She obtained two SA women’s records after beings crowned the 2020 Ladies’ 6-day World Champion and the South African women’s runner who ran the most 100-mile events in a calendar year.
In December, she claimed another SA record and also became the 2020 Ladies’ 6-day champion. Participating in her first-ever 6-Day Running Festival from 17 to 23 December, Cornel ran a distance of 640.88 km at the Wychwood Running Festival in Johannesburg. With an average of just under 107 km per day, Cornel claimed the 2020 Ladies’ 6-Day World Championship and broke the SA Ladies’ 6-Day record of 631 km that had stood since 2006.
As lockdown regulations eased and the Wychwood Circuit opened at the end of August, the working mother of two was eager to get back to running her favourite ultra-marathon distance of 100 miles within the set time of 26 hours. Eric Wright, one of SA’s legendary circuit and multi-day runners, started arranging events every second weekend for Cornel to participate in the event. Knowing her talent, Eric began to coach and advise her on how to run in multi-day events.
The first target was the SA Ladies’ 48-hour record and after Cornel smashed that by 11 km in mid- October, Eric started with the preparations for the 6-Day Running Festival to set Cornel up to break the SA Ladies’ record of 631 km. Meanwhile, around the world, the 2020 World Ladies distance was stretched from 607 km to 620 km at a 6-day event in the USA and again when a woman in Israel ran 626 km at the beginning of November.
Cornel’s 13-week training programme consisted of six 100-mile events, a 48-hour and 24-hour event. The seven 100-mile events that she completed (the 7th being part of the 48-hour event) during this time have been recorded as the most done by an SA woman in a full calendar year. The previous best was five. Cornel is also placed second on the list of the SA women who have completed the most 100-mile events.
