Gerda Steyn is finalising her training in Dullstroom for the Comrades Marathon, aiming for her fifth title. Picture: Gerda Steyn/Facebook
Image: Gerda Steyn/Facebook
With less than two weeks to go before the Comrades Marathon, Gerda Steyn is back in Dullstroom as she winds down her training before the big day on June 14.
With this year’s up run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, Steyn will have already completed her hard training for the event in which she is the heavy favourite to win the women’s title.
Steyn recently returned from France last week and completed her first run back in Tshwane on Thursday.
Putting her Alpine training behind her, Steyn shared her experience on her return to Dullstroom.
“Calm before the storm…” wrote Steyn on Facebook.
“The body is in Dullstroom, but the mind is somewhere along Old Main Road!
“Happy June everyone… although they should just go ahead and call it Comradesuary because let’s be honest, that’s the whole point of having June in there!
“Excited is an understatement!!”
Steyn will be bidding for her fifth Comrades Marathon title when she lines up at Durban City Hall in 12 days’ time.
Not long after Steyn won this year’s Two Oceans Marathon, it was off to France to begin the short training block between the two races.
It was a long-held belief, most famously by Bruce Fordyce, that no top runner could go all out at the Two Oceans Marathon and then still perform at the same level at the Comrades Marathon.
This theory is based on logic as Two Oceans is early April, and Comrades early June, and there simply is not a lot of time for the body to recover.
Steyn has completed the double on four occasions and is bidding to do the double for a fifth time this year.