Runners Platform SA

A Moment of Glory, a Lifetime of Regret Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts.  Running is a sport built on discipline, sacrifice and perseverance. Every medal represents countless early mornings, painful training sessions and kilometres covered when giving up seemed easier. Yet, for some athletes, the pressure to win becomes greater than the desire to compete fairly. The temptation to use performance-enhancing drugs can promise faster times, improved endurance and financial rewards. But doping in running comes at a price that can last far longer than any victory. A runner may serve a suspension and return to competition, but rebuilding lost trust and repairing a damaged reputation can take years. Why Do Runners Turn to Doping? Professional athletics is highly competitive. For elite runners, a few seconds can determine whether they win a race, secure sponsorship or qualify for an international championship. Some athletes face enormous financial pressure, particularly thos...

Arthur Jantjies Wins! Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. There is something about a close marathon finish that makes runners lean towards the screen. After more than two hours on the road, the difference between winning and finishing third can come down to a handful of seconds. That was the story at the front of the men’s race at the Nelson Mandela Marathon in Cape Town on Sunday, 18 October 2026 . South Africa’s Arthur Jantjies took the title in 2:15:14 , with Tsépo Ramashamole ten seconds behind. Moses Tarakinyu completed the podium another ten seconds later. Ethiopia’s Bize Beyira Negasa won the women’s race in 2:36:42 . For runners following the results, there are two natural questions: how did Jantjies win, and what was he wearing? Nelson Mandela Marathon 2026: Leading Results Men’s marathon Position Runner Finish time 1 Arthur Jantjies 2:15:14 2 Tsépo Ramashamole 2:15:24 3 Moses Tarakinyu 2:15:34 4 Simon Sibeko 2:15:59 5 Siboniso Sikhakhane 2:16:11 Women’s marathon ...

How to Start Sensibly and Finish Stronger Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. The first few kilometres of a marathon can make almost any target feel reasonable. Your legs are fresh. Someone beside you is chatting comfortably. A pace that felt demanding in training suddenly seems easy. Then your watch beeps. You are running quicker than planned. It is tempting to carry on and see what happens. After all, you feel good. That decision deserves a little more thought. There are still many kilometres ahead, and the opening stretch gives you limited information about how you will feel at 30 km. A useful marathon pacing plan starts before race morning. It gives you a realistic target, accounts for the route and leaves room to respond when conditions change. For runners using a marathon as a Comrades qualifier, that discipline also helps keep the immediate goal clear: run the race you have prepared for. Choose a target your training supports A finish time begins as an idea. Traini...

What Africa’s First Major Means for Everyday Runners   Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. There is a familiar conversation that happens after a weekend club run. Someone mentions London. Another runner talks about saving for Berlin. A third has entered an overseas marathon ballot and is waiting for the email. Then the practical questions arrive. Flights. Visas. Accommodation. Leave from work. How much will the whole trip cost in rand? Cape Town now belongs in that conversation. The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon will stage its first race as an Abbott World Marathon Major on 23 May 2027 . Confirmed in June 2026 after its final successful assessment, Cape Town becomes the eighth member of the series and the first on African soil. For South African runners looking ahead to next year, that creates an appealing possibility: running a Major within our own country. It also raises some sensible questions. Can you still enter? What does finishing mean for your Major star? And how s...

Meet the writer behind the blog, a dedicated social runner, storyteller, and proud advocate for living life at your own rhythm. My running journey began back in 2014, not with dreams of podium finishes, but with a simple, personal goal: to reclaim my health. I was overweight, lazy and seeking a change. Running became my tool for transformation and little did I know, the start of a lifelong passion. In 2015, I joined Khayelitsha Athletics Club, proudly affiliated with Western Province Athletics under Athletics South Africa (ASA). That move brought more than structured training, it gave me a supportive community that helped turn a new hobby into a powerful lifestyle. Later, in 2022, I moved to the Stutterheim Athletics Club, based in the Border region, expanding my running family and deepening my roots in the South African running scene. Over the years, I’ve moved far beyond my original goal of weight loss. I’ve run races that tested my mind as much as my body, most notably earning three...

