ROAD RUNNING
Road to Recovery
The pain had become so bad that Elroy Gelant was reduced to a mere shuffle instead of the hard running he was used to. It was December 2017, and the Olympian, South African 5000m record holder and multiple SA Champion in road, track and cross country was not only being robbed of the ability to train, but his hernia condition was also making him doubt his own ability. For an elite athlete who easily churns out three minutes per kay splits, sometimes even faster, not even being able to maintain an easy running pace of 4:15 to 4:20 / km was extremely worrying.
“ I could literally only do run-walking, so I was doing the parkruns with my girlfriend Tamzin, but it was scary. The SA season was coming up in a few months and I couldn’ t string together one decent run. I was really scared that I would not be able to ever get back to the level I am used to, and expect,” says Elroy.
“ Then I first saw a knot in the groin area in January, and that’ s when my doctor said we should operate. But we agreed to wait until April, as the South Africa season had just started. I struggled on my long runs, but was able to do my shorter sessions without too much difficulty. However, those long runs are important, so I knew that my season would be a challenge, especially towards the end, as my base was not where it needed to be.” Elroy had also just bought a house, and does not have medical aid, so he needed to find almost R60,000 for the operation, meaning he needed to replenish his reserves first.
That lack of base was clearly evident when Elroy tried to defend his national 10,000m title at the SA Champs in mid-March.“ I had no strength in my legs. I just felt flat, and the pain was now becoming quite bad. I did not even finish my 10,000m race! It was very demotivating and it made the doubts in my mind about my running career all the more prominent, so I scheduled the operation straight after SA’ s.”
Surprising Result
For the next nine weeks, Elroy was not able to train properly, if at all, and even then it took time to build up his strength and endurance again.“ I was only able to start training with some effort with four weeks left to go before the SA Half Marathon Championships at the end of July, so I was not expecting anything there. A top 20 would have been great in around 70 minutes.” However, a classy athlete remains a classy athlete, and Elroy surprised himself by posting a time of 61:48 to finish fourth overall and second South African in the NMB Half Marathon in Port Elizabeth, which doubled up as the SA Championships.
Stephen Mokoka won the race overall and the SA title, with the second and third places going to foreigners, hence Elroy’ s
Images: Jetline Action Photo & Tobias Ginsberg
After a year ravaged by injury and recovery from an operation, Elroy Gelant has been putting in the hard yards to build back up to fitness, and some of his recent results have helped restore his confidence, but with another operation still to come, he is very much focused on relaunching his running career in 2019.
– BY MANFRED SEIDLER
12 ISSUE 111 OCTOBER 2018 / www. modernathlete. co. za
Elroy finishing his first( and to date only) marathon in Cape Town last year in 2:12:49