ROAD RUNNING
Go , Shortie !
Thanks to a changing approach to road running around the world , there is a growth taking place at the moment in shorter races , notably street miles and official 5km races . We decided to look at a few of these races , some now well established , some brand new , and how they are bringing an exciting new challenge , and a change in perceptions , to the South African race calendar . – BY SEAN FALCONER
The revamped World Road Running Championships that took place in Riga , Latvia in August replaced the long-standing World Half Marathon Championships , with the addition of official 5km and street mile events to run alongside the half marathon race . This added a whole new dimension to the Champs , giving both athletes and spectators a lot more to enjoy on the day . The decision to add the shorter races at global level is part of World Athletics ’ initiative to inject new excitement into the sport and attract more coverage , more spectators and more sponsors . And it ’ s working !
We ’ ve also seen a growth in 5km and street mile races in South Africa , not only in the form of Athletics South Africa holding official SA Champs over 5km on road , but also in the form of new races being added to the calendar , and this is actually quite a paradigm shift in approach in this country .
Change of Attitude
For many years , the rule of thumb in South African road running has been that official races are 10km or longer , and anything under 10km is a ( mere ) fun run , except for an extremely small number of official races shorter than 10km . For example , the Dis-Chem Half Marathon in Johannesburg has had an official 5km road race alongside the main event 21.1km race for many years , but at the vast majority of events , the accompanying 5km run is called a fun run . This usually means that the 5km ( or 4.9km in some provinces ) is social , not an actual race , is not timed , that runners do not need to wear a licence number when participating , and there is usually no prize money on offer for the top finishers .
Now , there are probably a number of reasons for this , but many licenced road runners never enter these 5km fun runs , possibly because they do not think it is worth the effort and petrol to get up early for and drive to a 5km fun run . Perhaps it is precisely because Athletics
South Africa and the various athletic provinces traditionally consider anything shorter than 10km a fun run . Perhaps it is that fun runs are seen as entry-level ‘ practice runs ’ for beginners who are not yet ready to tackle an official race . Perhaps it is because regular club runners think that an official race sounds so much better than a fun run . Whatever the reason , they seldom race anything shorter than 10km on road .
This view is slowly changing , however , as a new breed of shorter road races grows in both number of events and number of participants . Besides that official 5km at the Dis-Chem , we now have the Boxer Super Run 5km in Durban , run for the first time in October this year , and in terms of street miles , the Thembisa Mile in Johannesburg and the Dagreek Street Mile in Stellenbosch have been on the calendar for around a decade each now . With so many of these events taking place in recent weeks , we decided to give them some coverage here in the mag , to celebrate this growing interest in racing the shorter ones .
To Honour the Greats
Dagbreek Street Mile , Stellenbosch , 15 October 2023
Open Men ’ s Mile leaders , with Christopher Swart
48 ( white vest ISSUE ) and 163 Deon | www . modernathlete . co . za Lee Hendricks ( far right ) setting the pace
First run in 2011 , the Dagbreek Street Mile finishes in front of the Dagbreek men ’ s residence in Victoria Street , in the middle of the University of Stellenbosch campus . The race was created to commemorate the first sub-four-minute ‘ Dream Mile ’ by a South African , run by Maties student De Villiers Lamprecht in November 1964 , on the famous Coetzenburg track in Stellenbosch . Lamprecht was a resident in Dagbreek at the time . This year the event honoured another all-time great of South African middle-distance running , Danie Malan , who set a World Record for 1000m in Germany in 1973 . He was on hand to watch all the milers of today running to earn a medal with his picture on it .
The event has grown in size over the years and now features 13 divisions across eight races , from