Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 114, January 2019 | Page 38

TRAIL RUNNING
Cleo
in Control
Winning the women’s title at Cape Town’s iconic Three Peaks
Challenge in 2018 put Cleo Albertus firmly on the trail running
map, but few people knew of her battle with an eating disorder
and then a broken leg that came before the success.
– BY PJ MOSES
By the time she got back to SA, she’d gained seven
kilograms, and found her energy levels were way down.
“I couldn’t run 5km without stopping, my clothes were
extra tight and I felt really sluggish, so I decided to do
something about it. Sport has always been my love and I
played a lot in school, and I have always had an absolute
passion for running, but I only started taking running
seriously then in early 2016, because I wanted to change,”
she says.
That saw her revamp her eating habits, increase her
running and supplement it with training at the gym – and
the rewards for her hard work soon arrived. Early in 2017
she placed third woman at the tough 50km Three Peaks
Challenge, which takes runners up all three peaks in the
Table Mountain range in one epic day. “After finishing on
the podium there, I knew I had it in me to win the race,
and that just fanned the flames of desire inside of me,”
says Cleo.
Brakes Applied
Unfortunately, fate had other ideas, when a bone
fracture in her leg brought Cleo’s running ambitions to a
screeching halt just one week after she had posted her
best Two Oceans Half Marathon finish to date, and three
weeks before she was due to run the three-day AfricanX
stage race. “I was running a 25km Dirtopia trail race when
it happened, and initially I didn’t want to believe it, as it
made no sense to me… How can one’s fibula just break
like that?”
Unable to take it all in at first, Cleo obtained four medical
opinions before finally going for X-rays, which confirmed
the injury and brought the devastating news that she was
38
going to be spending at least two months in a moon-boot
and on crutches. “I had two choices: Either I can have
a bad attitude and feel sorry for myself, or see this as a
blessing and reset myself. I chose the latter. I kept the
faith that I would run again, and looked at it as a chance
to come back stronger, more efficient and a lot wiser.”
So Cleo put her head down and focused on what she
could do, instead of what she couldn’t, working especially
on her mental strength. “Anybody coming back from
injury or a long lay-off needs to be patient and embrace
the process, so that’s what I did.” And once she received
the go-ahead to start running again, she made sure to
balance it with a lot of cross-training, determined to
become a more rounded athlete and stronger than before.
This approach helped her to not only get back to running
again in 2018, but also achieve her dream of winning the
Three Peaks race!
Loving the Mountains
That win was a springboard for Cleo’s running, as she
followed it up just two weeks later with a win at the
38km SkyRun, added another Two Oceans PB and other
podiums along the way, and in December she finished
the year with another high by placing in the top 10 of the
UTCT 65km. She was also signed up by sporting brand
K-Way as a brand ambassador.
Unsurprisingly, she says she believes that mental strength
has played a large role in her success. “A strong mind
is a powerful tool, particularly when running ultras –
when times get tough, as they do during the longer
distances, you have to depend on your inner strength
for the resilience to push through. When I am hurting
or feeling unmotivated, or just feel like I want to quit, I
keep reminding myself that it’s all good. We often give
off negative energy when things are not going right, but I
believe that we need to embrace the good with the bad
equally in order to succeed.”
And it’s not just the broken leg that she has overcome
as she has climbed the running rankings this past year.
She also says that she feels happy with her relationship
with food these days. “For the first time, my eating has
stabilised and my weight is constant. I feel the strongest I
have ever been, and healthy overall, and it feels great that
food doesn’t have so much power over me.”
ISSUE 114 JANUARY 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
Courtesy
C
leo Albertus (26) has always loved running.
Originally from Johannesburg and schooled in
Pietermaritzburg, she was even known to her
schoolmates as the runner girl. Unfortunately, she also
struggled with anorexia, which saw her weight go up and
down through the years. Having moved to Cape Town in
2011, she began to take running more seriously in 2013
after doing a parkrun with her dad, just for fun. However,
after completing her studies she did a stint working at a
hotel in the USA in late 2015, where the crazy work hours
badly affected her eating patterns. “Chocolates, chips and
cookies were my staples,” she admits.