ASICS x Virtual Run!
Amidst the isolation of lockdown, the world has fallen in love with running – that is, according to the findings of a new, ongoing research study by ASICS. More importantly, the research shows nearly three-quarters of runners around the world plan to stick with their new exercise routine. And out of this study was born an initiative, a series of virtual runs, to help people get moving and guide them in their newfound love for running.
Take note, however, that this Virtual Run is unlike any of those you’ve done before. It’s a six-week programme – see it as your motivation to get back out there and in hot shape for summer – with six levels to unlock as you progress, one each week starting now in September and running into October. And with that comes 300 pairs of ASICS shoes up for grabs, plus a trip to either the Paris or Tokyo Marathon in 2021, plus tons of other gear from our partners, so sign up here to kick your running into high gear!
The World Loves Running
The study, which ASICS is conducting to better understand and support the changing needs of runners, spoke to 14,000 regular exercisers[i] across 12 countries. It found that:
Meanwhile, figures from the fitness-tracking app, Runkeeper™, show that runners of every level are clocking up more strides, more often. During April 2020, the app saw a 252% rise in registrations globally and a 44% increase in monthly active users compared to the same time last year. It also reported a 62% spike globally in people heading out for a weekly run. Put in context, in the days around Global Running Day during our national lockdown, there was a +47.3% (globally) increase in people running compared to last year.
The study also reveals that for the majority of people, this activity surge is down to more than just physical health. Two-thirds (67% globally) say exercise helps them cope mentally when faced by challenging situations like this pandemic, and eight in ten (79% globally) runners insist that being active is making them feel saner and more in control. A similar number (81% globally) say running is playing a key role in helping them clear their mind while two-thirds (65% globally) insist its mental benefits outweigh any other form of physical exercise.
Furthermore, runners across the board are keen to keep their active habits going when this crisis is over. Nearly three-quarters of runners (73% globally) say they want to continue running as much as they are now after the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end while seven in ten (70% globally) people who exercise regularly are determined to hang on to the important role sport and movement is currently playing in their lives. Perhaps most encouragingly, among those who only took up running after the COVID-19 crisis started, nearly two thirds (62% globally) say they plan on sticking with it in future.
Helping South Africa Run
With all this wonderful, healthy running momentum, ASICS has launched its ASICS x Virtual Run. You can see it as your motivation to get back out there and in hot shape for summer, and a great challenge to add to your lockdown running programme. Six levels to unlock, running challenges to tackle, and amazing prizes to be won, including those 300 pairs of ASICS shoes up for grabs, an overseas marathon experience, plus tons of other gear from our partners. So sign up here to kick things into high gear, get moving and Feel the Difference with ASICS.
#VersusVirtualRun #FeelTheDifference #ASICS