Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 67, February 2015 | Page 17

Clocking the kays
at a six-day race in
Hungary

and African records while competing in the EMU
6-day race in Hungary in May 2013. He completed
333.02km in just over 46 hours to beat the
previous African best of 332km set by Namibian
Johannes Gawaxamab in 2001, before leaving the
track for scheduled rest in preparation for the next
four days of running.
Then on 7 December he went after Wally’s record
again, this time in the Soochow International
24-Hour circuit race in Chinese Taipei, and coming
home third overall, he finished on 258.064km to
claim the SA record as well as beat the previous
African record of 257.881km. (In the same race,
he had also claimed the SA 200km track record in
17:34:20, taken as a split during the 24-hour race.)
Even though he didn’t win that race, Johan rates it
as one of his best performances, because he had

achieved what he had set out to do, break Wally’s
record! “Before trying it, it looked easy on paper. I
needed to break that record, so when I achieved
that, it was like a huge monkey off my back!” My
wife went the extra proverbial mile during the last
four hours. The eye contact was important. She
also chased me out of the loo after I realised I had
the record in the bag at 22 hours. My mind was
playing tricks on me, ordering my body to go to the
loo after every 400m. She ordered me to get back
out there.”
Back home, Johan also continued to tick off the
100 Milers, and he currently holds the course
records for the Coaldust Dreams and Capital Classic
races to add to his Washie record, and he also
celebrated circuit race records at the Dawn2Dusk
12-hour, Hout Is Goud Day Breaker 12-hour
and Jannas 18-hour events. And somewhere in
between this he still managed to run consecutive
Comrades silvers from 2009 to 2014. “People keep
thinking that doing Comrades must be easy for me,
but it’s never easy keeping up your form on the
day,” he explains. “That said, 2015 will probably be
the first time I’ll take it easy and use Comrades just
for training for Washie, where I’ll be looking to dip
under 13 hours.”

there are no surprises, like a big hill after a corner,
and you can measure yourself by taking lap times
to ensure that your pacing is correct and that your
goal is maint