Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 123, October 2019 | Page 43

TRAIL RUNNING
abundance of trails on his doorstep, so it was only
natural he would find himself exploring the area and
start to love running the trails. Thus he soon began
spending hour running around the Dam area, and it is
rumoured he has run every trail in the Magaliesberg at
least three times over.
As he explains, he thrives on challenges, and he was
looking for something different to what cycling had
to offer. “I was immediately attracted to the trails,
because road running is too busy and just wasn’t
for me. What I liked about cycling was the team
element, but now I was looking for something a bit
more solitary, and trail running appealed to me. There
is something about being out there on your own,
challenging yourself, with virtually no back-up.”
In typical Jock fashion, once he had made up
his mind to do something, he went and did his
homework. “Once I decided to go for trail running, I
thought to myself, who is the best trail runner in SA at
present. Well, that was easy, it was Ryan Sandes, so
I found out who coached him, which turned out to be
Ian Waddel. I approached Ian and he said yes. That
was eight years ago, and we have been together ever
since. One of the first conversations we had was that
I wanted to run the Leadville 100 Miler in the USA. Ian
took me on the long journey to get there.”
Jock has now been running trails for nine years, and
says he still feels like he is learning, but one thing
he has learnt is that the short, fast stuff is not for
him – just as was the case in his cycling days. “You
were the greatest cyclist in South Africa if you won
the Cape Town Cycle Tour, or the 947 Cycle Tour, but
the real cycling happened in Europe, where the first
100km were just warm-ups for the next 100km. Often
when South Africans hit Europe, they wondered why
they could not compete. For me in trail running, it is
the same, and that’s why I prefer the ultra distances.”
Also, while Jock does not enjoy road running that
much, he did run the Comrades Marathon in 2016. He
now jokingly refers to himself as a “real runner,” but
mostly he stays away from the roads.
Overcoming Demons
When asked about his upbringing, Jock talks candidly
about how difficult his youth was. His father left
when he was two years old, his grandparents were
alcoholics, and his brother became a drug addict.
Jock did well in school sports, though, using a
combination of athleticism and natural talent to
excel at various disciplines, but being a working
single parent, his mother had little time to watch him
compete. That meant he had to rely on his own self-
belief and an inner drive to do well. “Nobody inspired
me. And nobody told me to train, or study, or even to
get up in the mornings. Because no one was there,”
he says.
This inner drive, and a constant need to prove himself,
saw Jock become Head Boy at the private school
he attended. He also admits that he is a compulsive
perfectionist, which contributed to his striving for
sporting glory. “I am incredibly driven. I am the guy who
wants his shirts ironed just so. The creases have to be
perfect, and the sleeves in my cupboard lined up.”
Having already donned national colours in cycling on
a number of occasions, even captaining the SA team,
he now became one of only two athletes ever to have
achieved national team selection in both cycling and
running. “That was a huge honour for me. I always
felt immense pride when I was asked to represent
my country in cycling, so to be asked to do so in trail
running too was very special, especially as I had only
been on the trails for around four years.”
The World Champs event in Annecy at the end of
May covered a brutal 85km route with 5200m of
ascent, with Jock finishing 59th after 10:16:36 of hard
running. He then went one better at the UTCT at the
beginning of October, coming home in second place,
and just 23 days later was once again in SA colours
as part of a national team sent to gain experience of
overseas racing at the 78km Grand Trail des Templiers
event in France. Here Jock finished 32nd in this huge,
competitive race, and would perhaps have done still
That same drive also took him all the way to racing
some of the best cyclists in the world. While the roads
of Europe allowed him to unleash the demons of his
difficult past, it is the tranquility of the trails that now
gives him peace. Within reason, of course, because
Jock is still the same fierce competitor he always was.
“I am now 45, and if I was younger I would be looking
for wins. Make no mistake, I do want to be on the
podiums of the trail races I run, but for me it is more
about improving on my previous results and times.”
Green and Gold Again
Having already run a number of trail races, the then
40-year-old Jock really announced his arrival on the
elite trail scene in South Africa in October 2014. The
breakthrough came when he finished third overall in
the Ultra-Trail Cape Town (UTCT) 100km, and a month
later he again finished on the podium in the 100km
Sky Run. This saw him earn his SA colours in trail
running as he was selected for the 2015 IAU World
Ultra Trail Championships in Annecy, France.
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