Age-defying Spies set to run another Comrades age category best time

Australia-based runner wins Hobart Marathon as he prepares to depose Kotov again, this time on the Up Run.

Wayne Spies is fast proving that the popular adage ‘age is nothing but a number’ is true as he runs like the wind despite getting on in age.

At 51, the Australia-based South African who runs in the popular green colours of Nedbank Running Club is winning races at times most youngsters can only dream of. He was at it again this past weekend, the man originally from Durban winning the Hobart Airport Marathon in a quick time of 2:33:39.

Perhaps most remarkable about the victory was that Spies was merely training, the race being part of his programme for the upcoming Comrades Marathon at which he plans to register yet another age-category best time.

“I did not plan on going to win it,” he chuckled during our trans-Indian ocean phone interview “The course is a bit hilly so coach said it was okay for me to and do it as part of the preparations for the Up Run. It felt very easy and I felt very comfortable with the run. Towards the end, everyone seemed to fate and I decided to go for it.”

He clearly had fun at the race as proven by some of the videos he shared on his Instagram pages where he was laughing and giving thumbs up to some of the spectators on the route as he headed to a consummately easy victory.

“Such results show that age is just a number and that it is all a case of ‘if you do the hard work, you can get the results’.”

A hard worker Spies really is. This much he has proven by being a part of a pretty youthful training group under the guidance of the somewhat reticent Coach Dave Adams. The happy bunch is that highly successful Rustenburg-based group which includes two-time and Down Run ‘record’ holder Tete Dijana as well as former winner and multiple podium finisher Edward Mothibi. Gold medallists Dan Matshailwe, Joseph Manyedi, Johannes Makgetla and Galaletsang Mekgoe are also members of the happy bunch.

Though much older than them, he manages to keep up with them in training to Coach Adams’ delight.

“He’s a beast,” the old man said during one training session in Dullstroom as we drove together in his car while the athletes ran the tough hilly route.

Spies will be joining them later this month in the North West before they head out to Mpumalanga for a six-week-long camp in Dullstroom where Spies will be looking to fine-tune himself for an assault at the Up Run best time.

Last year, he deposed Vladimir Kotov as the best 50+ best time holder when he ran a 5:42:01 to improve on the 5:48:12 the three-time champion set back in the 2012 Down Run. Of course, the distance was a little shorter than when the Belarussian was a 50-year-old – hence it is referred to as a best time and not record.

“I am coming to SA in two weeks’ time and coach and I have spoken about the Up Run best time and like the Down, it is also a 5:48 and the goal is to beat it. I am confident that with my training we will break that time. My main goal for Comrades this year is to chase that record. And this year they’ve given me that 800m, so I know it is doable,” Spies said in reference to the fact that the distance for this year’s race is 85.91 - a kilometre less than when Kotov set the record as they ran 86.94 back in 2008.

Spies’ confidence is also because he prefers running from Durban to Pietermaritzburg instead of the other way round.

“The Up Run is my favourite, I enjoy going up the hills. I am a light and small guy so climbing is much easier. I don’t enjoy the Down – it is not easy because the body takes a serious pounding.”

He climbed them with ease in Hobart at the weekend and should have little problem climbing up to the reservoirs in Rustenburg and then matching the likes of Dijana and Mothbi out in high-altitude Dullstroom.

With that done, you can bet there will be no 50 to 59-year-old who will match him on June 9 when thousands line up at the Durban City Hall for the start of the run-up to Pietermaritzburg.

So much for 50 years old being old!