OFF THE COUCH
From couch potato to athlete of the year – in two years. That’s the journey Nelson Mandela University pharmacology lecturer Dr Ntokie Dambuza, 40, has walked, shuffled and run, changing her from being an overweight lymphedema sufferer to a star Crusaders Athletic Club member
I was a couch potato. In 2011, I had to do a medical for life insurance and the doctor wrote that I was overweight. That bothered me and I thought maybe I need to join a gym, but I’m that kind of person who joins and just never goes – even with points to earn. In 2014, I came to Port Elizabeth. Unlike Cape Town, public transport was not so convenient and expensive and I didn’t have a car. I cancelled my gym membership and that’s when the couch potato came in as I also had a lot of work. I put on a lot of weight – about 10kg. Somewhere inside there was the desire but not the motivation. The idea of waking up on a Saturday to run did not appeal to me. Then in 2016 a couple of my friends signed up for the Algoa Big Walk and there was a big buzz. We took photos and there were lots of posts on Facebook. So then I invited my friend to a parkrun and we said, ‘this is good, we must do it more often’. Then one of my friends started running. I had thought we were going to walk and chat, but I could not keep up. I said to myself I will run from pole to pole and walk in between. I had shortness of breath and I was feeling dizzy, but I did it. Then I saw my times were going down – I was in after 45 minutes where I used to take an hour! I checked my parkrun e-mails and saw ‘wow, I’ve done a Personal Best!’ I was delighted. It fascinated me that you run a little bit – just run from one pole and then walk – and you can improve your time. Ntokie’s next step was to enter a “real race” (parkrun is deemed a run, not a race) later that year and buy running shoes on a Black Friday sale. I bought new shoes and that’s when the magic happened. I ran, very slowly, and I noticed I was not tired if I shuffled all the way to the finish line and, if I do this shuffling thing, I noticed that my time dropped. But I was scared of joining a running club while I was still a tortoise. When I saw that I could shuffle at a pace of between seven and eight minutes for a kilometre, I checked which club was in the vicinity and I found Crusaders in Park Drive. A friend said she was doing the Aspen 10km on December 3 and I went and I joined Crusaders, the same club which was organising the Aspen. But I ran alone on December 3, the race day, as my friend had an injury. I went, registered, got my race numbers, and Crusaders invited me to join and run with them. It was a huge achievement and that picture of me and my medal was all over Facebook! Now I had this desire to run every chance that I got. So I signed up for the Bluewater Bay 15km race in January 2017 and I ran, walked, ran, walked and I did it. Then I did Two Oceans in 2018. It was fun, but it was a long 21km with lots of hills and there are just too many people around you. I found that I do have the ability to run faster, but my lungs won’t let me so I have decided to train my lungs now. I am still improving my fitness. In 2019, I want to build my lung capacity. Winning the Crusaders’ Athlete of the Year was a surprise because there are club members who have done Ironman and marathons, but from where I look at it, it’s not just about what you have done, it’s what it took for you to challenge yourself and achieve.