Innholdsfortegnelse for Nov/Dec 2025 i Runner's World South Africa

If this issue of Runner’s World is the reason you’ve now decided to try trail running, please take note of the following Public Service Announcements: → In trail, there is no such thing as minutes per kilometre. The only thing that matters is the distance between your starting point and your end point. No one cares about your splits. → Trail runners are not just road runners with dusty socks. They have their own culture, habits and idiosyncrasies. Trail runners are 56.3% more likely than road runners to post a photo from their run. → Trail runners are environmentally bullish. They recycle. They compost. They eat naturally and avoid plastic. They never litter… even in their own car. They follow Leonardo DiCaprio on Instagram. → Climbing should be described as…

DEPENDING ON WHO YOU LISTEN TO, protein is either the elixir of performance and recovery or something that’s become thoroughly overhyped. Shakes and supplements are packed with the stuff, while faddish diets like paleo espouse the benefits of a high-protein, low-carb approach. As a consequence of all this noise, many runners remain confused about how much protein they need, how often they need it, and where they should get it from. We need some simple, science-backed rules – and sports scientist Daniel Moore has created four of them. Think of this list as your protein primer: 1/Eat regularly spaced meals and snacks, three to five hours apart. 2/Aim for approximately 0.3g of protein per kg of body weight for each sitting – for an athlete weighing 68kg, that’s 20g of…

I RUN PAST BUCKINGHAM PALACE, and after 42 kilometres I can finally see it: my sixth World Marathon Major finish line, the moment many runners dream about. After running through the arch, I’m shepherded through the chute with hundreds of other marathoners. A volunteer hastily puts a London Marathon medal around my neck, and another adds the Six Star Medal. I hobble behind other finishers in a queue, waiting to get their photo taken in front of an Abbott World Marathon Majors poster. And a fleeting thought comes to mind, when it’s my turn to pose for the photographer: is this it? The next day, I sit in Heathrow Airport, scribbling on a blank page in my training journal: ‘I just did something amazing – two marathons in one week’. But…

There’s a word that my late twenty-something self once thought was so terrifying, it would have me quaking in my running shoes. A fear-provoking word that gave me jelly legs. The word? Race. Being the kind of runner whose speed training has been mistaken for a Sunday stroll, the idea of competing against other runners didn’t really appeal. ‘If you’re going to lose, why bother entering at all?’ I used to think. Who likes being called a loser? When I speak to other speed-challenged runners, many have said the same: they find races intimidating. Interestingly, parkrun cottoned on to this decades ago. Knowing how off-putting the ‘R’ word can sound, the brand always insisted on calling its Saturday get-togethers ‘events’ – and has put tailwalkers in place to make sure…

I have a background in finance, where I worked as an investment analyst researching companies listed on the stock exchange. I’ve been passionate about sport for as long as I can remember. My first coaching experience was as a 13-year-old, coaching peewee cricket and rugby. At university, I continued to coach various junior-school sports teams. In high school, I was never particularly talented; but I really enjoyed the 800m, and that passion for middle-distance athletics has been with me ever since. In my early twenties I joined the VOB running club, and our club captain would often take us up into Cecelia Forest and Constantia Nek during some of our weekly training sessions. It wasn’t long before I was doing the majority of my training on the mountain, and a…

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO, before she had 10 sponsors, running records that appear as if they will stand for decades (or until she breaks them), hundreds of thousands if not millions of fans, and an article of clothing named after her, Courtney Dauwalter was a 25-year-old, junk-food-eating eighth-grade science teacher living in Denver, US. She had recently taken up trail running, had completed a 50-mile (80km) race, then had heard about an event called the Run Rabbit Run 100-miler (160km). “It sounded insane,” she says. “I had to try.” About 80km into the 2012 Run Rabbit Run 100 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, she realised just how insane the race was. It was raining, and she was cold, and sick, and tired. Everything hurt. She spent kilometres vomiting. The guy she was…

BURNT CHAIN NECKLACE R599 MOVE WITH PURPOSE, SHINE IN STYLE. The Burnt Studios Active Jewellery Lock Chain Necklace brings a fresh twist to performance fashion – where fitness meets everyday elegance. Crafted with premium 18-carat gold PVD coating over durable 316L stainless steel, this necklace is lightweight, hypoallergenic, and fully sweat- and waterproof, ready to keep up with every run, workout, or daily adventure. Resistant to tarnish and rust, it blends resilience with effortless style. Whether layered with casual streetwear or worn solo as a statement piece, Burnt Studios’ Active Jewellery proves that style doesn’t stop when you move – it performs as hard as you do. LOWDOWN: MERGING SPORT AND STYLE, REFLECTING THE GROWING CROSSOVER BETWEEN RUNNING AND FASHION. AND PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN. burnt.co.za SOULTY SEA DOGS SUN BUTTER…

News Splash Douse yourself with water to finish faster, says study. IF YOU’VE SIGNED UP TO A SUMMER RACE, wherever you are in SA, there’s a good chance you'll be running in the heat. That’s good news for your tan but bad news for your PB, as exercising in hotter temperatures takes an extra toll on the body. "The greater the temperature, the greater the risk that heat will negatively impact the person," says Jim Pate, senior physiologist at Marylebone Health Group, London. So, what can you do about it? A new study* suggests a simple solution: douse yourself with water. It looked at 13 runners who completed two 10Ks in 30.4ºC – one where they doused themselves in water and one where they didn’t. On average, the runners finished…

