Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 128, March 2020 | Page 42

The
Hunter
Returns
successfully the next year,
improving his time by an
impressive 14 minutes
(45:46)!
The high of finishing
second in the 2010 Otter
was unfortunately followed
by a big low in the 2011 race,
when Victor finished third but
was hit with a 40-minute penalty
for not carrying all the compulsory kit.
“That was a very painful lesson to learn,
because with the penalty I fell down to number
18 overall. A very costly mistake that made me miss
out on another podium.” He bounced back, however,
and 2014 first brought him the win in the men’s solo
category at the Southern Cross three-day stage race,
followed by his biggest win to date at the inaugural
Ultra-Trail Cape Town (UTCT) 62km event. (That same
year he also ran his marathon PB of 2:53 at the Cango
Caves Marathon, and earned a silver medal in the Two
Oceans Ultra with a 3:53 finish.)
Taking a Breather
I
t seems
Victor
Gugushe
was born
to hunt. In
running,
that is, because
when he burst on to the trail running scene in 2010,
he quickly developed a reputation for starting
conservatively, then coming from behind later in the
race to hunt the frontrunners down. As a result, he
was given the nickname ‘The Hunter’ by John Collins,
one of the organisers of the annual African Otter Trail
Run, following a great run to take second overall
in the 2010 edition of the race. What made Victor’s
podium place all the more remarkable was that he
had only started running in 2007, and had only started
taking it seriously in 2009, the same year he decided
to try trail running.
The Running Bug Bites
of a programme for Supersport, and they inspired
Victor to try running. For the next two years he just
ran for fun and to maintain his fitness, but in 2009 he
decided to take it more seriously and joined the Plett
Athletics Club. He trained for the Classic 10km road
race, and to his great surprise finished second. “I
never felt that I could achieve anything in sport until I
took running more seriously,” he says.
Other early results included 11 th place in the Plett
Kurland Half Marathon in 1:23, and finishing 16th in
the Port Elizabeth City Marathon in 3:18, but his focus
soon turned to off-road. A big lover of nature, Victor
was drawn to trail running because of the beauty
and sense of adventure of the trails, and he was also
inspired by his cousin, Melikhaya Msizi, a successful
trail runner. He won the first trail race that he entered,
the 2010 Robberg Xpress 10km, coming home in one
hour and a few seconds, and then defended this title
Born and raised in the small town of Tsitsikamma
in the Eastern Cape, about 170km north of
Grahamstown, Victor was the youngest of six siblings
and a sporty youngster, but there was no sign of him
being an exceptional runner. “I played rugby at school
and soccer after I left school. I was speedy on the
wings, and even though I scored a few goals as a
striker, neither rugby nor soccer was something I felt
that I was particularly good at,” says Victor.
He was living in Plettenberg Bay in 2007 when Bruce
Fordyce and David Vlok came to town for the filming
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ISSUE 128 MARCH 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za
This saw Victor throw all his energy into his job as
a warehouse operations manager at the Cape Town
branch of MGG, suppliers of technical support and
equipment to live events, corporate productions,
and the film industry. However, Victor’s passion
for running remained burning bright, and when his
boss at MGG, Herman Wessels, challenged him to
join him in running the UTCT 65km at the end of
2020 for charity, his answer was never in doubt. “I
didn’t need time to think too much on it, I accepted
the challenge with both hands and pledged to run
for the SOS Fund. The time just felt right to make
a comeback to a race that holds so many good
memories for me.”
“Herman and I decided to do the Wildrunner Trail
Series Super League events as a way of getting ready
for the year ahead, and I’ve slowly gotten that feeling
of competition back. I even finished top of my age
group in the last race! I am just happy to be back
running, and I’m not thinking beyond 2020 at the
moment, but if all goes well this year, then I’ll definitely
want to go bigger and better next year.”
Having taken a two-year rest from trail running,
Victor Gugushe, the man known as ‘The Hunter’ in
SA trail running circles, is making his return to the
ultra trail stage, having accepted a challenge to run
for charity and help improve the lives of those in
need. – BY PJ MOSES
By the end of 2017, Victor says finding time for
training on top of work and family responsibilities
was becoming a challenge, and he made the tough
decision to step away from competitive running for
a while. “It was a painful period for me, because I
love running so much, but putting food on the table
and providing for my family had to be my priority,
and without the right amount of time for training, the
results in races would not come. It is the trade-off all
runners have to face and decide for themselves.”