Innholdsfortegnelse for Jul/Aug 2022 i Runner's World South Africa

Mike F, Editor Muddy trail runs. Warm showers. Hot tea. Alana M, Creative Director Zero sweat! Zero heat acclimitisation. My body is made to run in the cold. Ryan S, Gear Ed. An excuse to wear all the great winter gear! Hoping for snow again this season. Dave B, Chief Sub The first 15 minutes are grim; but once I’ve warmed up, running in the cold just feels so good. And so does racing a downpour home and winning! Paul G, Sales Running mountain trails in Cape Town’s winter means beautiful waterfalls and streams and cool temperatures – perfect running conditions.…

HOW TO WASH YOUR WORKOUT CLOTHES The least fun thing to think about right after a run is how to handle the clothes that you’ve just drenched with sweat. The easiest option is to toss your gross gear in the laundry basket and forget about it for a few days – but that’s also the worst move, as bacteria love to linger in damp, dark environments like laundry baskets. How can you take better care of your clothes so you can enjoy their performance-boosting benefits for longer? It begins with the basics – like making sure to wash your kit in cold water and on a delicate cycle, and letting wet athletic wear dry before you throw it in the dirty pile. But there are plenty of finer points to…

ALONGSIDE RUNNER’S KNEE, ITB syndrome and plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinopathy – a sore and inflamed Achilles tendon – is one of the big four (or should that be ‘big sore’?) running injuries. Traditional treatments for Achilles tendinopathy have included rest, ice and lowering your heels off a step (known as the Alfredson protocol). But a new study1 suggests a more active approach: running downhill backwards. Runners who did so during a five-week study "achieved their running-related functional goals". In other words, they saw their Achilles pain improve. So, if you’re one of those runners who can’t bear the thought of inactive recovery – aren’t we all? – then embrace a bit of backwards thinking. Just pick a smooth, gentle, traffic-free hill, otherwise new injuries beckon… 10 THE NUMBER OF MINUTES…

NEED SOME MARATHON MOTIVATION? Look no further than the 2020 London Marathon’s down-to-the-wire finishes: American Sara Hall – who’d moved up from ninth place at the halfway mark, to third at the 40K mark – surged past world champion Ruth Chepng'etich in the last 150 metres to claim second place and a personal best of 2:22:01. On the men’s side, Shura Kitata of Ethiopia sprinted down the line to finish in 2:05:41, just one second ahead of Vincent Kipchumba (with third-placer Sisay Lemma coming in at 2:05:45). Of course, Kitata and Hall put themselves in a good position by pacing wisely over the first 41km and dialling in elements like nutrition and hydration. But in elite races, the finishing kick often determines who moves on to finals, ascends podiums, or…

THE SPORTS SCIENTIST TRAINING WITH THE FACTS Eliud Kipchoge is the greatest marathon runner ever to lace up a pair of carbon-fibre shoes (or ordinary shoes, for that matter). Multiple big-city marathon wins, two Olympic Games gold medals, first man under two hours for the distance (albeit in a staged, non-eligible event), and the current 42.2km world record-holder. This is a marathon runner who knows how to train. So when research came out recently that documented Kipchoge’s training, many readers were fascinated, searching painstakingly for the magic formula that makes him the greatest. Because, what secrets might be found out and applied to our training to make us faster? BACK TO BASICS Those readers may have been disappointed. First, there are no secrets. No magic formulas. Second, you’d be ill-advised…

Rule 1: If you’re a man, there’s a possibility you may not be quicker than the person you’re trying to overtake. This is particularly true if the runner ahead of you is female. Please, just be honest with yourself. Rule 2: Don't overtake and then slow down. It’s extremely annoying, and suggests you have not read the first rule. Rule 3: When overtaking, resist the urge to offer false motivational advice. They’re not ‘doing so well’ when they're half limp walking 3km into a 10km.…

SMALL OF STATURE BUT MIGHTY OF FLAVOUR, the chilli pepper has been spicing up food since time immemorial. Now, a new study suggests it may have an unlikely health benefit, too: improving exercise performance. The research, published in the journal Nutrients, reveals that capsaicin, which is found in chilli peppers, has anti-fatiguing effects that allow the eater to run longer without tiring. According to the researchers, "the available scientific literature appears to suggest these compounds could be considered as a potential strategy to improve exercise performance". Eating a few more chillis, it seems, could be the kick you need.…

YOU CAN TELL A LOT ABOUT A CIT Y BY RUNNING ALONG ITS STREETS. In Cape Town, the handsome promenade offers sweeping sea and mountain views, and a collegial atmosphere for runners, walkers and cyclists. Evidently, this city values the well-being of its people. Compare Johannesburg’s suburbs, where the jacarandas and English oaks provide a heart-warming counterpoint to the unkempt streets and their broken pavements. This is not a city whose priorities lie in ensuring that road runners – or indeed, weary pedestrians – are particularly well accommodated. Occasionally, a city will present contrasting facades. Durban, for instance, has a splendid 8km promenade, all the way from Blue Lagoon in the north to the harbour in the south; sub-Saharan Africa’s longest such stretch. A walk, a bike ride or a…

