The remarkable Caroline Wostmann makes Pretoria proud
Caroline Wostmann of Pretoria’s seventh place in the Comrades Marathon surprised the athletics world, since she only started competing in road races six years ago.
In 2008 Caroline Wostmann purchased a pair of running shoes and started running to shake off the few extra kilograms that she picked up during her pregnancy before the birth of her first daughter.
A year later she completed her first Comrades marathon in 09:17. This year, only six years after she started competing in road races, Wostmann won her first gold medal when she was the seventh woman to run across the finish line in this illustrious ultra-marathon.
Her career as an athlete is nothing but astounding. The former Tukkie does not actually consider herself a very sporty girl and running is the only sport in which she participates. However, she surprised the experts of the sport with her amazing progress since she started participating in running.
She recorded a best time of 01:22:35 in a half-marathon last year and in February last year she finished the grueling 42.2km in the South African marathon championships in a time of 02:53:35.
Wostmann grew up in Midrand but after school she moved to Pretoria and studied at Tuks. Meanwhile, she married Haiko Wostmann and today they live in the east of Pretoria. They are the proud parents of two daughters. While she initially started running after the birth of her eldest, their three-year-old second daughter’s coming was the reason why she could not participate in the Comrades in 2010.
Wostmann’s accomplishments as an athlete is even more remarkable considering the fact that she does not run full-time like many of her rivals in the country’s top races. She is running and exercising in her spare time, because she is otherwise a lecturer at Wits University, where she teaches accounting.