BOSU BALLS AT THE READY: adding a little jiggle to your strength work can sharpen body and brain. German researchers asked 20 adults to perform dumbbell squats on both a flat surface and on the unstable side of a Bosu Balance Trainer, before completing a cognitive task. Reaction times for the mental test increased when doing the wobbly squats. “Unstable devices and free weights could provide a means to raise cognitive demands during resistance training,” said the study authors. But you don’t need to sign up to the Barkley Marathons for brain-benefiting exercises that require mental exertion. Give running on trails – more unstable than a track – a go, or create instability by holding a weight in one hand for split squats or rows. Sunday Sessions The ‘weekend warrior’,…

The Vibe Legally, FullSend is an events company founded by Mike Obery and his comrade, Heinrich Boonzaaier. Culturally, it’s a rolling city of runners with pacing pods and aid stations that would put many race organisers I know to shame, and routes that prove Cape Town is bigger than Sea Point Promenade. You pitch up, you’re briefed, you get paced. Fastest group targets a 3:00 marathon, slowest targets sub-5:00. Pacers are capable volunteers (“by the community, for the community”), coached and route-briefed by Obery. If there’s a place for you, there’s a pace for you – and yes, there’s space for you. It’s free, it’s loud, it’s diverse: cleaners, doctors, lawyers, your ex, your situationship… possibly his dog. No one cares who you are; just be a nice person, and…

I’VE RUN MORE THAN 30 MARATHONS OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS, but I recently found one hack that has made my last two training cycles the most fun I’ve ever had logging a ton of kilometres: audiobooks. Let me jump back a few decades, though. Like many of you, I got my start in running in school track event and cross-country teams. Back then, the iconic yellow Sony Walkman Sport was the coolest tech you could carry around. I never ran with one; partly because it was an anchor, but also because the flopping wire was so annoying. (Yes, I know in the past I’ve instructed readers to run the wire up inside their shirt. Still annoying.) Later came the Sony Discman, but nobody ran with it because your music would…

You’ve No Doubt Heard about the heart-healthy, disease-fighting, longevity-promoting virtues of the Mediterranean diet. Health experts love it because it’s simple and flexible, unlike complex and restrictive fad diets. On a Med diet, all you have to do is focus on eating lean proteins (especially seafood and poultry), with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, unsaturated fats – and a little wine, if you’d like. Even the name itself conjures images of lazily nibbling olives in the sun. It isn’t just a diet – this is a lifestyle. But some dietitians are now questioning that image. The Med diet has always been narrowly defined. And as a glance at a map will tell you, the region extends beyond Greece and Italy – it’s a vast swathe of land…

WE ALL KNOW THAT INTERVAL TRAINING can improve various fitness markers, including VO₂ max. But it can be hard to identify the impact on your running. A new study* suggests a foolproof solution: time trials. Why time trials? Because other measures are up and down. For instance, training that boosts VO₂ max tends to diminish running economy, and vice versa. These physiological ‘pieces’ don’t provide a full picture – you need a time trial for that. “When I start coaching a new athlete, in the first session, I’ll always get them to do is a 5K time trial to both set a mark in the sand and to set pace guidance,” says Fiona English (@englishruns). While English mostly uses a 5K distance, if you’re focusing more on speed, she says…

In the early morning hours before the race, the nerves hit me even before I donned the shirt I made for the race, with ‘ALY’ across my chest in hot-pink glittery letters. I’ve toed the line at over 100 races around the world, but nothing has ever made me as nervous as the New York City Marathon. It’s not a race for the faint of heart. The first two kays of the course is an uphill on the Verrazzano Bridge, spanning from Staten Island to Brooklyn. The entry points into Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan? Those are bridges, too. This course doesn’t let up until you cross the finish line in Central Park. Every marathon is hard in its own way, of course; but even while NYC is at its…

At just 27 years old, Sibusiso Kubheka – from Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal – has already made history. In August, he became the first man to break six hours over 100 kilometres, running 5 hours 59 minutes 20 seconds as part of adidas’ record-breaking ‘Chasing 100’ project in Italy. RW caught up with him on home turf in KZN to hear his story. Runner’s World: So, Sibusiso, tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, and how did you get into running? • Sibusiso Kubheka: I grew up in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal. My mom is from there, and my dad is from Mpumalanga. I went to Bethamoya Primary School in Mpumalanga, and later to Sithokozile Secondary School. I started running when I was still in primary school – I was always…

Trail running – a sport that more often than not invokes the phrase ‘blood, sweat and tears’; and rightly so, given the extreme and unforgiving nature of it. But what if it was also just as much about what’s going on between the ears? As the sport grows faster and faster globally, more and more trail runners, from beginners to winners, are realising just how important the mental aspect is. Runner’s World tapped into the brains of Cape Town-based trail runners Nick Groll and Kerry-Ann Marshall – the former a clinical psychologist and trail runner, the latter a mom of two and an extremely talented multiple trail race-winner. Groll runs a private practice in Tamboerskloof, working primarily with adults, some of whom are sporty types. He took up running in…

TASTE TOP-TABLE MOUNTAIN RUNNING WITH A SIDE OF YOGA IN CHAMONIX If epic UTMB tales leave you feeling Chamonix’s trails are too extreme for you, rest assured I felt the same until my trip with Run the Wild (RTW) showed me you don’t need to be Courtney Dauwalter to run in Europe’s mountain-sport capital. Joining the trail-running holiday specialists’ two-day Running and Yoga weekend, I’d expected most people to have come with friends or partners, but found many alone. The opportunity to meet new people is a core part of the experience, says Simon James, who co-founded RTW with his wife and fellow experienced international mountain guide and running coach Karin Voller. “Some of my best friends have come from sharing mountain experiences,” says James. “I wanted to create something…