Once-in-a-lifetime record for local Parkrunner, Johan
The 77-year-old Johan van Graan became the first resident to do a 100-miler and make history to run three marathons at various venues within 24 hours.
POLOKWANE – Polokwane runner Johan van Graan recently completed his 341th Parkrun event, including 76 events all over the country, in Secunda.
The 77-year-old also became the first resident to do a 100-miler and make history to run three marathons at various venues within 24 hours.
He joined the exclusive group of runners to run 1 000 kilometres in different road races in a single year.
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Van Graan has also volunteered 95 times in 12 different positions and completed Parkruns starting with different letters of the alphabet and thus became known as an alphabetees in parkrun.
“There are only 23 available in South Africa as Q, Y and Q are only available in overseas countries.
“I started the alphabet with Aeronmytoki and completed it with Zandvlei in Cape Town,” he told Polokwane Observer.
This is a feat that will not easily be equaled in Polokwane.
The renowned former lawyer also managed to run a Parkrun on five different days of the week. He reached what is called a double ton running 200 in Polokwane.
“I ran a theoretical gold medal by doing more than 50 Parkruns in a year and completed a palindrome, where the seconds are a mirror image of your minutes, namely 35:53. I attended a Parkrun tasting with every letter of the word ‘Parkrun’ and completed this stopwatch bingo by having a finishing time containing every second of a minute from 00 to 59 seconds.”
Johan is well on his way to completing the Compares Challenge, by doing a Parkrun with compare directions in its name, including North Beach in Durban, East Coast Breweries in Parkrun and Westville South is not available locally in our country.
