Gerda Steyn entrenched herself as South Africa’s queen of distance running last weekend, but Comrades runner-up Dr Adele Broodryk is focusing her crosshairs on top spot for 2024.
Broodryk stated boldly before last Sunday’s Down run that she would keep returning until she won the iconic ultra-marathon.
And while she finished second on Sunday — becoming only the fifth woman in history to dip under the six-hour mark with her 5hr 56min 26sec effort — the limelight understandably belonged to untouchable Steyn, now owner of the Up and Down marks, as well as the Two Oceans best time and the national marathon record.
So how is a gal supposed to get a look-in?
Broodryk smiled at the question. “I see that as a challenge,” said the 32-year-old sport scientist, and lecturer and researcher at North-West University.
The mother-of-two is looking to follow other late-blooming champions, such as Steyn, Caroline Wöstmann and Ann Ashworth.
As a kid growing up in Carletonville on the west edge of Gauteng, Broodryk got to the 2008 South African school championships, ending fourth in the 400m hurdles, an event that had her undergoing five knee arthroscopies.
Her switch to distance running was motivated by self-preservation and on her Comrades debut last year she finished third. This year second. “I never thought that I will run a debut run last year and end third,” she said.
“I never thought on my second run I would break six hours. So for me, I believe the sky's the limit.”
Her assault on the top of the podium will be as academic as it will have to be gutsy, measured to the decimal point. “I will look back on my race, my preparation of the past nine months, and see where I can improve...
“I truly believe there’s more in me. I’m looking forward to improve in certain areas and to come back even stronger,” said Broodryk, who has used her Comrades preparations and plans as exercises for her classes.
For one, she could do more hill-training, a challenge in her flat-as-a-pancake home city of Potchefstroom. And she plans to undergo surgery early next month to fix a painful, irritated nerve in her left foot called Morton’s neuroma.
“I ran [with pain] from 12km. I just pushed through it and said ‘no, I didn’t come here, I haven’t trained this hard, to back out’.
“If I can get that sorted I really believe that training is going to excel. This whole year I didn’t want to go for the operation and then sacrifice training or not be able to be here in my best shape. We had to juggle my training session so much around that foot.”
Whether the 2024 edition on June 9 will be an Up run for the first time since 2019 or a Down race for the third year in a row, depends on roadworks.
A decision is expected to be made in about two months.
Broodryk’s expertise made her easy to work with, said coach Lindsey Parry, who steered Wöstmann and Charne Bosman to Comrades crowns. “She has a much better understanding of how she's feeling, and why she's feeling like that,” he said.
“It is a discussion rather than a ‘do this, do that’. And then similarly, when she asks me can she do this, and I can go ‘yes, you can do it’ because of this or ‘no, because of this’. Then she can understand why I'm saying yes and no.”
Parry believes there is still room for Broodryk to improve, pointing out she had started last Sunday’s race conservatively.
“I’ve got a fairly good idea of what we need to do to get Adele better than she is now. Right now she’s not at the point where we have to do anything drastic. We literally just have to build on [from] where she is.”
For one thing, a faster start would make a difference. “Ten minutes is a big gap [between Steyn and Broodryk] so I don’t want to underplay that,” said Parry.
“I feel like it’s a much smaller gap than you realise when you amortise it over the total distance, and that ... almost half of that [gap] was [opened] before halfway.
“And only two, maybe three minutes of that are from the last 40km. And maybe one, maximum one-and-a-half, of that is over the last 20km. So when you break it down like that, we can be more confident with a few changes.”
Parry is keen to have Broodryk run a fast marathon or 50km; her 42.2km best is 2:47:54.
The key is getting fast enough to make a race of it. “We can be more aggressive at the start and then that brings a race into play and, importantly, in a race that long you need to be able to apply pressure,” he said.
“Your opposition are not going to make any mistakes if you don’t apply pressure.”
This could be the most exciting space to watch.
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