The Running Mann

25th April 202525th April 2025

Bean there, run that (Taylor van Wyk’s first half marathon at Two Oceans)

I am always looking for good stories to tell and recently a gem popped up in an unlikely place: In a recent Two Oceans article about an Instagram influencer who fraudulently tampered with her race number to change her seeding from Q to A, a mom posted about issues with the half marathon seedings but finished off by mentioning that her special needs son had a fantastic run and ‘was probably the most excited runner on the course this year’.

I am privileged to share the story of Taylor ‘Bean’ van Wyk (or should that be ‘spilling the beans’) about his debut half marathon at this year’s Two Oceans.

23rd April 202523rd April 2025

Elands Marathon (there’s no such thing as an easy marathon)

[MARATHON #278 / 2nd Elands Marathon / 1 March 2025]

Most people get injured when they run too much, I seem to get injured when I run too little. I had been taking it easy since the Mdantsane Marathon at the beginning of December with nothing longer than 10km and was just doing enough mileage to keep my beer belly in check. Let’s just say I was in a good equilibrium at the beginning of January when all of a sudden, I felt a pain at the top of my hip during my morning 10k.

Of course my immediate reaction was to try and ‘run it out’. After 5 km of steadily escalating agony, I finally breached my pain threshold and walked home. I was convinced it was a stress fracture but it later turned out to be a very badly strained gluteus medius which had detached from the bone (hence feeling like a stress fracture but with more ‘pull’).

20th April 202520th April 2025

Two Oceans goes the legal route (Cavanagh’s last stand)

Doing what I do and writing what I write about, I receive sporadic legal letters. Fortunately, I have a fantastic attorney in Mark Leathers who dispatches the attempted ‘shake downs’ with the disdain that they deserve.

I connected with Mark during the Comrades crisis following the 2024 event when he offered his services to me on a pro bono basis in the fight against the attempted capture of the Comrades Marathon. He was elected to the CMA Board at the November 2024 AGM and his fellow Board members subsequently elected him their Vice Chairperson. Having Mark in my corner lets me sleep peacefully at night.

19th April 202519th April 2025

Is Two Oceans soft on Cheating?

A runner from Old Edwardian Athletics Club who would prefer to remain anonymous sent me an email with detailed and irrefutable proof showing that a serial offender, Anthony Naguriah, had cheated in previous Two Oceans ultra marathons and would be running (and presumably cheating) again in 2025. The same runner has also been publicly exposed as cheating in qualifier marathons and at Comrades. Naguriah’s modus operandi is to start slow, disappear off the grid for a large portion of the race (missing several timing mats) and then popping up towards the finish again*.

* And true to form, at this year’s Two Oceans Naguriah was recorded on the first two mats (up to 14km) running at 7:11/km pace, he then disappears of the grid for the next five timing mats and reappears on the UCT fields for a 6:37:56 ‘finish’.

19th April 202521st April 2025

Instagram Influencer caught cheating at Two Oceans

I received a tipoff about an Instagram influencer who cheated her way into the A batch at the Two Oceans half marathon. The source, who prefers to remain anonymous, said, “I find this behaviour so entitled and exasperating in races nowadays and feel it’s part of a broader discussion on influencers in running, taking up spaces they haven’t legitimately earned in sweat and tears.”

The Insta influencer in question is Kelly van der Walt who uses the handle @thehealthyprocess and has a following of just under 30,000. She has achieved a large following documenting her weight loss journey and is a Institute for Integrative Nutrition Multidimensional Health Coach which “refers to a holistic approach to health and wellness that considers various aspects of a person’s life, not just physical health, but also emotional, mental, spiritual, and social well-being.”

17th April 202517th April 2025

Two Oceans 2025: Questions for the Board

Below are the comprehensive set of questions that I sent to the Two Oceans Board. The Chair gave the organisation a self-scored mark of 95% (noting that there were “5% of things we could have done better”). I think that this set of questions provides a better examination of the Board’s performance in 2025. Any independent invigilators out there willing to give them a passing grade?

Good morning Two Oceans Board members,

I think you would struggle to find an experienced Two Oceans runner who disagreed with the sentiment that 2025 was the worst organised event in the race’s history. I have been involved in 25 Two Oceans (20 as a runner and 5 as a volunteer) and it was definitely by far the worst I have experienced.

Below is a list of questions based on issues I personally experienced and those raised by fellow runners.

For ease of use, I have categorised them for you.

15th April 202516th April 2025

The Two Oceans Board can’t stop lying

The Two Oceans Board can just not stop lying. They’ve been caught out again…

Nine days after the last half marathon runner crossed the finish line, an email has finally gone out to impacted athletes. It is estimated that about 2500 runners did not get a medal after finishing. However, the email said that the shortage was due to “a significantly higher number of runners than anticipated finished in the bronze medal category due to the hot weather on Sunday 6 April, leading to a shortage of bronze medals and a surplus of silver medals.”

This is a bald-faced lie.

14th April 202515th April 2025

How Cavanagh ‘Karened’ her way to the top of Two Oceans

Sometimes you see a person in a senior position and wonder how they got there. This article takes a look into Toni Cavanagh’s rise to Chairperson of the Two Oceans Marathon and the implications for the event.

Cavanagh’s Two Oceans career began in 2015 with a 3:01:46 finish in the half marathon and she followed this up with a further three half marathons in 2016, 2017 and 2018. She recorded her best time, 2:45:31, in 2017. Although she entered the half marathon from 2022 to 2024, Cavanagh did not make it to the start line. Also of interest is that from 2018 onwards she was not a licensed athlete and entered with a temporary license.

After losing an impressive 17kg, Cavanagh featured in the July 2017 edition of Runner’s World article (photo Runner’s World).

11th April 202512th April 2025

The best way to skip Two Oceans

After all the doom and gloom from the worst organised Two Oceans of all time, I thought I’d end the week on a positive note. I had read about Marissa Groenewald, aka #TheRopeRunner, but seeing her in action was incredibly impressive – it looked like she was floating along.

We had a quick chat whilst descending Chappies. I asked her how much harder is skipping than just running normally – she reckons it’s about three times more difficult.

10th April 202510th April 2025

Where did all the medals go? (Board greed threatens future of Two Oceans)

Reports were that no one who finished in the last 30 minutes of the Two Oceans half marathon received a medal – that means that they were at least 2410 medals short. Two Oceans’ published entry cap on the 2025 half was 17000. Their permit with the City of Cape Town allowed them to have 17,000 runners. However, there were 17,677 official finishers plus an additional 400 runners who started the race but did not finish before the 3h30 final cutoff.