It is hard to put into words the beauty of the Wildcoast Wildrun™. Three days of some of the most spectacular coastal running you will ever experience, on one of the most unspoiled stretches of the South African coastline.This week on Run Talk SA we catch up with one of the Wildcoast Wildrun™ runners, City Press political journalist Carien du Plessis. Carien is no stranger to long distance running having completed five Comrades Marathons and we touch base to find out more about her experience on the 112km trail run.Also as mentioned on this week’s podcast, the Run Talk SA Comrades Marathon webinars are back. The first one takes place this Monday, 22 September 2015, so be sure to register for it here.Read More Read more

A month ago Irvette van Zyl won the Totalsports Women’s Race in Stellenbosch in a time of 32:50. It equalled Zola Budd’s personal best as the third fastest 10km performances by South African women on the road. Budd ran that time at the age of 17 in Bloemfontein in August 1983. That time still stands as the South African junior record.The only two women to run faster over that distance are former half-marathon world record holder Elana Meyer and Colleen de Reuck.This week on Run Talk SA we chat to Irvette about that fantastic run in the Western Cape as well as her recent victory at the Mandela Marathon in Pietermaritzburg.We also chat about the upcoming Cape Town Marathon and what she hopes to achieve as well as what it is like being married to South African track star LJ van Zyl and whether or not she has any Comrades Marathon aspirations.Also as mentioned in the podcast, be sure to register for our upcoming Comrades Marathon webinar. You can find out more and register by clicking here.As Brad promised in the show too, here is the link to the details of the Wildrun that he is running this weekend.Read More Read more

2015 Comrades Marathon entries opened this week and as it stands as I write this approximately 4000 entries have already been snapped up. On this episode of Run Talk SA we talk the Comrades Marathon with the 2014 Women’s winner Ellie Greenwood.Ellie has had an incredible running career which includes victories at the Western States 100 miler (Including a new course record) as well as the 100km World Championships.Having come close at the Comrades Marathon before, Ellie picked up her maiden win at the world’s largest ultra-marathon in 2014.Join us as Ellie chats about that victory and what makes winning the Comrades Marathon so special.READ MORE Read more

We are suckers for great running stories. Joel Runyon has a fantastic one. From being unemployed, sitting in his parents basement he has gone on to travel the world and do things most people think are impossible.Find out what brought Joel all the way from San Diego to the sleepy hollow of Pietermaritzburg to run the 2014 Comrades Marathon on this edition of Run Talk SA.Joel tells us about his journey to completing the Comrades Marathon as well as some of the cool mantras that got him through this year’s Comrades.Joel is about to embark on another amazing challenge and he tells Brad all about the 777 challenge. Joel is going to run 7 ultra-marathons on the 7 continents to raise enough money to build 7 schools through Pencils of Promise. Read more

As a runner, once you’ve been around the proverbial block a few times, it is easy to forget what it felt like to complete your first race. Remember your first 5km?Remember making the step up to 10km and how you thought there is no way you could EVER run a half marathon?Once you’ve been running a while and have run a few marathons and ultra’s you quickly forget what a struggle it was to first get going.On this episode of Run Talk SA we chat to Talk Radio 702’s morning traffic guy and gadget guru, Aki Anastasiou, who has just completed his first half marathon.Aki tells Brad what brought about this fitness transformation and why it meant so much to him to completing the Varsity Kudus 21km on Sunday.Aki also asks Brad how he can now go about getting faster and bringing his half marathon time down to below 2 hours.As far as running gadgets and technology goes, Aki gives us the low down on what some of the technology is that is making waves on the international running scene and what his favourite running gadgets are.Brad also spoke about the training that he has been working on to get you running on the Low Carb High Fat diet on the show. If you want to find out more about what he is up to click here. Read more

