Women in Sport: The ‘Serena’ of SA running has one huge bucket list item left

Giving coffee to young children has been considered a no-no for a long time due to caffeine being a stimulant leading to hyperactivity.

But just imagine then how busy the offspring of two Olympic runners must be?

Long-distance runner Irvette van Zyl has first-hand experience of this as she and her husband LJ, the threetime African champion in the 400m hurdles, have two young children even as Irvette continues to rack up the wins and the records in her athletic career.

Last weekend the 32-year-old won her third successive Soweto Marathon title.

Last year she ran a course record 2:33.43 just five months after giving birth to Gideon, her second son.

Which means she was pregnant, unbeknown to her, when she won arguably the country’s most gruelling marathon in 2017, becoming the first South African to win the prestigious ‘‘People’s Race’’ in nine years.

“With every pregnancy I think you understand your body better and each one is different. At first I didn’t know how I would run, but you just make it work for both of you. And then there’s the time spent parenting as well. I have two boys aged one and four plus my
hubby, who is now a stay-at-home dad. They are both very busy kids but I guess with two running parents you’re going to get two running kids, they’re not just going to walk around!” Van Zyl, who is a coffee fan, drinking at least three cups every morning, laughs.

Van Zyl’s greatest attribute, to paraphrase Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird, is that she never seems to know when she’s licked.

Winning races when pregnant or shortly after giving birth is one thing, but the Johannesburg-born athlete spent seven years running with a leg problem that caused her left foot to go numb and pain elsewhere in her leg.

It was a long process to isolate the problem, with surgery being required, but this year’s Soweto Marathon win was a clear indication that the issue now seems to be resolved.

“I’m really happy with the win because the shape I was in wasn’t great because I’d just come through a lot of struggles. It was hard to pinpoint the leg problem that was bothering me and I had so many tests and MRIs until the end of 2017 when it was eventually diagnosed as being vascular and not sciatic. But then I found out I was pregnant and had to stop treatment.

“In races I would run through it but it would cause pain in the buttocks and I would lose control of my left leg and not have any power. It was really bad after the Two Oceans, maybe because of the distance, but I couldn’t even run for two kilometres. So I had surgery in July,” Van Zyl explains.

It was not the first time her legs had been operated on.

“When I was 17, I was in a scooter accident which put me back because I couldn’t walk for two months. The toughness maybe started there, but it was a bad place from which to start a running career because it left me with a huge hole in my patella. The doctor said I would need a knee replacement before I was 30, so I’m very happy to prove him wrong. Don’t let anybody tell you the
limits of what you can do.

“I just never quit. I know I’ve got the talent and I won’t quit until I have all the times on paper that I know I’m capable of. That’s the drive for me, even though my whole career has been a roller-coaster.”

Van Zyl (neé Van Blerk) has been soaked in running lore from a young age.

Her godmother is Frances van Blerk, the 1992 Comrades Marathon winner and something of a legend to this day as she is still winning Masters races.

“My job is my passion but it was maybe forced on me,” Van Zyl laughs.

“It’s all because my godmother is Frances van Blerk the Comrades runner, and she gave me all her medals and trophies. But I wanted my own so I took up athletics. I initially tried shotput but I underestimated how heavy the ball is. I tried long jump, then hurdles, but I couldn’t get over them.

“So the only thing I could make the athletics team in when I was nine years old was cross-country. I used to coach myself, which was terrible! I didn’t have a coach until high school and I thought ‘at last!’,” Van Zyl reveals.

She has become one of South Africa’s most decorated athletes, but there is one bucket list item still on her radar – the Olympic Games.

She competed in London in 2012 but did not finish the race, and in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 she had to pull out on the morning of the
marathon with a stress fracture of her foot.

“I have a bit of unfinished business with the Olympics after my Achilles flared up in 2012 and I had to pull out after 17 kilometres, and in 2016 I went to Rio but a stress fracture meant I didn’t even line up. So I have a DNF and a DNS, so I need a finish otherwise I’m not an Olympian in my mind. But it’s not an obsession, it’s not everything. I’ve learnt that when you are so focused about something you get it wrong.

“But I will try for it, I’ll make plans for next year to qualify. But it’s not my whole plan, there are other races to focus on too. So I have another mindset now, it’s not a big fuss but it would be great to go. But even if you qualify, it doesn’t necessarily mean you make
the team. But I can definitely say that there’s now a big improvement in my leg after the surgery,” Van Zyl says.

Not that it is smooth sailing just yet with the leg though.

“I can really feel the difference in terms of having power with both legs now. But I had to have my ligaments cut so the left leg is not as powerful as the right, although it gets better as I warm up. Soweto Marathon was the first time I had run that far since the operation though, and more training will fix that.

“You adapt to running uncomfortably for seven years and now I need to get used to my muscles working differently. For one thing, my foot placing is different and I get calf cramps, so I just have to adapt. There’s also excess blood flow now because before the artery was
trapped and only 40% of the blood was getting through. I’m on medicine to ensure it will not happen again, but cycling is not an option for me anymore.”

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