Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 96, July 2017 | Page 14

Ma Feature
Run,
FatBoy, !
Run!
didn’t have enough time to form an official running
club, but at the end of the day it was a whole bunch of
fat guys having fun. That said, I started at 110kg and
now weigh 100kg, so I didn’t lose as much weight as
I’d wanted to… probably because for every 42 kays I
ran, I drank at least 42 kays worth of beer!”
Tough Love Support
I
t all started during a somewhat drunken bachelor’s
party late in 2016. Mark Joubert was one of the
groomsmen at a mate’s wedding, and during the
bachelor’s, talk somehow turned to the Comrades
Marathon. (As happens at all good bachelor’s parties!)
Boys will be boys, and the banter became a bit
competitive as they dared each other to run the
Ultimate Human Race, given that many of them were
admittedly a bit overweight at the time, but when it
came to Mark, the whole group were in unanimous
consensus that he would never run it. In fact, they
were so sure that they decided to bet him that he
wouldn’t do it.
“A few of the guys had run the Comrades before, and
I commented that anyone can do it if they put their
minds to it, so they immediately dared me to run it –
and next thing it’s six guys betting me that I’ll never
do it, since I weighed 110 kilograms. They even gave
me 10-to-1 odds, which meant that if I finished the
race, I would get R100,000 from the six of them, so I
took the bet!”
14
Built for Comfort…
That saw Mark start training in January, running just
one kilometre a day at first – 500m of running and
500m of walking – which he then gradually increased
to 2km, then 3km. He admits that running had never
been his thing, but he still managed to enjoy the
training… some of the time. “My sporting background
is in rugby, cricket and squash. I was never a good
100-metre athlete because of my weight, and I never
did long distance running either. In my high school
rugby days, I played flank up to standard eight, and
then became a prop!” says Mark.
“So this running thing was never going to be easy
for m