Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 74, September 2015 | Page 12

Ma In The Lead

The BIG Guy
You’ll find him trundling along at the back of just about every trail run in the
Cape, often with camera in hand and a big smile on his face, because Jacques
Conradie absolutely loves his trail running, but not so very long ago he was
considerably heavier and nowhere near fit enough to run a few metres, let
alone trail ultras, and his remarkable journey to health and fitness is a story
worth reading. – BY SEAN FALCONER

T

o say that Jacques Conradie (41)
sticks out from the crowd is an
understatement – he’s well over six
feet tall and has a larger than life
personality to go with his tallness. He also
has a large figure, as he will be the first to
admit. “I’ve never been a small person - even
in school I was always the tallest, biggest guy
around. I can’t remember a time that I’ve
exactly been in good shape – the baby fat
around the stomach has always seemed to
hang around – and for that reason I tended
to avoid photographs, always looking out of
place next to the smaller, thinner people.”

He will also admit that he pretty much let
himself go for many years, until November
2013, when he suffered yet another attack of
gout in both legs, the worst he’d ever had.
While bedridden, he says he did nothing but
surf the Internet, and that was the start of a
new journey to health and fitness. “Somehow
I came across the Sleekgeek group on
Facebook, and after spending days reading
about all the transformations, I came across
Ed Young’s story, which just resonated with
me. I could identify with where he started and
what he achieved, so there and then I decided
that from the first of December 2013, I would
start the Sleekgeek Reboot programme and

Taking on the
VWS 10km on
Table Mountain

get the shape and active life I’d never had. It
seemed a daunting task, but my mind finally
seemed to have found the point where it had
had enough of my body and bad h X