Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 108, July 2018 | Page 22

ROAD RUNNING
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Michael Meyer, Managing Director at Stillwater Sports, is the
man behind the popular FNB-sponsored Run Your City Series
that has taken SA by storm over the last three years, and seen
world class times run on SA soil. We asked him a few questions
about the innovative series that features the FNB Cape Town
12 ONERUN, FNB Joburg 10K CITYRUN and FNB Durban 10K
CITYSURFRUN. – INTERVIEW BY SEAN FALCONER
MA: Where did the idea for the Run Your City
Series come from?
MM: I was lucky enough to go to all the major
marathons in the USA, but my eyes were really opened
when I went to events like Bay to Breakers, Peach Tree
and Cherry Blossom. These are all events between
10km and 15km, but they have massive fields that take
over the cities and create a wonderful vibe, especially
the Bay to Breakers in San Francisco. They have
over 110,000 people running, and everybody knows
somebody who is taking part. That is something I really
thought South Africans would like.
And then at the back of my mind all along was the
age-old debate about too many marathons in SA,
and too much focus on the ultras. I really believe
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MA: You started with Cape Town in 2015, then
added Joburg in 2016 and Durban in 2017. There’s
been a huge uptake in entries, so are there any
plans to add other cities?
MM: We’re calling it the Run Your City Series to
combine the experience across the three cities, and
for people to understand that it’s not just a Durban
thing, or a Joburg or Cape Town thing, but a South
African thing. Of course we’d love to expand it to
maybe two or three more cities in SA, and we’d also
love to expand it to three or four cities around Africa,
but that’s dependent on the sponsors, because no
event can sustain itself long-term in SA now without
the right commercial backing. We always thought
having 15,000 people running in each city, and having
45,000 people running across the series, is a very
strong commercial proposition for a sponsor, but it
ISSUE 108 JULY 2018 / www.modernathlete.co.za
took us three years to build up to three events, so
we’ll see how it goes from here.
MA: The reception from the running community
appears to have been very positive…
MM: We’ve tried to bring all of the components
together – mass participation, world class performances,
and a very entertaining experience. Still, that first year
was very interesting with the Cape Town 12 ONERUN.
I think that because we had the T-shirt, we were slightly
more expensive than the normal 10km races, so I think
there was an element of registered club runners saying
let’s just check this out first. We still got a great field in
the first year, and since then it’s really the club runners in
years two and three that have climbed on board, and it’s
selling out quicker every year.
Meanwhile, Joburg is the most strongly supported
event in terms of how quickly the entries sell, and
we hope that Durban is going to grow very strong in
2018. Our general impression from entrants is that
the routes were an amazing experience in terms of
sound, music, colour and movement, and the races
were a great experience for a lot of people whose
expectations were perhaps limited by what they’d
experienced before. People have a wide choice of
Mark
that South African road running and athletics needs
a much stronger platform of 10km and 15km races,
both to get more people into the sport, but also to
have our top athletes not going to the ultras too soon,
because SA road running is judged primarily by our
performances in the marathon, and that is related
to the depth we have in the 10km, 15km and half
marathon, as well as the 10,000m on the track.