Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 77, December 2015 | Page 4

Ma Editor’s letter PUBLISHERS Mike Bray & Craig Van der Westhuizen DIVISIONAL HEAD Richard Laskey [email protected] Meeting ultra-busy TV celebs Leigh-Anne Williams and Ewan Strydom once again made the Editor realise there is no excuse for making excuses not to run. S o the other day it had just gone 5pm and I was contemplating getting changed into running kit to go meet up with the 6pm Monday evening running group at the entrance to the Jonkershoek Nature Reserve near my home in Stellenbosch. However, I was feeling a bit tired after a long day in front of my computer, and I was this close to just skipping the run. The excuses were already forming in my head – leading the charge was that it was just a wee bit too windy for my liking – but luckily for me some running friends then started chatting about going for a run on one of our WhatsApp groups, and that spurred me into movement. I duly went to meet up with the group and ended up having an absolutely stupendous run! Didn’t even notice the wind… In the next few days I did various interviews for this edition, and some of them really made me stop and think about how easy it is to fall into the trap of making excuses not to run, or convincing yourself that you don’t have time to train. And that made me ask myself, what is my excuse? It started when I met up with Brian Key, all of 77 years old, a great-grandmaster that I have shared a few trails with over the years, although he is normally considerably faster than me. In spite of his age, Brian still hits the trails on Table Mountain as often as he can, and given that he lives in a very steeply hilled suburb of the Mother City, he often does hill sessions on t