Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 122, September 2019 | Page 69

# RUNCLEAN
Soon after the recent Comrades Marathon, a video clip went viral on social
media showing women’s winner and new Up Run record holder Gerda Steyn
literally leading by example when it comes to not littering during road races.
T
he standout performance of the 2019
Comrades Marathon saw Gerda Steyn win
the women’s race in a scintillating 5:58:53,
finishing a remarkable 17 th overall. Her performance
shattered the previous Up Run record by over 10
minutes, and she became the first woman to break
six hours in the Up Run, and only the fourth to go
sub-six in the race’s history. But she still made the
effort to make sure her race waste was not left on
the road!
While leading the race, Gerda was accompanied
by an SABC cameraman on a motorbike, ‘filming’
her for the live TV broadcast of the race. Running
at full speed and clearly on pace to shatter the
record, she was ‘caught’ on camera taking some
rubbish out of her crop top and throwing it in a
dustbin alongside the road – without slowing down
or losing any time.
A short extract of this was converted into a video
by paddler Hayley Nixon, the Durban-based 2016
World Surfski Series Champion and 2017 ICF
Ocean Racing Champion, and posted to Facebook.
Within days it had gone viral, and to date has been
viewed over 380,000 times!
As Hayley wrote with her original post, “Did anyone
else notice Gerda consciously throw her rubbish in
the dustbin en route to winning
@comradesmarathon and beating the record?
What a woman! This is a goose-bump moment for
me, @gerdarun you are an incredible ambassador
for sport, women, men and the environment! We
have no excuse, thank you for setting such an
amazing example for us all!”
If Gerda can win the Comrades Marathon in a
new course record and still make the effort to
#runclean, wouldn’t it be great if the rest of the
running community could try to follow her example,
by using the dustbins, carrying waste until a
dustbin is available, or carrying their own water in
a pack or bottle? It doesn’t require that much effort
to do, and shouldn’t cost you any time, either.
Just think how much cleaner our race routes would
be, and how much less plastic the sport would
be leaving behind in the environment. Gerda has
shown that it can be done, even if you’re a world
class athlete running at top speed!
If you haven’t seen it, watch the video below.
If Gerda can
#RunClean,
so can the
rest of us!
Think before you throw – #runclean!
Modern Athlete readers can join the #ICarryMyOwn movement by purchasing
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Fuelbeld Insulated Handheld retails for R599, purchase here for R399!
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well as comfort padding. The bottle has Hi-Viz reflective accents and is 100% recyclable. Each
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Carry your own water to reduce your reliance on single use plastic.