Teacher sets the pace as EL’S road runner extraordinaire
Sixtysomething Mpalala achieves times which are the envy of athletes many years younger
Mzoli Mpalala is a schoolteacher who loves to run, to the extent that he not only runs far, but fast too.
What is fast to a now 62-yearold man who only took up running at the age of 50?
It turns out that to most runners of all ages his personal best 84-minute half-marathon, which he has run twice, and his 37minute 10km, when he says “I nearly fainted at the finish,” are both way ahead of most aspirations.
At the Tony Viljoen Masters Marathon sponsored by NFB, Mpalala posted a personal best of 2:44, a time few men in the Eastern Cape have run, even as young athletes.
Born in Kwelerha, on the outskirts of East London, in 1962 he played only “some rugby” but never took up athletics.
But he has proved to be a man for all seasons with 10 Two Oceans just completed. He is now the owner of permanent number 10065.
In June, he aims to complete his 10th Comrades Marathon, in which case he will become Comrades number 13907 in perpetuity.
At the Two Oceans last weekend, Mpalala finished second in the 60-69 category in 4:40:40.
The time was 22:23 slower than when he won the age category in 2022, but he had run the Runified 50km in Gqeberha on the last weekend of February and the Real Gijimas 50 in early March.
At the Runified he was second and in the local race, he was first.
Mpalala’s best showing at Comrades was also in 2022 when he was fifth in his age-group with a Bill Rowan medal time of 8:32:38.
In 2023, he was 15:10 slower but had run the South African
Half-marathon Championships a week earlier, finishing first in 84 minutes.
This year, despite chasing that 10th Comrades, the seasoned veteran hopes to run the halfmarathon a week before Comrades yet again.
The Daily Dispatch interview was filled with much humour and leg-pulling, given the somewhat unconventional methods that this amazing veteran, of just 12 years’ running, adopts in his preparations for seriously big races.
In winding down the discussions, his performances at SA 10km championships emerge — the gold medal at the 2022 event in Pretoria, a “lowly 10th” after shoe trouble in Secunda in 2023, and a bronze medal in Johannesburg earlier this year amid all that ultra marathon running.
Mpalala suggests he will be looking for advice in respect of his hectic June racing period, from whom he hinted but did not say.