New Year’s boast that led to Comrades victory
SEVEN years ago, Caroline Wöstmann could hardly jog around the block. Last Sunday she won the Comrades Marathon, becoming the first South African woman to take the crown in 17 years.
This victory came after winning the Two Oceans ultramarathon in April.
She has a family and is a fulltime management accounting and finance lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand. She commutes between home in Pretoria and Johannesburg, and somewhere in the day she has to put in the hours of exercise required of a long-distance runner.
After giving birth to her first daughter, Gabriella, now seven, Wöstmann, 32, started running because it seemed the most time-effective way to lose weight. But the beginning was not easy.
“It was terrible . . . When I got home I was red in the face and exhausted. I couldn’t concentrate at work because I was so tired. Every day I hated it, but I did it . . .”
She had no idea what lay ahead when she told friends at a 2009 New Year’s party that she was going to run the Comrades.
“Haiko [Wöstmann’ s husband] and I were not sports people. Honestly, we were the least likely to have any sort of athletic achievement.”
Looking back, she says she would not recommend such a rash decision. “I was only running 5km a day. I didn’t grasp how long the Comrades Marathon was, I just thought it’s the race you do when you’re a real runner. Since I’d said it
’NOT SPORTY’: Caroline Wöstmann in public, in my mind I had to stick to it.”
She completed the race in 2009, missed 2010 because she was pregnant with her second daughter, Isabell, and went back in 2011 and 2012. In 2013 she could not run because of a stress fracture.
Winning a gold medal last year — she finished sixth — made her think about the next step: winning. She credits her improvement to coach Lindsey Parry and a punishing schedule.
“I get up at 4am and go to work, run from there, have a shower and am in my office by 7.30am to prepare for lectures. From work I go straight to gym, then come home and spend time with my children.”
Wöstmann says the spirit of the race is very dear to her.
“Nelson Mandela talked about how sport unites people, and the Comrades is so special like that. You see people who’ve never met before and will never see each other again, but they’re holding hands at the finish line and embracing.”