No barriers to success as Tshaka lives out his dream

Sindile Tshaka – runner, family man, provider and pioneer – is small of stature, generally quiet of demeanour, and a warm human being who has run strongly and competitively in the senior ranks through 44 tumultuous years.

On May 29 he will again take up one of running’s major challenges when he tackles his 18th Comrades Marathon, a race he first ran in 1977.

Indeed 1977 was an all-round defining year for the man, born and schooled in Keiskammahoek, but who started his marathon running career as a 24-year-old working and living in King William’s Town.

Tshaka, now 66, says by then “I think I had already run 12 marathons”. Running in the colours of King William’s Town AC, which had the energetic Ronnie Kockjeu at the helm, Tshaka was already making history as one of the first black runners to take to the sport in the region. He attributes his ability to get to and enter various races around the province to the support and enthusiasm of Kockjeu.

A 2:30 Buffs Marathon in March of that year had the running community taking notice and the Border Marathon Runners Association chose Tshaka and Edwin Lwana to represent the province.

Natal had also defied the South African Amateur Athletics Union in choosing Lawrence Hlope to run at an inter-provincial marathon in East London.

Lwana gives much credit to Tshaka for bringing both himself and later “at least 20 other men from our village” into road running, including the likes of Phillip Hodi and Lulamo Mshiywa, both of who went on to earn Border colours.

Says Tshaka about the interprovincial: “ was a very memorable race and my first time to run against the best in South Africa. It was really nice and I was very excited.”

Speaking this week, both Tshaka and Lwana confirm how hard it was for the two friends running under apartheid. Lwana says, “I would sometimes think to leave the sport, but all the while Sindile kept encouraging me. After races in East London we were not allowed into the clubhouse.

“The one time we went to Queenstown to run and we had to sleep in the toilet and then still run the next morning.”

1977 was also the first year that Tshaka ran the Comrades Marathon, finishing in a time of 8:56 which would today have awarded him a Bill Rowan medal.

While the time may seem underwhelming for a 2:30 marathoner, Tshaka faced so many hurdles to simply get to the start given segregated transport and accommodation norms in that era.

Only those who lived through those times could appreciate what it took to participate in what so many take for granted today. It should be no surprise that both Tshaka and Lwana, friends from their school days, would go on to become members of the first truly non-racial running club in the province at a time when that, too, caused endless controversy.

Tshaka’s first Comrades was an up run and the following year he was back to tackle the down, only this time he would be 30min slower, the result of, he suggests, too fast a start – a mistake thousands have made on the down run.

The affable Tshaka continued running every local race he could get to, but was unable to find his way back to Durban until 1981 when, on yet another up run, he would be 9min 46sec slower with a 9:35:46.

This talented runner was bemused and it would be another two years before he returned to the 90km of the Big C.

If disappointment had prevailed before, heartbreak was in store when he missed a silver medal (sub 7:30) by just 2:35 on the 1983 up run and then by a shattering 59 seconds in 1985.

He would finally earn an elusive silver medal, running a 7:17:31 down run in 1986 when he was part of a strong team environment.

Two more silver medals would come his way in 1990 and 1992. The former run of 7:01:33 would be his personal best. It was an up run and he was now 41 years of age.

After 1993, when Tshaka ran his 10th Comrades and was awarded number 8444 in perpetuity, there was a long break of 13 years before the allure of the Comrades would again capture his soul.

Three Bill Rowan medals, the first of which he ran at the age of 57, would follow, and the last would come two months after his 60th birthday. He finished 9th in his new age category that year.

Over and above the Comrades, Tshaka also has 10 Two Oceans Marathons to his credit with a PB silver medal time of 3:43:57 recorded in 1984, a year that he skipped the Comrades.

Asked who his favourite runners have been over the years there is no hesitation in naming Vincent Rakabaela, the first black man to win Two Oceans and challenge strongly at Comrades, along with the duo of Mathews Temane and Zithulele Sinqe, who set the world half marathon best time with a 60:11 finish in East London in 1987.

Tshaka himself ran for Border that year.

His reply as to who was his personal toughest competitor was spontaneous: “Edwin Lwana, my best friend. I only beat him twice and both times was at the Amatola Marathon.” Lwana adds that they ran many, many races together.

In his heyday Tshaka would run anything up to 40km per day in training and mostly, due to work commitments, it would be alone. His quality session days were made up of 10x800m hills or 10x400m on the track.

Married and a father of six children, Tshaka attributes his longevity to the fact that “I love to run. I just love running”.

Tshaka, in his unassuming manner, has been at the forefront of much change in society and, on 29 May at 5:30am, he will be in the colours of Born 2 Run at the Pietermaritzburg City Hall to start yet another Comrades. Without any hint of it being a last one, he is plotting to arrive in Durban ten and a half hours later, a time that will be the envy of many a younger man or woman.

Given the man’s pedigree, few betting folk would wager against him.