How running saved Nolene’s life
Star distance runner took up the sport and was able to beat asthma.
When Nolene Conrad first turned to athletics, it was not to gain fitness or lose weight, neither did she have any plans to become an elite athlete. Conrad started running for a far more primal reason. She was trying to save her life.
Born in Bishop Lavis township in Cape Town, she had it hard from the start and after being diagnosed with chronic asthma in her youth, it seemed Conrad’s life would be an uphill battle.
Having landed up in hospital following an asthma attack, Conrad took a doctor’s advice and started running at the age of 16 in an attempt to tackle the condition. Though she initially struggled in a sport which requires strong lungs to succeed, Conrad persevered, and she won her battle with asthma after she left school.
She moved to Gauteng to study at the University of Johannesburg, before taking up a post as a teacher at Vorentoe High School.
By the time Conrad moved back to the Western Cape a couple of years ago, the 33-year-old athlete had established her place among the country’s top distance runners.
“At first the running made the asthma worse, but I think the combination of running and living in Joburg with the thin air and then coming back to Cape Town, helped me outgrow the asthma,” she said this week.
Conrad cut her teeth in the tough cross country discipline, before showing her class at domestic level on the track.
A former 3 000m steeplechase specialist, she clocked 9:54.42 in Oordegem in May 2012, narrowly missing the SA record of 9:54.19 held by Tebogo Masehla.
It is on the road, however, where her career has taken flight in subsequent years, giving her a platform to use her strength, determination and stamina to their best effects.
Conrad set a 10km personal best of 33:20 in Taroudant in March 2015 and she clocked a 21km career-best of 1:11:44 to finish 25th at the World Half-Marathon Championships in Valencia earlier this year, becoming the only SA woman to hold IAAF Gold Label status.
She struggled to find her feet in the marathon event, clocking 2:54:59 on debut in Hannover in April 2014, after taking a beating over the gruelling 42km distance.
She improved the following season, running a respectable time of 2:47:56 at the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon, though she was again drained at the finish.
But her persistence over the classic distance paid off with a breakthrough performance in November last year when she clocked 2:35:21 in Valencia.
And last week she went even quicker, finishing eighth at the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon – Africa’s only Gold Label race – and winning the national title in a career best of 2:34:39.
“Honestly I didn’t expect a personal best,” she said.
“I had run 2:35 on a flat course in Valencia and I didn’t really know what kind of shape I was in because my tester races before Cape Town were run at 80 to 90% – they were never full out – so I was very happy when I saw the time.”
Now based in Stellenbosch, Conrad is the athletes’ manager at the En- durocad distance running academy and an ambassador for the Cape Town Marathon.
She has also become the protege of former half-marathon world recordholder Elana Meyer, who played key roles in launching both the academy and the popular annual race in the Mother City.
And as much as she enjoys her job working with young athletes, Conrad still has ambitions in her own career.
She will compete again at the Valencia Half-Marathon at the end of October and then she’ll prepare for the Osaka Women’s Marathon in January where she hopes to take another few minutes off her best time.
Conrad also hopes to compete in the marathon at next year’s IAAF World Championships in Doha and her longterm focus is geared towards the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, though she admits she is likely to call quits on her competitive career before she enters the veterans’ ranks.
“I think I still have a few years of racing in me. My goal is to be at the 2020 Olympics and after that I’ll probably continue running for a couple more years,” she said.
“I don’t expect to run until I’m 40, but for now I’ve got my main goal in 2020 and I’ll take it from there.”