An ordinary 6am run on a public holiday turned traumatic when Roelof Mostert was shot in the back as he fled for his life. He already had a relationship with running as therapy, to help him through other challenges; but now he needed it more than ever. RW’s Ryan Scott sat down with Mostert to hear his harrowing story – and his plans for the future. RW: Have you always been a runner? • RM: I was always good at sports as a child – I just assumed all kids were good at sports. The teachers at that time only really invested in children whose parents invested in the school; I could never figure out why all the kids who sucked at sports always made the teams, and I didn't.…

Managing training intensity is all about understanding how to identify when you’re moving from a purely aerobic and management training zone into a zone close to your physiological thresholds, and then beyond this into severe exercise. Physiologists have very precise definitions for these boundaries, and various tests can be done and measurements taken to identify what yours are. But such tests are beyond most people – and honestly, they’re unnecessary, given the range of possible training paces. So instead of being bogged down in the swamp of percentages of VO2max, heart rates and lactate thresholds, here’s a far simpler way to manage your Kipchoge-like training: If you’re able to hold a conversation in full sentences, without having to interrupt yourself every few words to take a breath, then you’re in…

When the Comrades Marathon was first run, in 1921, it was a very different time. The Great War was still fresh in the memory, and the Second World War was still 18 years into the future. After that war, it was noted in a newspaper article previewing the 1949 Comrades Marathon that "the slow train" took over four hours to travel between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Which begs the question: how long did it take in 1921? The first Comrades Marathon – for men only, back then – was years in the making because some believed the race would cause the deaths of a number of runners, who would simply drop down dead due to the great challenge. It was also a time of greater chivalry, and a time in which…

Yes, we all know we need to put in some strength and conditioning work to help us run better and steer clear of injuries. But traipsing off to the gym takes up a big chunk of valuable running time. That’swhere this equipment-free four-week body-weight plan comes in. You can do it in your living room, your b ack garden or anywhere that works for you, saving you time, hassle and membership fees, while still delivering all the full-body strength benefits you need. You can challenge your muscles, in the best of ways, with the right body-weight moves. Sure, you could just add more reps or sets as you get stronger; but eventually, you’ll hit a dead end. And who wants to do 37 glute bridges anyway? That’s why, in this…

THE BEST FITNESS AND TECH PRODUCTS TO POWER YOUR RUNNING BEST AUDIO GEAR SHOKZ AEROPEX R2 999 If you don’t want to black out the outside world on your run, the Shokz technology is ahead of the game with their bone-conducting system: no part of the device actually goes into the ear cavity. Instead, the earphone sits on the outside of the ear, and transducers guide the sound-wave vibrations up your cheek bones and into the inner ear. Sound quality is not quite as good as with in-ear or over-ear headphones; but you get the benefit of being able to hear the goings-on around you, if that’s your goal. It takes 90 minutes for a full charge; that gives you eight hours of playback, which should be enough to finish your…

I’VE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE ATTENDED EVERY ONE OF THE COMRADES MARATHONS SINCE 1989 (except in 2017, when my daughter was born). I spent years on the back of the famous grandstand press truck; I’ve run the race, I’ve commentated on television and radio – I’ve run the race while doing live crossings on radio – and over the past five years, I’ve been part of the announcing team on the finish line. Before all of these, I grew up in Kloof, and spent every year cheering on the Fordyces, Tjales, and family and friends as they ran through the village. The Comrades Marathon is in my blood. I love the race like no other. There is something about the history, drama, excitement and magnitude of the challenge that…

A lifestyle dedicated to sport has seen Pete Calitz turn from professional tennis player in his younger years, to his current occupation as a tennis coach; and cycling was a passion from the start. But soon after he relocated to Cape Town from Joburg, friends invited him on a mid-winter snow-seeking mission up Table Mountain. It was the first time he’d done any form of trail running, and the route up Platteklip to the top of the mountain got the blood pumping. But it was on the descent down Kasteelspoort, looking out to the west at the setting sun, that Calitz knew this was something he wanted more of. “I finished that run on such a high! And I realised I was an okay runner, so I signed up to…

Like female runners, black runners had to wait until 1975, the Golden Jubilee of the Comrades Marathon, to receive official recognition. Given their undoubted potential, and their domination of the race in recent times, it was long overdue. But back then, it wasn’t a simple case of recognising their ability. When black runners were admitted to the race, it was the result of a courageous decision led by Comrades Marathon Association Chairperson Mick Winn. The race was a world-famous event, a South African institution, and the country’s racial divide had been at the forefront of political battles and sport in the early 1970s. The Comrades Marathon was under a harsh spotlight. The country faced sporting isolation, because the South African government stubbornly stuck to its apartheid policies; that is why…

Taken at face value, the marketing hype in the nutrition business would have you believe that food is the cellular equivalent of formaldehyde. So seductive is the promise that ditching one type of food – or stocking up on another – could bag you a few extra birthdays that anti-ageing discoveries in nutrition regularly hit the front pages. But it’s not all good news. One thoroughly depressing health story last year, based on a University College London review involving 135 000 people, was that Brits in their 40s and 50s are in far poorer health than the midlifers of the 2000s, and thus more vulnerable to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and dementia earlier in life – and there’s no reason to think South Africans are any different. While…