Modern Athlete Archives - The Running Mann

25th January 202526th January 2025

An Ethical Call: Pulling my Column from Modern Athlete

Sadly the current issue will be my final column for Modern Athlete. After 6 years of sharing humorous marathon reports from every corner of the country, I have decided to pull my monthly column (which I write for free) with the news that editor Sean Falconer has left Modern Athlete. I found this out recently when I contacted him to chat about ideas for upcoming editions, and I was shocked when he informed me that he had resigned his position a month ago and sold his shares in the business to his now former partners, Roxanne Martin and Richard Laskey.

I do not feel comfortable having my articles continue appearing in the magazine, because while I have the utmost respect for Falconer as an editor and journalist, I don’t feel I can say the same for Martin, who was editor of the infamous 2024 Two Oceans Marathon Digimag, published by Modern Athlete on behalf of the Two Oceans Marathon and was caught out in the deceit and dishonesty that followed the cutoff controversy. (https://runningmann.co.za/2024/04/30/two-oceans-2024-copycat-cutoff-chaos/)

14th April 2019

When a Push Comes to a Shove, Constantia Nek is the Toughest Hill in South Africa

Inspiring OMTOM Stories: Hilton Murray & Anita Engelbrecht

I’ve been gathering Two Oceans advice from a number of different athletes of all abilities. There is one common answer across the spectrum – take the first half of the race easy because you’ll pay significant interest charges over the much tougher second half.

Therefore, I wanted to make sure we got some input from the person best qualified to inform us what happens on race day when “a push comes to shove” – and that person is undoubtedly Hilton Murray.

Team Blitsie before the 2018 Two Oceans Marathon.

Hilton will be piloting Anita Engelbrecht in a “wheelchair jogger” that they’ve named ‘Blitsie’ for the fourth year in a row at the Two Oceans Marathon. Team Blitsie have traversed the country but there is one hill they fear more than any other – an “absolute killer” that they dread more than Polly Shortts or any of the ‘big five’ hills at Comrades. According to Hilton, getting to the top of Constantia Nek stands out head and shoulders as the most difficult hill in the country when pushing a wheelchair jogger. Continue reading “When a Push Comes to a Shove, Constantia Nek is the Toughest Hill in South Africa”

16th November 201816th November 2018

Jacaranda Marathon (Purple Rain in Pretoria)

Opening Chords

Once a year Pretoria turns purple as 65,000 Jacaranda trees go into bloom and herald the start of summer. The impact of the trees on South Africa’s capital city is immense. They’ve resulted in Pretoria being nicknamed “Jacaranda City” and prominent purple branding adorns everything from the regional Tshwane municipality to the local radio station (which is of course called Jacaranda FM).

The Jacaranda City Challenge is perfectly timed to capture the trees in full bloom. Prince sang about Purple Rain – but if you really want to see the phenomenon in real life you should run the Jacaranda City Marathon. Running a marathon under a constant florid canopy is quite an experience. This year an overnight thunderstorm meant that we were also treated to a luxurious carpet of petals, whilst every gust of wind brought more purple blossoms raining down.

Continue reading “Jacaranda Marathon (Purple Rain in Pretoria)”

24th August 201819th May 2023

Comrades Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Run

[MARATHON #190 / Comrades #9 / 10 June 2018]

The human brain is a complex network of neural circuits. The two most intense emotions humans can experience are ‘love’ and ‘hate’. Many people think that ‘love’ is the opposite of ‘hate’ but recent neurological studies have shown that the two are so closely related that they even run on the same neural circuits. A better opposite for both ‘love’ and ‘hate’ is apathy. Apathy is not a word one associates with running Comrades – but wild bouts of love and hate are likely to flow through the neurological pathways of one’s brain over the course of a very long day.

The scientific studies did determine one key difference: The cerebral cortex – this is the part of the brain associated with logic, judgement and reasoning – becomes largely deactivated during bouts of love but remains fully functional during hate. I am a rational, lucid and objective human being which explains why I seem to hate Comrades so much more than I love it.