Frith van der Merwe
innehar kvinnenes rekord i Comrades - 5:54'43" - fra 1989. Siden har hun hatt sine problemer, men er nå på vei tilbake igjen - kanskje vil hun delta i årets 'down-run' fra Pietermaritzburg til Durban
Kilde: news24.com
 
Frith still undecided on Comrades
18/02/2003 21:47 - (SA)
 
 
De Jongh Borchardt
 
 
Johannesburg - Frith van der Merwe, the women's record holder in South Africa's most famous ultra-marathon, the Comrades, will decide at the end of March whether she will again attempt the gruelling race this year.
 
Van der Merwe last ran the prestigious race in 2000 and ended it in the eleventh spot. Meanwhile, she has had a big operation to her foot and only started running competitively last month.
 
However, it did not take long for her to get going and on January 26 she won the Johnson Crane Marathon in Benoni in just over three hours.
 
Although her time was almost half an hour slower that her 1990 record in the same event, Van der Merwe was more than happy with her win this time round.
 
"I did struggle a bit with blisters but I was very happy with my time. My next goal is to run under three hours," she said.
 
That goal was achieved much quicker than she expected when she won the Pick 'n Pay Marathon in Johannesburg in a time of 2h 57min.
 
The road back to the top was a difficult one for Van der Merwe.
 
After her husband died of cancer in 1999 she found it difficult to motivate herself to run. Then came the foot operation and in the three months of recuperation she realised how much she was missing her running.
 
Now she is just running for her own pleasure and winning is just a bonus. "I now even enjoy it more."
 
Van der Merwe will decide on whether to run the Comrades after she completes the Rolux Korkie race over 50km on 30 March. She dominated the Comrades from the late eighties to the early nineties and her 1989 down-run record of 5.54.43 still stands.
 
This year will see another down-run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban.