Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 162 October 2023 | Page 23

ROAD RUNNING

Thabang ’ s PBs

Discipline Performance Place Date

Thabang with his Gqeberhabased coach , Mike Mbambani , upon his return from Riga

15km 45:11 Gqeberha 2 Oct 2021 Half Marathon 59:52 Riga , Latvia 1 Oct 2023

me immensely that I didn ’ t get the money , even though I applied for the funding ,” he says .

Somehow , he was able to continue training , but he admits it was really difficult to motivate himself to train for something that may never happen again . “ I was desperate . What must I do ? I have no formal education and rely on running to feed my family . I became depressed .” Fortunately , a conversation with legendary coach Mike Mbambani at the end of 2020 changed all that . “ I was chatting to Coach Mike and told him I didn ’ t know what to do . Running was slowly starting to open up , but I was struggling . I couldn ’ t perform , and I wanted to give up , so Coach suggested I move to Gqeberha and train with him .” It was a huge decision for the then 26-year-old to make – “ I was going to leave everything behind . Everything !” he says – but he decided to take the plunge , and the rest , as they say , is history .

A New Chapter Starts

For most of his life , Thabang was based in Potchefstroom , after growing up outside Rustenburg in a household with seven siblings ( an older brother and six sisters ). Struggle was the norm for the family , but at the age of 10 , Thabang discovered his love for running at school . At 16 , he realised he had serious potential and decided to become a professional athlete upon leaving school , and that saw him begin training with coach Springs Phakati , then with Pio Mpolokeng , where he became a member of the Nedbank Running Club .

In spite of being used to struggle and adversity , the move to Gqeberha was something Thabang had

never experienced before . “ I had to leave everything behind . My wife . My two children . It was really hard . It still is .” But the move in early 2021 paid dividends almost immediately . They say a change is as good as a holiday , but for Thabang , this change was definitely no holiday ! It was a lot of hard work , and he needed to adapt to a new coaching system on top of the new environment , but the change was obviously good for him . “ It was all very new to me , but I could immediately feel and see the improvement ,” says Thabang .

Whether this improvement was due to the change in environment , the training , or just a change of scenery , or all three , is not clear . But what is clear is that since arriving in Gqeberha in early 2021 , Thabang is like a man reborn . It is visible in everything about him : His confidence , his overall happiness ( even though he still struggles with the long periods of time away from his family ), and most of all in his performances . When he runs , it looks effortless , as if he is gliding through the air , and his results have borne that out .

The Floodgates Open

A new 15km PB in October 2021 was the first indication that something was brewing , and Thabang ’ s confidence grew thanks to a number of local race wins in the Gqeberha area in early 2022 , as his times started to come down consistently . He clocked 28:43 on the point-to-point ( non-record eligible ) course of the Cape Town leg of the RUN YOUR CITY Series in May , and then came a big breakthrough in July – by far the biggest indication that the move to Gqeberha was paying off – when Thabang took a massive 30 seconds off his official 10km PB , clocking 28:26 in the Durban RUN YOUR CITY race . That was followed in October 2022 by another PB 28:22 in the Hollywoodbets Durban 10K .

With one of his training mates from Gqeberha , fellow SA international Melikhaya Frans

A solid training block from November 2022 to March 2023 saw Thabang grow still stronger , and on 2 April , at the inaugural Absa RUN YOUR CITY GQEBHERHA 10K , he made another huge breakthrough . Although Kenyan superstar Daniel Ebenyo took the win in 27:22 , the second-fastest time ever run on SA soil , the headlines were captured by the two South Africans who filled the rest of the podium positions . Precious Mashele clocked 27:36 to improve his PB by a whopping 35 seconds , and took two seconds off Stephen Mokoka ’ s SA Record , while Thabang came home third in 27:53 , taking 29 seconds off his PB and moving him to fourth on the all-time list of SA runners over 10km . Their times are the two fastest ever by South Africans on home soil , and it was the first time that two South Africans had broken 28 minutes in a local race .

Thabang alongside Precious Mashele in the Absa RUN YOUR CITY GQEBERHA 10K

The elation of that first sub-28 in Gqeberha , and history made

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