For the love of athletics

George Gundry, a semi-retired 70-year-old man is passionate about grooming South African athletes.

It was while he was watching the Berlin Marathon two years ago that he began to wonder why very few South African athletes featured in these races which are dominated by east Africans.

“I watched the Berlin Marathon and saw the Kenyans and Ethiopians leading the field and a Kenyan breaking the world record and our own Hendrick Ramaala coming in 10th several minutes later,” Gundry said.

His quest for positive change began when he visited Ramaala, at his offices at Athletics South Africa (ASA) in Johannesburg, who then referred Gundry to one of the most respected and experienced coaches in South Africa, Owen van Niekerk.

“Van Niekerk, who has coached over 600 SA champions in various events, shared my views about the lack of international standard SA athletes and agreed to assist by tutoring me to become a coach for long distance runners,” Gundry said.

As a result, under the guidance of van Niekerk, they started coaching several athletes.

From April to June a programme guideline was developed to greatly improve the performance of their long and middle distance athletes.

The idea is to gradually improve the times of the athletes until they are running at world class pace.

For men this is between two hours six minutes to two hours 10 minutes.

Gundry is also training 10 000 metre and 21km athletes.

One of the 21km athletes wishes to run a 61 minute half-marathon by next February.

The new programme started with just a few athletes on June 17 this year and the number of athletes grows each week.

Athletes from as far as afield as Daveyton are joining the programme.

In order for some of the athletes to arrive on time for their 5.30pm practice Gundry has to pick them up in Elandsfontein and take them to Germiston Stadium, where they train.

Although Gundry coaches numerous athletes but there are no female athletes and that is one of his major concerns.

“We really need some world class female athletes so I am reaching out to all the female athletes who feel they have talent and would really and truly like to become international standard athletes,” Gundry said.

This, however, does not exclude male athletes who may be interested in joining the team.

Gundry coaches at absolutely no cost, the coaching is free as he is doing it for the love of the sport and for the benefit of South African athletics.

The one thing, however, that is not free is the utilisation of the stadium, Gundry is charged per hour to use the stadium and that comes out of his own pocket.

Lucas Raseruthe, an athlete currently being coached by Gundry, feels that Gundry shouldn’t be paying to use the stadium.

“The fact that George has to pay to use the stadium is not fair because, as it is we don’t have a sponsor, and the money used for the stadium could be used to purchase proper footwear, supplements and other essential equipment that will help improve our performance, I mean he is doing this out of the goodness of his heart,” Raseruthe said.

“I speak on behalf of the team when I say that we are happy with the training and highly appreciate everything that George is doing for us,” he added.

With the training and guidance from Gundry, Raseruthe took the seventh position at the Mandela Day 42km Marathon and won the Umzinyathi Ultra Marathon, among other achievements.

Domenic Khoza, an elite 21km athlete also being trained by Gundry, improved his performance within six weeks of training with Gundry by more than 20 per cent through the use of the training techniques van Niekerk taught Gundry.

Among others, Khoza won the Dischem five kilometre race earlier this year and a number of 10km events and is working towards beating the South African half-marathon record during 2014.

Khoza would really like other athletes to take advantage of this training and for women athletes to come forward and train with the group.

The athletes are training hard as they, among other marathons, want to take on the Two Oceans challenge.

Earlier this year, the Two Oceans organisation announced a R1-million prize for anyone breaking the record in 2014.

The athletes trained by Gundry have taken on this task as a personal challenge.

The record stands at three hours three minutes and 44 seconds, a record set by Thompson Magwana in 1988.

In preparation of all that is to follow, the athletes pursue a seven-day training programme.

The programme involves intense training three times per week and a long run every Saturday.

This is the training schedule:

•  Monday: Easy run – anywhere.
•  Tuesday: Track at Germiston Stadium: 5.30pm to 7pm.
•  Wednesday: Easy run anywhere to let the body recover after the previous evening’s track session.
•  Thursday: Track at Germiston Stadium: 5.30pm to 7pm.
•  Friday: Easy run anywhere to let the body recover after the previous evening’s track session.
•  Saturday: Long run, starts at 6am. The group normally runs near the Huddle Park Golf Course (opposite Saheti School).
•  Sunday: Hill session in Essexwold at 6.30am. Finish early enough, enabling athletes to go to church if they wish to do so.

The programme is broken into six phases up to the Two Oceans challenge and a further two more phases before the Comrades marathon.

Each phase is broken up into seven weeks.

The seventh week is an easy week.

If anyone would like to join the group contact George Gundry by SMS or WhatsApp on 082 579 2015 or email george@georgian.za.net.

Alternatively anybody interested in joining can go to the Germiston Stadium on either Tuesday or Thursday afternoons at 5.30pm.