There was a point during the Totalsports Women’s Race in Johannesburg last Sunday when Irvette Van Zyl wanted to stop.
The legs were heavy. The body was tired. The sort of tired that makes even an experienced athlete question why she is putting herself through the discomfort in the first place.
Van Zyl had not arrived at the race expecting miracles. It had been a busy week and, by her own admission, she did not feel good from the start. A top-10 finish would have been acceptable.
But stopping was another matter.
Because somewhere in her mind was an eight-year-old boy who had given her a lesson in perseverance without ever knowing that he was doing so.
The day before, her son Gideon had run in his first provincial cross-country championship. He is only eight, still tiny in his mother’s eyes, but he ran with the sort of enthusiasm that only children discovering sport can possess.
“He ran so beautifully,” Van Zyl said, the pride unmistakable.
And when the race became difficult for her the following day, she thought about him.
“I wanted to actually stop in the race because I felt really tired,” she said at the finish line, still panting. “But yesterday my son ran cross country and he ran so beautifully.”
There was no way, she reasoned, that she could teach him to keep going when things become difficult if she was prepared to abandon her own race simply because it was not going well.
“He was my motivation today because I knew if I didn’t finish the race, he would ask me why,” she said.
Then came the lesson she hopes Gideon will carry with him long after the details of his first provincial championship have faded.
“I don’t want him to feel like if it goes hard, you have to stop. If it goes hard, you still have to push through. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, you have to push through.”
It is advice that sounds remarkably familiar coming from Van Zyl.
For much of her career, the 39-year-old has been doing exactly that – pushing through, adapting, learning, and finding another reason to put one foot in front of the other. This, after all, is a woman who went to three Olympic Marathons without earning the title of Olympian after failing to finish two – London 2012 and Tokyo 2020 – and not starting the other (Rio 2016). But she never gave up, and in 2024 she finally finished the 42.195km distance, running a 2:31:14 for 37th place at the Paris Games.
And now, with the veteran category looming on the horizon, she is discovering that there are perhaps even more reasons to keep going.
“One year to go,” she says when the subject of turning 40 comes up. “So I’m not that old yet.”
The laugh that follows says everything.
She is, however, looking forward to it.
Not because she sees the 40-plus category as a retreat from serious competition, but because it represents another chapter in a career that has already taken her through an extraordinary range of distances and experiences.
“I’ll be in the 40-plus category, so I’m going to enjoy it more,” she says.
There is no hint of surrender. If anything, Van Zyl sounds liberated by the prospect.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Van Zyl’s career is that she has never been particularly interested in being confined to one definition.
She can race a 10km with the speed required to compete against the country’s best, yet she has also embraced the punishing demands of the Comrades Marathon.
For all the ultra-marathon kilometres in her legs, she still does not quite regard herself as an ultra runner.
“I don’t feel like an ultra runner yet,” she says. “I think maybe after a few more Comrades, I will maybe relate more to ultra running.”
The shorter distances, she explains, remain an important part of who she is as an athlete.
“I really like the shorter distances, and I feel like that is what made me as an athlete.”
That love of speed explains why Van Zyl continues to return to the 10km circuit, even after tackling the demands of an ultra.
She knows that speed cannot simply be switched on after months of endurance training.
“I have to race myself into shape,” she says.
The races are therefore not merely opportunities to chase times or podiums. They are training grounds in their own right.
“For me, I need to race them and race the girls.”
She has learnt that if she spends too long away from the shorter distances, she loses the sharpness required to compete.
“I lose touch in the 10K races if I don’t race them. Because I do the ultra and then I’m not ready for the 10K races.”
There is humility in that admission. Even an athlete of Van Zyl’s experience must continually relearn the art of racing.
“You learn every race, how to race them again. And each year is different in how to race them.”
It is a philosophy that perhaps explains her longevity better than any training programme could. She remains willing to learn.
There is another reason Van Zyl can afford to look towards the future with optimism. She is increasingly seeing runners she once regarded as youngsters becoming important figures in South African athletics.
Among them is Glenrose Xaba who won Sunday’s race and will again be a favourite for this Sunday’s Absa RUN YOUR CITY Tshwane 10K which Van Zyl will be racing too.
Van Zyl has watched Xaba’s progression from a young athlete into one of the country’s most exciting and dominant road runners, and there is something deeply satisfying about witnessing that transformation.
“Lenrose is just an amazing athlete,” Van Zyl beams. “And how she started, I mean, she started with me way back a few years ago. And then she was still a youngster. And she’s still a youngster. But just seeing how she grows and just progresses. It’s phenomenal.”
She speaks similarly about Karabo Mailula and the other young women coming through. There is almost a family quality to the relationship now.
“It’s like I feel like their ouma now,” she says with a laugh.
But beneath the humour is genuine affection and pride.
Van Zyl has spent enough years in the sport to know that careers eventually end, but she also understands that an athlete’s influence does not have to end with competition.
“I think road running is in really good hands,” she says.
There is even a moment when she suggests that, if she wanted to, she could walk away now with some satisfaction that the next generation is ready.
“I can retire anytime now. My job is basically done.”
But retirement is clearly not calling loudly enough.
“I still want to be part of it and see just how the road running grows.”
And then there is Comrades.
Van Zyl has already experienced the Down Run, an education in endurance that she believes will prove invaluable should she return. She wants to.
Not just to run another Comrades, but to be part of history.
The 100th Comrades Marathon awaits in 2027, and Van Zyl wants to be there.
“I really want to run next year the 100th Comrades,” she says.
Her qualifying marathon has yet to be decided, but the intention is clear: qualify early and give herself the best possible preparation.
She also believes that a second Down Run will be a markedly different proposition from the first in which she missed out on the podium, finishing a credible fifth on debut in the world-famous KwaZulu/Natal ultra.
“If I do my second Down, it will go a bit better, I think, than my first Down.”
Experience matters enormously over 90 kilometres, she says. Knowing the route is one thing. Knowing how your body responds to the relentless demands of the day is another.
“I think Comrades is all about experience and learning the route and learning how your body adapts.”
The lessons can be brutal.
“Small mistakes become huge mistakes on such a distance,” she says.
And so, even after everything she has achieved, Van Zyl remains a student.
“I’m still learning.”
That might be the most appropriate description of where she finds herself now.
Not an athlete hanging on.
Not an athlete defined solely by what she has already achieved.
But a runner still curious about what her body can do, still interested in the challenge of a fast 10km, still willing to test herself over an ultra, still eager to stand alongside the country’s emerging women and, perhaps most importantly, still inspired by a little boy who has just begun his own journey.
Gideon started running with his mother as his inspiration.
At the Totalsports Women’s Race last Sunday, the inspiration briefly travelled in the opposite direction.
“I started as his motivation,” Van Zyl says. “Now he’s my motivation.”
For an athlete approaching 40, there could hardly be a better reason to keep running.
IOL Sport
