Pretoria's Van Zyl ready to tackle Comrades debut despiten nerves and Down Run start

Pretoria’s favourite runner, Irvette Van Zyl, is excitedly looking forward to her Comrades Marathon debut, even though she would rather have started with the Up Run.

Speaking during the elite runners’ pre-race conference at a hotel on the Durban beachfront, the Hollywood Athletics Club star was in her usual high spirits, despite being on a table teeming with accomplished gold medallists of The Ultimate Human Race.

Among them were her teammate and defending champion Gerda Steyn, former champion Alexandra Morozova, as well as Carlo Molinaro, Caitriona Jennings, Dominika Stelmach and Courtney Olsen – all of whom have previously finished in the top ten.

It is not surprising, then, that the Olympian and multiple Soweto Marathon champion had a few butterflies in her stomach as she addressed the media.

“Yes, I am nervous,” Van Zyl said, before breaking into her trademark giggle.

“But I am looking forward to it because it’s been on my to-do list for a long time. I think it is time now, and hopefully after Sunday I will still have the legs to come back and do the Up Run, because that was the actual plan – to start with the Up Run and not the Down Run. Ja, I am excited, but let’s see what happens.”

Van Zyl has been training on the race route in preparation for her debut, but she says she does not see that as giving her any more advantage than the others.

“Ja, I’ve only done one route-tester and I didn’t even finish that one, because that day I only managed to do 45km when the plan was to do 52km. But I’m gonna run and finish on Sunday.”

That much is expected of her, Van Zyl having proven herself as one of the country’s best distance runners over many years. Her multiple victories in the gruelling Soweto Marathon suggest she has what it takes to tackle the 90km monster that is the Comrades.

In any case, she has done ultras before – having previously held the world 50km record, and also performing well at the slightly longer 56km Two Oceans Marathon, where she once dipped under the previous record when she finished second to the phenomenal Gerda Steyn.

The two are now teammates at Hollywood Athletics Club, who are expected to dominate the women’s race, with Steyn once again the favourite to win the title of the KwaZulu-Natal ultra she loves so much.

Also running in the purple colours will be Olsen and Molinaro, who finished third and fourth respectively last year – and there is every reason to believe they can win the team prize.

In the men’s race, there is also a strong contingent of runners representing the capital, with defending Down Run champion Tete Dijana of Nedbank Gauteng North looking for a hat-trick of victories on the route from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, having triumphed in 2022 and 2023. His teammate and 2019 champion Edward Mothibi is also in the running for glory.

It is Van Zyl, though, that the capital’s eyes will be fixed on come Sunday morning, and as she generally does, expect her to give the race her all and be there or thereabouts in the hunt for glory – the fact that she is a newbie notwithstanding.