  A Dramatic Finish and Lessons for Everyday Runners Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts.  There is a point in a marathon when the finish feels close enough to bargain with. You check your watch. You count the remaining kilometres. You tell yourself that the hard work is nearly done. Then the road asks for a little more. The Berlin Marathon on Sunday, 27 September 2026, delivered a painful reminder of how quickly a race can change. Tigst Assefa won the women’s race in 2:11:04, setting a course record, while Guye Adola took the men’s title in 2:02:50. Assefa’s closing kilometres became the central story as she struggled visibly before reaching the finish. [1] For South African runners preparing for a marathon or building towards Comrades, the news raises familiar questions. How firmly should we hold onto a target time? What happens when the day stops following the plan? And how do we talk about determination when an athlete is clearly hurting? Berlin gives us plenty...

How to Train When Your Pace Makes No Sense Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. You leave home with an easy run planned. The first kilometre feels comfortable. Then you turn a corner, meet a headwind and watch your pace slow while your breathing gets louder. If you run in Cape Town, you know the feeling. A route can look gentle on the map and become hard work once the wind picks up. The temptation is to push until your watch shows the pace you expected. Suddenly, an ordinary training run has become a workout you never planned. Before you speed up, ask yourself one question: What is this run supposed to achieve? The answer matters more than the number on your watch. Run easy days by effort An easy run should feel manageable. You should be able to speak in full sentences without fighting for breath. If a headwind makes that difficult, slow down. Your pace may look unusually slow, but your watch cannot measure how hard the wind is making you work. Trying to hold your usual pac...

Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. Entering the Comrades Marathon is one thing. Qualifying for it is another. For thousands of runners preparing for the 2027 centenary race, the qualifier will be the first serious checkpoint of the journey. You need an official result. You need to achieve the required time. More importantly, you need to do it without wrecking the training block that follows. That last part is easily forgotten. A qualifier can become a race within the race. You start thinking about seeding, personal bests and what everyone else in the club is running. Before long, the marathon that was supposed to secure your place at Comrades becomes an all-out effort requiring several weeks of recovery. There is a better way to approach it. The qualifier needs a purpose. For some runners, that purpose is simply getting under five hours. Others want a faster result that may eventually help their starting position. Experienced runners might use the marathon as part of a la...

100km from Hermanus to Stellenbosch Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. There's a new race on the WPA calendar. Cape100, a point to point road ultra, Hermanus to Stellenbosch, 100km. The organisers say they're building "the world's premier 100km ultra marathon." I'd normally roll my eyes at that, and I sort of did, but the route is genuinely good and the distance is a real gap in the local calendar. Most Cape runners top out at the marathon, or they sign up for Comrades and spend six months training for a race that happens 1,600km away. A hundred on home roads is a different proposition. Whether it becomes a great race depends on things nobody can promise yet: the seeding, the cutoffs, whether the water tables hold up at 70km when the field is strung out and everybody is walking. That's where ultras are made or ruined. The scenery doesn't save you at 70km. And the scenery is good. Winelands, then farmland, then the sea somewhere ahead ...

 The Small Logistics That Can Ruin a Big Race Ask a runner about race prep and you'll hear about training blocks, interval sessions, tapering, carb loading. Fair enough, that stuff matters. But I've watched plenty of well trained athletes get undone by things that have nothing to do with fitness. A missed alarm. No safety pins in the bag. A toilet queue that isn't moving. A lace that snaps ten minutes before the gun. A fuel bottle sitting on the kitchen counter, exactly where you left it. None of that cares how many kilometres you logged in training. Race day has a way of blowing small mistakes out of proportion. Something you'd shrug off on a normal Tuesday run turns into a real problem when there are ten thousand nervous people trying to use the same three toilets on a tight schedule. So here's a checklist. Not to make you faster. Just to stop the avoidable stuff from becoming the story you tell about your race. The Night Before Starts the Race Most race da...

Why Walking Isn't Cheating Welcome, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. There's an odd idea in running that just won't die, no matter how much the sport evolves: if you stop running and start walking, you've failed. You see it at every race. A runner slows to a walk and glances around, half hoping nobody noticed. Someone passes them, and they speed back up. A few minutes later, they're walking again. Why? Walking is one of the most useful tools a runner has. Done right, it manages fatigue, controls effort, saves energy, and keeps you moving longer. For beginners, it can make running possible in the first place. For experienced runners tackling long distances, it becomes a deliberate part of race strategy. The walk-run method does exactly what it sounds like: you alternate planned periods of running with planned periods of walking. Planned is the key word. There's a real difference between walking because you've completely run out of gas and walking...