Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 153 October 2022 | Page 26

MANN the running mann by STUART MANN

May was a bleak month for marathons . After running the Seshego 50km on the opening day of the month , circumstances conspired against me . The 8 th of May is Mother ’ s Day , and I am absolutely forbidden from running marathons on this weekend , after accidentally missing Mother ’ s Day for the Gaborone Marathon in Botswana in 2018 .

Furthermore , I ’ d run all the far-flung marathons that were taking place the following weekend , so I thought I ’ d save the travel budget for runs I ’ d not done before . The resurrected False Bay Ultra on 22 May is still on my “ to do ” list , but my mother was visiting us in Joburg that weekend , and she would not have been impressed if her eldest son disappeared to Cape Town for a race .

THE RUNNING

MANN the running mann by STUART MANN

The Empangeni Sugar Rush

As regular readers of this column know , I love running marathons and ultra-marathons , and thus I regularly travel all over South Africa to get my 42.2km fix . Here ’ s my report on my trip to Empangeni on the KZN North Coast for the Tronox Marathon , where I found a lot of sweet rolling hills amongst the sugarcane .

( Marathon # 251 / Unique Marathon # 148 / 29 May 2022 )

There were about 200 entrants for the marathon
That left just the last weekend to salvage some May marathon pride , and I had my eye on two options – the inaugural Midvaal May Marathon and the Tronox Marathon in Empangeni . The decision was made for me when the “ Sold Out ” sign went up for Midvaal , so I booked my flights to Durban .
Small Town Perks
From King Shaka Airport , Empangeni is about 150 kilometres up the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal . Perhaps the biggest drawcard with running a marathon up that way in late May is escaping the bitter highveld winter for 24 hours . I travel pretty light for marathons , but I could have left my tracksuit top at home , because Empangeni does not know winter !
I arrived late afternoon , which made it too tight for me to make race registration , but one of the perks with small town marathons is that they ’ ll make a plan for the travelling runner , and Nitsa from the organising team promised to keep my race pack aside for special collection on race morning .
There was a happy buzz at the start in Addison Park . The race started promptly at 6am and within one kilometre we were out of the city and into the countryside . It wasn ’ t long before the sky started morphing from black to purple , but in humid conditions , the sweating had started long before the lazy sun emerged .
Within a kilometre , we were out of the city and into 26 the countryside ISSUE 153 | www . modernathlete . co . za
Images : Martin Mulder , Stuart Mann