Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 107, June 2018 | Page 14

ROAD RUNNING
Meet the
Running
Mann
In the May edition we featured one of Stuart Mann’s humorous blogs about his quest to complete 100 unique marathons,
so this month we decided to show you a bit more of his unique take on things as we gear up to make him a regular
contributor in the mag. – BLOG EXTRACTS BY STUART MANN, COMPILED BY SEAN FALCONER
His popular Running Mann blog has for the past
months been focused on his immediate goal to
complete 100 unique marathons before Comrades
2018, which he achieved in April. “I’ve found some
great marathons all around South Africa, and the
world, on this quest,” says Stuart. As a proudly South
African runner, he has already started his next quest,
to run every marathon and ultra in SA.
Running a marathon every week is thirsty work, and
Stuart’s lifetime goal is to attract a beer sponsor, but
says he would settle for someone to sponsor his
travel costs so that he can run more marathons and
share their story. “I believe that every marathon has a
personality and I try to bring this out in my reports. I’m
especially passionate about the small races and love
to promote them to other runners, as well as South
Africa to foreign runners as the best marathon running
destination in the world.
“My other goal is to attract enough blog readers and
social media followers to have my costs covered to
run marathons and write about the experience – that’s
my ‘selfish goal’ – and to use this platform to raise
money for educational charities in SA, my altruistic
goal. It must be working, because after collecting
my medal at Two Oceans this year and while
congratulating my fellow finishers, I was asked, ‘Are
you the crazy bastard who runs marathons all over the
country?’ That’s probably the sincerest compliment
one can receive from a fellow ultra enthusiast!”
Given his quirky sense of humour and entertaining
way of writing about his running experiences, we
decided to put together a few extracts of his recent
blogs. We think you’ll see why we decided to make
him a regular in the mag. Take it away, Running Mann!
SEE THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF AN ULTRA CAN YOU JUDGE A MARATHON BY THE SHIRT?
Bay Ultra, Port Elizabeth, Eastern Province
(Marathon #175 / Unique marathon #92 / 3 February 2018) Assegaai Marathon, Piet Retief, Mpumalanga
(Marathon #177 / Unique marathon #94 / 17 February 2018)
People sometimes make jokes
about PE being slightly backward.
However, I discovered that they are
actually ahead of the rest of the world.
(Well, those who use the Gregorian
calendar, anyway). Most provinces
provide a January schedule that
allows their runners to slowly progress
into marathons and hold back on
the ultras until well into March, e.g.
Joburg’s January races are Kudus
15km, Dischem 21km, Striders 32km
and then Johnson Crane 42km. In
PE they skip the short stuff and head
straight into ultra season – or so I
thought. When I verified this with a
group of runners from Charlo Athletics
Club, asking them, “Is this PE’s first
marathon of the year?” they replied, “No, we already had one at the beginning of
December!” So there you have it, PE is on a time zone that is at least one month
ahead of the rest of the country. Local legend has
it that if you drink
from the Assegaai
river, it will forever
be in your blood.
Local common
sense has it that if
you drink from the
Assegaai river, you
will have a severe
case of explosive
diarrhoea. The motto of the club is “Laat waai, Assegaai,” which translates as
“Let loose, Assegaai.” – one glass of unfiltered river water and you’ll definitely be
letting loose all over the place!
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ISSUE 107 JUNE 2018 / www.modernathlete.co.za
“I was asked, ‘Are you the crazy bastard who
runs marathons all over the country?’ That’s
probably the sincerest compliment one can receive
from a fellow ultra enthusiast!”
S
tuart is a Joburg-based professional Lean-Agile
Coach (in the software industry) and describes
himself as a compulsive marathon runner,
experienced joker and mischief-maker, a father of two
gorgeous girls and husband to one gorgeous wife,
and a trainee feminist who regularly rushes back from
marathons for his daughters’ dance recitals.