Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 62, September 2014 | Page 13

Team SA at Pikes Peak

However, he wasn’t always so successful in sport.
“As a boy growing up in the township, I adored
soccer and I trained hard, but I always made
the bench when it was game time,” he explains.
“Then someone told me to give running a try
when I was 16, and I have never stopped. My
first race was a half marathon, which I finished
in 1:20, and my first marathon was in that same
year, where I crossed the line in 2:53. But I got
into it far too quickly, so I slowed it down and
built up with cross-country, track, 10km events
and so on.”

Despite his natural talent and hard training, Lucky
says he couldn’t improve his road times any
further, so he decided to hit the trails in 2009.
And then things just clicked. “I won races quickly
and I gave it my all in training. Already the elites
saw me as a threat,” he says. “When I started,
trail was still new. Now there are always events
and the competition is getting better all the time.”
Next he upped the ante and moved to stage
races, where more success soon followed, and last
year he picked up a win at the four-day Namaqua

Having recently started Gallopers Athletic Club to
continue with his training on the road, Lucky still
makes an appearance on the road racing scene
from time to time. Earlier this year he ran a very
fast silver