Van Zyl sets sights on another People’s Race win

With less than two months before the Soweto Marathon takes place, defending champion Irvette van Zyl is putting all her focus on the “People’s Race” and won’t be taking part in any other races.

Van Zyl, who will be chasing her fifth title in the Soweto Marathon on November 3, said she doesn’t want to jeopardise the race by running other marathons.

“I’m putting everything into the Soweto Marathon and when I made my planning for the year, it was the Olympics and I didn’t want to do races to jeopardise it and everything worked out," Van Zyl told Sowetan.

"Soweto is the only race I'm focusing on and I’m not doing the Cape Town Marathon and I will be done for the year.”

With the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon next month, the long-distance runner said she would only do one or two 10ks before Soweto with the Hollywoodbets 10km race on September 29 and the Spar Women’s Challenge.

“The plan is to better last year’s time [ 2:34:15]and I’m just excited to race Soweto and the second half of the race is always in my heart,” she said.

“But I’m still deciding which other 10ks I will be doing. I don’t want to race too much, I just want to give my body a maximum chance of doing the marathon that I want. So for me to choose my marathon maybe I will do one or two 10km.”

She also explained why she always wins the marathon and says she loves running in the streets of Soweto.

“Just enjoying the race, that’s what keeps me winning and I really want to try and beat my record before someone does it. I like the route and it’s towards the end of the year and the conditions are not cool.

“I just like the element of the race and how hard it is and usually it works to my advantage and I'm looking forward to the race.”

Meanwhile, Tayla Kavanagh of Hollywoodbets AC won the Outdistance Gun Run in Johannesburg yesterday in a time of 1:13:03 with Vicky van der Merwe finishing second, while Cian Oldknow rounded off the podium.

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