CAROLINE AT THE DOUBLE
Local heroine wins Two Oceans again
EVEN in training, super-mom Caroline Wostmann is too strong for her rivals.
She returned to the Two Oceans Marathon as defending champion yesterday, insisting she was merely preparing for the Comrades.
But when she produced her trademark attack with 8km of the 56km race remaining, she surged to the front to keep her crown.
Last year, this mother of two, who had started running seven years earlier to shed baby weight, enjoyed a fairy-tale triumph against all expectations. Then she won Comrades. But the chartered accountant, who gave up her job as a university lecturer to become a professional runner, played down the significance of her victory yesterday.
Wostmann insisted her rivals had aided her with the slow pace — her 3hr 44min 44sec winning time was the slowest since 2000, when Sarah Mahlangu won in 3:48.58.
The men’s ultra was the slowest in 22 years, with 39-year-old Zimbabwean Mike Fokoroni, who had never won a major race before in his career, crossing the line first in 3:13.33.
Modibe Mamabolo, the 2012 Comrades Marathon champion, was the top-placed South African in sixth.
He had taken the lead on Chapman’s Peak, but fell back after that, perhaps paying the price after finishing second in the 50km Om Die Dam Marathon earlier this month.
Wostmann, who won the Om Die Dam women’s race — also as a training run — seems to get stronger the longer she goes.
She looked fresh at the finish line yesterday, sipping on an energy drink as she cheered home runner-up Tanith Maxwell, whom she had passed with less than 3km to go.
“I thought the pace would be a bit faster,” said Wostmann, also the reigning Comrades champion.
“I don’t think this will mess up my Comrades,” she added, confiding she was aiming to become only the third woman in history to dip under six hours, after Frith van der Merwe in 1989 and American Ann Trason in 1997.
Victory on May 29 would make her only the second person to win the Two Oceans and Comrades double in consecutive years, after Derek Preiss in 1974 and 1975.
To appreciate her powers of endurance, consider that a bubbly Wostmann was conducting media interviews while fourth-placed Charne Bosman — her friend and part-time training partner — was being stretchered off after fainting in the doping control tent.
“I pushed hard only on the final 8km,” said Wostmann.“I asked myself, ‘if I was running a time trial now, how do my legs feel? They don’t feel too bad’.”
She had been gunning hard for nearly 6km when she finally passed Maxwell. “She looked so strong I thought she was going to surge at me,” said Wostmann.
By that stage Maxwell was sniffing victory. “I thought just maybe I’m going to pull this off.”
But her ambition faded when Wostmann passed her with a soft, “hi, Tanith”.
“It was pretty much clear in my mind I had to settle for second.”
Asked when her next training run would be, Wostmann replied this morning, and with a dismissive wave of her hand added: “Ag, it’s just a 10km.”
While the drama of the women’s race unfolded over Chapman’s Peak and Constantia Nek — Wostmann was nearly three minutes behind the leader at the 45km mark — SABC TV failed to capture the action, causing frustrated viewers to vent on social media.
Wostmann and Maxwell admitted yesterday that they were comfortable giving up on their one-time goal of competing at the Rio Olympics later this year.
Games hopeful Irvette van Zyl won her maiden Two Oceans half-marathon crown, and Namakoe Nkhasi of Lesotho won the men’s 21km.