Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 117, April 2019 | Page 11

ROAD RUNNING
From Geneva
with love
She lives in Switzerland today, but having
grown up in the rougher parts of Cape
Town, Judith Leclercq appreciates what
she has today, including the health and
fitness that allows her to run. And she
loves coming back home to run with
her Cape Town friends. – BY PJ MOSES
changes that this new life brought. “Running gives
me a feeling of freedom that I love, because it is
my ‘me-time.’ I use it as a space where I can be
me without fear of judgement from anybody else. It
also helps to strengthen my resolve when things get
stressful or difficult, and helps me make the right
choices,” she says.
Running Communities
made me determined to build a better life for myself,
and I knew that education was the key to escape my
circumstances,” says Judith.
“To keep myself focused on my school work and
everything positive in my life, I found running
the perfect tool. At the time I didn’t really have a
concrete reason to run, but I felt part of a team,
and it kept me off the streets. Running gave me
the sense that I was doing something positive and
good with my life. I enjoy all types of sport, and
even tried a few, like basketball, netball, tennis and
soccer, but except for running, I wasn’t really given
opportunities to be a sporty child because of all
my moving around.”
L
ife can be rough on the Cape Flats, as Judith
Leclercq knows all too well. Born and raised
in various townships, like Hanover Park,
Manenberg, Netreg and Bonteheuwel, she later
settled in the suburb of Greenhaven when she was
a teenager. “Not only did I grow up in tough areas,
but I grew up in turbulent times, when the Cape Flats
was in a constant state of violent flux because of the
anti-apartheid protests. So I was in constant survival
mode and a very anxious child, who had to struggle to
make ends meet from an early age. My environment
Judith has been running for more than 20 years now,
and has been running in competitive races for the
last 10 years. “Of all the races that I have done, the
two that stand out in my mind most have got to be
the Berlin Marathon, and the Two Oceans Marathon
in Cape Town. Berlin, because it was my first ever
international race, and Two Oceans, because I am a
Capetonian, after all. Both are completely different,
though. Berlin is flat and fast, where Two Oceans is
hilly and hard work.”
She is heading back to Cape Town from Switzerland
this year in April to take on the Two Oceans once
again, and to spend some time with her friends in the
Cape Town running community. “There are plenty of
similarities between the Swiss running community and
As a young woman, she had another big choice to
make, when she fell for a man from Europe and they
got married. They realised that in order to secure
a good future for themselves, and better work
opportunities for him, that they will have to relocate to
Europe. So she left everything she knew behind and
headed into the big unknown with her new husband.
Overnight she became a stranger on a strange
continent filled with many language and societal
barriers that she had to overcome. Here running
would again play a key part in her coping with the
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