Johannesburg - South Africa’s obsession with ultra marathons, particularly the Comrades Marathon, is a serious hindrance to the country competing with the likes of Kenya and Ethiopia in the standard marathon.
Many hugely talented runners rush to compete in the ultras, to the detriment of their potential to be truly competitive in the IAAF and IOC-acknowledged 42.195km distance.
And it is all because of the generally-held notion in local running circles that you are not a true runner until you have completed the 90km Comrades Marathon.
Runners whose legs are not yet strong physically and mentally succumb to the pressure of proving themselves by competing in the Comrades at an early age – the minimum requirement is the athlete must be 20 years or older on race day – leading to them curtailing their potential.
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Yet the reality is that if such promising talent was allowed to slowly flourish and restricted from running much longer distances, we probably would be having more runners of the calibre of Stephen Mokoka, who has managed to avoid the ultra marathon trap.
I can’t help but wonder just how well a runner such as David Gatebe would have done had he stuck to the standard marathon.
Granted, he smashed the Comrades Down Run marathon back in 2016 when he ran an incredible race to finish in 5:18:13, a record that still stands to this day.
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Gatebe had won the national marathon championship eight years earlier in a time of 2:15:30 and expectations were that he could go on to bigger things and perhaps the world stage too, to emulate the likes of Olympic champion Josiah Thugwane, or luminaries such as world marathon major winners Xolile Yawa, David Tsebe, Gert Thys and Hendrick Ramaala.
But in a country where the “big money” is only really earned in the ultras, Gatebe “graduated” to the longer distances and won the 56km Two Oceans Marathon in 2013, before that amazing run from Maritzburg to Durban’s Kingsmead Stadium three years later.
And it is achievements such as his – although after that success Gatebe never really shone at Comrades, though he represented the country in the 100km World Championships – which have got many young runners aspiring to do ultra marathons such as Two Oceans and Comrades.
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You see in our country just about every marathon run is geared towards the world famous KwaZulu-Natal ultra. If runners are not trying to qualify – by completing a marathon in a time of less than four hours and 50 minutes – they are either striving to improve their seeding (runners are placed in start batches from A to H based on their marathon times) or testing their readiness for the Comrades Marathon.
And in this month of April, just about everyone who organises a race does so to pander to the runners’ Comrades whims and puts on an ultra. April, you see, is “high mileage month” for Comrades runners, and unless your race is a 50km or more event, you are unlikely to attract the numbers. And because of this there is just no focus on standard marathon running. We need to change that.
The challenge is for ASA to make standard marathons attractive to young runners because the reality is that there is talent for us to be able to challenge the East Africans head on.
@Tshiliboy