Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 114, January 2019 | Page 40

Mubeen September
has started the 100km
Ultra-Trail Cape Town (UTCT)
three times, and three times he
has had to settle for a DNF next
to his name, but he hasn’t given up
on his goal yet. – BY SEAN FALCONER
T
o put it mildly, Mubeen September has a love-hate relationship with the UTCT. In 2016 he
made it all the way to the 90km mark, but arrived 15 minutes outside the cut-off for that
point. Then in 2017 he fell ill with a stomach bug a few days before the event and was forced
to withdraw early in the race, and in 2018 the 40-year-old electrical engineer got as far as 50km
before once again calling it day, having struggled with cramps for some 30km. Still, this irrepressible
spirit is considering giving it another go in 2019... but that should come as no surprise, given his
background.
At age 12 he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or cancer of the lymphatic system, which
attacks the white blood cells of the immune system, and he spent the next one and a half years
living at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. Fortunately, after intensive
chemotherapy, his cancer went into remission and he was able to return to normal life and his first
love, cricket, and even going on to be the leading goalscorer for his soccer team in his first season
back playing.
In his adult years he kept fit with cricket and began supplementing that with running, but mostly just
by enjoying the shorter distance trail races and not putting in any serious training. That is, until he
heard about the UTCT in June 2016. “I had struggled to finish the Safari Half Marathon that May, due
to cramping like crazy, and I had never run anything even remotely that long before, but I decided
to start training for the 100km, because it just sounded like such a wonderful event,” says Mubeen.
“But I didn’t just want to do 100km events for myself, I was motivated to raise funds for the hospital
that treated me so well when I was ill, which at that time needed money for an extension.”
RUNNING FOR A CAUSE
That saw Mubeen and 15 running friends set up PledgeAKay to raise funds for the Red Cross
Hospital via their UTCT run, and for the next four months their fundraising efforts matched their
training efforts, resulting in a total of R124,000 being raised. However, Mubeen’s race did not go as
well. “I missed the 90km cut-off point at UCT by just 15 minutes, where they stop people from going
on to the mountain after 7pm, because I lost almost 20 minutes in the last kay before that due to
severe quad pain on the downs,” he recalls.
“I was fine on the uphills and flats, and had been averaging eight minutes per kay, but it took me 25
minutes to do the very long, winding downhill kay just before UCT. I knew I was going to miss the
cut-off, but friends supporting me on the route told me to keep going, that maybe the organisers
would let me go on, but I was late and they cut me off. I know cut-offs are for the safety of the
runners, but that 17-hour overall limit is a bit tough for many people. It’s sad to see people getting
cut-off, and ideally, I would prefer if there were no cut-offs... but knowing me, if they did that, I would
probably finish comfortably under 17 hours anyway! But you have to fight through the challenges,
that is what makes it so exciting.”
The following year, Mubeen trained even harder for UTCT and says he felt great in the build-up
to race day. “I saw 2016 as a ‘mechanical failure,’ and in spite of going over both ankles badly in
training and races, I had done a lot more speed work on the road, and also gotten a coach to help
me with hill repeats and tempo running, so I felt confident I was going to do well. Then four days
before the race I got a stomach bug and lost all the nutrition I had built up. It was only the night
before that I could finally hold some food in, but after 10km of running I realised I had nothing left in
me, and eventually realised I had no choice but to bail.”
As if that was not bad enough, another medical challenge awaited Mubeen just a week later, when
he was in the Seychelles for a work project. An electrical fire broke out in his room while he was
asleep, and he woke up groggy, temporarily blind and coughing up black soot after 10 hours of
breathing in the fumes. The doctors who treated him reckon that the only reason he survived was
thanks to his physical health and fitness!
ISSUE 114 JANUARY 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
40