You know how difficult it is to wake up early in the morning to head out for your midweek Comrades Marathon training runs. Particularly as the days get shorter and shorter as Comrades Marathon race day approaches and the temperature starts to drop.How often have you said to yourself on those mornings “This sucks”?Have you ever considered that it could be worse?Imagine having to start ramping your training up in December and January with only six hours of daylight to contend with. How about February, when your training really needs to be lifted to another level, and you have to deal with temperatures ranging from -3C to -22C?If you think training for the Comrades Marathon in sunny South Africa is bad, imagine what it is like to train  for the Comrades Marathon in this!How does Patrick Joyce train for the Comrades Marathon?That is exactly what Patrick Joyce from Sweden has to contend with every time he decides he is running the Comrades Marathon.This week on Run Talk SA we caught up with Patrick to talk a little about his Comrades journey and what it takes to train for the Comrades Marathon in Sweden,Patrick tells us how watched a movie called ‘The Long Run’ and how before the end of the film he had decided that he was going to run the Comrades MarathonWe also talk about how the ultra-marathon running community in Sweden have embraced the Comrades Marathon, particularly now that the likes of Jonas Buud  and Frida Sodermark are ... Read more

Have you ever wanted to run the New York Marathon?If you have and have ever tried to get an entry you will know it may be easier to fall pregnant wind pollination. Short of moving to the Big Apple there are essentially 4 ways to get an entry into the New York Marathon.On this episode of Run Talk SA we chat to Mark Lapedus, who runs for Rockies in Johannesburg, about his first New York Marathon.Mark runs us through the 4 ways to get an entry in the New York Marathon as well as the logistics of getting to the Big Apple for race weekend.Also on the show Brad Brown talks about his experience at the recent 2014 Knysna Forrest Marathon as well as racing the Ironman Zurich in Switzerland.We also had some fantastic feedback about our Comrades Marathon cheat story. If you haven’t had to a listen to it yet, you can access it here.As mentioned in the show there is also some exciting news that will be announced next week regarding some training that we have been working on to get you adapted to and running on fat as opposed to carbohydrates.  If you want to be the first to know about the upcoming training just pop us an email.We also mentioned in the last podcast that we have unfortunately had to change our feed to iTunes. If you haven’t subscribed to the new Run Talk SA iTunes feed please do so here. We would also greatly appreciate ... Read more

In a previous episode of Run Talk SA we chatted about some very irregular Comrades Marathon splits that pointed to, in our opinion, a back of the pack Comrades Marathon cheat. There have been numerous incidents of cheating at the Comrades Marathon over the years from doping to a set of twins running half the race each and bagging a Comrades Marathon gold medal.It seems that back of the pack cheating is becoming more and more prevalent at the Comrades Marathon. We are not saying every one of them cheated, but in 2013 there were just over 30 runners that missed one or more of the timing mats along the route. In 2014 more than 90 did.Six weeks after the 2014 Comrades Marathon it has come to our attention that runner that we first spoke about, race number 25058, Kitty Chutergon is once again involved in some very irregular goings on.Will the real Kitty Chutergon please stand upBelow are a few photographs that were taken by Action Photo on Comrades Marathon race day this year. As you can see even though the numbers are the same, it is definitely not the same runner running in number 25058. READ MORE Read more

It has been a month since the 2014 Comrades Marathon and on this episode of Run Talk SA we wanted to share a pretty cool inspiring Comrades Marathon story with you. Douw Prinsloo finished his first Comrades Marathon this year and he has an incredible story to share.Douw woke up one morning in 2009 and decided that enough was enough. Tipping the scales at 133kgs Douw knew he had to make some changes. Already a member of his local gym Douw lined up the personal trainers, made his pick and started his amazing journey.Five years later Douw is now 53 kilogrammes lighter and a Comrades Marathon finisher! Brad Brown caught up with Douw this week to learn more about Douw’s awesome story. Douw shares with Brad what the biggest lesson he has learnt on this journey as well as the one thing he loves about his new life and body.As discussed on the show you can touch base with Douw on his blog here, on Twitter here or on Facebook here. READ MORE Read more

As it stands today there are 24 days to until the 2014 Momentum Cape Times Knysna Marathon. Here at Run Talk SA we are really looking forward to heading down to that neck of the woods for the first time to take part in the race. The Knysna Marathon has really established itself as one of the highlights on the South African road running calendar.We’ve spoken about the Knysna Marathon and half marathon before on Run Talk SA, both here and here, but this week we wanted to look at something slightly different.The Knysna Marathon forms part of the greater Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival. The oyster festival attracts more than 50 000 visitors to the town of Knysna annually.The festival provides a great opportunity for you and your family to take part in one or more of the various other activities, including the Knysna Marathon and Half Marathon while in Knysna. READ MORE Read more