My stories starts a few years back. I have been participating in sport my whole life, soccer, cycling and now running, from 5km and now I run Marathons and Ultra Marathons.
I have many injuries caused by sport, snapped Achilles Tendon on my left leg, broken ankle in two places on my right leg, left knee ligament operation and I replaced my fifth and sixth vertebra on my neck. As I am very sporty and cannot allow myself to give up or back off due to the injuries I decided to take on the challenge of riding my first 94.7 cycle challenge during my recovery time and successfully completed it. I have completed a few more since then about 7 of them to date and I must say that my best time so far was my first 94.7. Boredom set in as this was no longer challenging enough for me so I decided to try road running about 2 years ago. My challenge here was overcoming the pain from my injuries and I needed mental strength to get through my 5km and 10km races. I then gave myself a challenge to run my first 21km run being Two Oceans and successfully completed it in spite of all the pain I suffered during the race. I then challenged myself to run a marathon, well one of the toughest in South Africa, Soweto Marathon and I completed it before the cut off time, in tears as I didn’t believe it was possible. Since then I have run and completed over 15 marathons and train with my wife as she runs Comrades, my next big challenge.
My message to the people out there is that in spite of the challenges and injuries we face, we can overcome them with the right training and commitment and a don’t give up attitude. You need to believe in yourself and also keep trying even though we may fail sometimes. There is nothing more satisfying and life changing when you cross the finish line of a planned Marathon or race that you worked towards competing and completing. Always remember that your mind is stronger than your body and if you believe in you mind and heart, your battle is 80% won.
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