In pursuit of personal excellence
Month four in 2024 is all but done and while there are runners who will feel they have reached new personal highlights, many others will continue to strive for their own perceived excellence.
In the past two weeks, the move away from personal achievement, not in the hearts and minds of the runners but in the hell-bent pursuit of globalists to turn everyday folk, as well as top athletes who enjoy stimulating young runners and those elderly who remain inwardly competitive, into nothing more than numbers at a run in a park, to stroke the egos of a hierarchy that accounts to no-one.
On Sunday, the opposite will be true as the Eastern Cape fraternity follows the fortunes of two young men, Malixole Kalideni and Yanga Malusi, on their first-ever venture to the city of London, where they will run the London Marathon along with many thousands of others.
They are not going there to win; they are going in pursuit of realising their dreams and believe it or not on the streets of the very city where parkrun was launched as a time trial in Bushy Park.
There they will be chasing their best possible result and time.
Meanwhile, back home, Border Athletics are looking to send as strong a team as possible to the SA Half Marathon Championships being run in conjunction with the Nelson Mandela Bay Half Marathon on June 1.
It will include many who have been prominent at the said Saturday morning runs throughout the Eastern Cape — setting records along the way.
That of course should rule out Comrades Marathon entrants in their own interests, but none of the top women appear to be running the Durbanpietermaritzburg classic this year, while the top two men will hopefully have recovered sufficiently, post-london, to take their rightful places in the team.
An interesting diversion from years past is the decision to allow runners to qualify using either a 10km on the road or 10,000m on the track.
Border have already circulated their half marathon requirements and will stick to that, with the May 1 race being used as a trial.
The NMB race is open to all, outside the championship aspect, and offers a more affordable option to runners looking to travel and enjoy a family weekend away.
I have numerous runners, from various clubs, on a training programme specific to the half marathon and any runner is welcome to contact me via Whatsapp app or email at bobnorrismarking@gmail.com.
Two more comments from people well qualified to comment on the parkrun stats debate have been received and make perfect sense.
Monde Duma, an event director in Makhanda (still called Grahamstown parkrun) says: “There is no doubt that the parkrun has transformed our lifestyles.
“It has entrenched itself as a friendly and healthy community gathering that binds family, friends and their community together to pursue a healthy lifestyle.
“It has nudged individuals to run against themselves, as well as nudging a friendly, constructive element of competition by providing vital statistics — that is the hallmark of parkrun.
“These stats helped me and losing them will certainly come with a demotivating element.”
He continues: “In my recovery from a major health scare, checking those stats and witnessing minor improvements assured me I was making progress. To see them go for no good reason is a setback.”
Werner de Lange, the longserving event director of Hobie Beach parkrun in Gqeberha, has this to say: “The removal of stats, the way authoritarians have simply done things without ever considering the inputs of parkrunners and volunteers has made me seriously consider, or reconsider, what parkrun will mean to me going forward.”