With the focus for the women’s section of Sunday’s opening race of the Absa Run Your City 10k in Gqeberha on Kenyan Diana Chepkorir, there are runners who are likely to go under the radar and produce some stellar results.
One of those is Lesotho’s Blandina Makatisi. The Maxed Elite starlet comes to the Friendly City on the back of an impressive performance at the Africa Games where she finished fifth in the half marathon.
She sets herself high standards though and was actually not too chuffed with her run: “I am happy to have represented my country well. But it did not go the way I wanted because I was hoping for a better time. I ran a 1:15 and my goal was to try and run at least 1:10 or even better my PB of 1:09:45.”
She ran that PB in Gqeberha last year and will on Sunday attempt to run one in the 10km.
“I want to get a PB in the Absa race. Of course, the goal is to finish on the podium, but if that does not happen I would be happy to run a PB and more so a national record. My PB is currently on 32:18 which I ran at the Spar Ladies in Durban and the national record is at 32:06. What I like about PE is that it is very fast and if the weather is great, anything is possible.”
Makatisi, like most of her South African competitors, is in two minds about the presence of the east African athletes in the Absa Series and other 10km competitions in the country.
“On the one hand, I’d rather they were not here because we would have the chance to win the money on offer,” she chuckles “But the reality is that their presence is good for us because it pushes us to run beyond ourselves and it improves our times because they are fast. We get better from racing against top class opposition.”
She admits that she is not at her best condition yet having only returned from an injury-induced lay off in January.
“I am still working on getting better. I am not at my peak yet because I did not run in December due to injury. But we have a plan for the year to do all the Absa Run Your City races and the SPAR Ladies ones and I want to do well in all of them.”
A good start in Gqeberha on Sunday will set her on to a fantastic year. Run a PB or even a national record and Makatisi will be on cloud nine. A podium finish will be a bonus, especially given the presence of sub 30 runner Chepkorir as well as the on-form Glenrose Xaba who will be out to run a sub 32.
Add Cacisile Sosibo to the equation and Makatisi will have her work cut out for her to shine. But the lack of pressure from being an underdog could well work to her advantage.
IOL Sport