ROAD RUNNING
The Absa RUN YOUR CITY Series brings the best in the world to race in SA
Raising the Bar in SA Running
It is fair to say that the Absa RUN YOUR CITY Series has transformed the landscape of 10km running in SA over the last 10 years , and that can be seen in the various SA top 20 times lists .
When the Absa RUN YOUR CITY Series was launched in 2015 , it set out to present fast routes on which South Africa ’ s top athletes could chase good times , and earn decent prize money , without needing to travel to expensive overseas events to do so . The organising team not only set out to bring world-class international athletes to SA to raise the standard of racing , but also introduced lucrative time-based incentives for local athletes , so push them to chase faster times and not just race for positions .
South African athletes have reaped the benefits of this , with significant improvements in overall racing standards , including several national records and many , many personal bests being run in the series , which has grown from one race in 2015 to five races per year since 2023 . Three of these are at sea-level in Gqeberha , Cape Town and Durban , while the other two are at altitude in Tshwane and Johannesburg .
Top 20 Dominance
Both the current men ’ s and women ’ s SA Records for 10km have now been set in RUN YOUR CITY events – Precious Mashele clocked 27:35 in the 2023 Absa RUN YOUR CITY GQEBERHA 10K , while Glenrose Xaba clocked 31:12 in the recent 2024 Absa RUN YOUR CITY DURBAN 10K . Similarly , both the SA All-comers ’ records * for men and women belong to RUN YORU CITY events – Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei ran 27:16 in Durban in 2018 , while the most recent Durban race saw Kenyan Christine Njoki clock 30:37 to go to the top of the list . (* All-comers refers to athletes of any nationality competing in a South African race .)
Both the men ’ s and women ’ s all-comers ’ lists of top 20 times are now dominated by times posted in the RUN YOUR CITY series . The men ’ s top 20 features 34 times in total , of which 31 were run in RUN YOUR CITY races – 23 in Durban , three in Cape Town and five in Gqeberha . In the all-comers women ’ s top 20 list , 16 of the 22 times were posted in RUN YOUR CITY events , with 11 run in Durban , four in Cape Town and one in Gqeberha . That means that 83 % of these times were posted in RUN YOUR CITY races , and you have to go down to the 14th time on the men ’ s list and eighth time on the women ’ s list before any other race gets a look-in .
The men ’ s SA all-time Top 20 features 15 RUN YOUR CITY performances amongst the 30 times on the list , but this also includes nine out of 15 times in the top 10 positions , and 11 of the 13 sub-28-minute times run by South Africans since mid-2022 . Of the six non-RUN YOUR CITY times in the top 10 , five were run overseas and just one in South Africa , once again showing the dominance of this series in local racing .
Only the SA women ’ s top 20 all-time performance list is not yet dominated by RUN YOUR CITY performances , but Glenrose Xaba ’ s record-breaking run in Durban this year has shot her straight to the top of that list , and several other SA women are steadily getting closer to breaking into the top 20 thanks to this series .)
Joshua Cheptegei , fastest 10km man ever on SA soil
Precious Mashele set his 10km SA Record in Gqeberha
Christine Njoki , now the fastest woman ever on the African continent
Glenrose Xaba is congratulated at the Durban finish by series founder Michael Meyer
Checking the Stats
If you take a look at the various top 20 tables alongside , where all the performances from RUN YOUR CITY events are coloured red ,
you 30 can ISSUE immediately 170 | www see . modernathlete the transformative . co . za effect of this series on South African road running !
The now famous three-man sprint at the finish of the 2023 Absa RUN YOUR CITY DURBAN 10K
Images : Anthony Grote , Tobias Ginsberg , Gavin Ryan