ROAD RUNNING
A Year of
Surprises
So far 2018 has been an incredible year for Salome Cooper, from winning the Om Die Dam 50km in March, to her best ever run at Comrades, and then leading the SA women’ s team to a silver medal at the World 100km Championships in Croatia, while also bringing home an individual top ten position. – BY MANFRED SEIDLER
In spite of being tired from a long flight back to SA, coming just a day after running the World 100km Championships in Sveti Martin, you could not keep the smile off the face of Salome Cooper when she arrived back in SA on Monday 10 September. The day before she had finished seventh in the women’ s field and led team mates Deanne Horn, Fikile Mbethuma and Lisa Collet to a team silver, to go with Bongmusa Mthembu taking third overall in the men’ s race, while also leading the men’ s team to a silver medal.“ I really did not expect such a good 2018, but it has been incredible,” enthused Salome after touching down at OR Tambo International Airport, but that hardly does her great year justice.
It was clear Salome’ s running was going well when she unexpectedly won the Om Die Dam Ultra Marathon at Hartbeespoort in March, beating a solid field in the process.“ That came as a complete surprise for me. There were some strong women racing, but I felt I had more in the tank if I needed it.” She covered the 50km in 3:39:48, finishing some 11 minutes ahead of second-placed Cobie Smith. Her next big race, another 50km at the Loskop Ultra in April, saw her place fourth overall.“ Loskop was really just a hard training run for me, so finishing fourth behind Charne( Bosman), Ann( Ashworth) and Jennifer( Koech) was really a good place to be.”
These were already impressive performances by the single mother of a 14-year-old son from Boksburg, given that she works full-time as a sales rep. That means her day starts with a run in the early morning, then a full day on the road before doing her main training in the evening, sometimes only finishing around 8:30pm, but more success was to follow at the Comrades Marathon in June. Salome came home in
6:53:18, finishing 11 th, a mere minute behind Yolande Maclean, and thus just missing the last gold medal, but she was still happy with her performance.“ Sure, the gold would have been nice, but it was my best time ever, and over 90km, not 89km, so I really am very happy with that run.”
Unexpected Call-up
After that, Salome was ready to put her feet up for a bit, but then came the request to be part of the South African team for the World Champs.“ That came out of the blue. It is a huge privilege to run for your country and I was at the World 100km Championships in 2011, where the team won bronze and Lindsay van Aswegen ran an individual bronze. But that was seven years ago. The world of ultra-running has changed and whatever experience I had picked up then wasn’ t really going to be of much help to me. And there was not much time to get ready. But how could I say no? It is such an honour.”
Neither Salome nor any of the other women who went to Croatia were expecting to be racing at a World Championship event a mere two months after the Comrades Marathon, so all their preparation was geared towards the 90km Down Run on 10 June.“ All indications were that I was in good shape and that I would have a good Comrades, but at no stage did the World 100km Championships ever enter into the equation. Being selected was a big surprise for me, and then I found the all-important preparation was tough. All the other ladies I usually train with were in rest phase, so I had to do those dreadful long runs on my own. Imagine running the equivalent of a Two Oceans Marathon on your own at under 5min / km. That was incredibly hard.”
When the team left SA on Tuesday 4 September, Salome found herself sitting at the top table during
The South African quartet worked together for the first 60km
Images: Lindsey Parry & courtesy CMA, IRunFar. com, Salome Cooper
18 ISSUE 111 OCTOBER 2018 / www. modernathlete. co. za