The Ninety Seconds Before the Gun
Sprinter Lebo Dlamini walks through exactly what runs through her head on the start line, and how she rebuilt her pre-race routine after freezing at a national final.
Who Are You When You Cannot Train
0:00 / 0:51
Sample the first 60 seconds free. Sign up free or log in to hear the whole episode.
Show notes
Who Are You When You Cannot Train
Pieter van Wyk ran 140 kilometres a week until a femoral stress fracture stopped him completely for 11 months. This episode is about the identity crisis that followed, which he says was harder than the injury itself.
- The first month: pretending it was temporary
- Learning to be a person who does not run
- What his physiotherapist said that finally landed
- Coming back slower and why that was fine
Thandiwe shares her own hamstring story and the two questions she now asks every injured junior athlete she coaches.
Transcript
Welcome back to Warm-Up Lap. I am Thandiwe Mokoena. Today we are talking about the hardest part of sport, which is not the training and not the losing. It is the moment you cannot do it at all. My guest is Pieter van Wyk, a marathon runner who was logging 140 kilometres a week until a stress fracture in his femur took him off the road for 11 months. Pieter is very honest about how badly he handled the first few months and how he eventually learned to be a person who does not run. I know that feeling. My own career ended with a hamstring tear at 23, and I will tell you a bit of that story too, along with the two questions I now ask every injured athlete I coach. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
Open as text