More Than A Club: Nedbank Running Club

After our trip to South Africa almost two years ago, we are still fascinated by the country's relationship with endurance sports. After interviewing professional athletes and personalities gravitating around trail running in Cape Town, we wanted to look further and get closer to the roots of running in the country.

Nedbank Running Club is one of the largest clubs in South Africa and present in other African countries as well. With one club in each province and more than 25 years of history, the club managed by the South African running legend Nick Bester is a key factor in approaching people to running and fostering elite talents who compete at the top of the sport.

In this interview we walked through the history of the club, its structure and support to athletes of all levels and Nick’s effort in promoting the sport through the Nedbank Running Club.

Last year, we did an extensive feature on trail running in South Africa, specifically in Cape Town, Interviewing athletes and notable characters. What do you think running means for south africans and what place occupies it in society?

South Africans are mad about running. We've got a huge total of athletes that compete in races across the country. Due to our system, you have to belong to a running club to be legally allowed to run in a race. So you have to join a running club and that's why there's so many running clubs in South Africa. In our case, we have a Nedbank club in each of the 14 provinces in South Africa. Each club organizes one time trail every week. There's one in the Cape province, one in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, one in Petora, Gauteng, one in Gauteng North, one in Mpumalanga and so on. So, if you want to open one of our clubs you must meet this criteria. This is one of the reasons why there are so many run clubs.

The team at the Soweto Marathon

What is interesting about South Africa is the importance of ultra distances, so everything above 42k. Why do 20 thousand people run the Comrades Marathon that is over 90k long? That's obscure. It's a hell of a way to run and it's not only the distance, it's the murderous route. You run through the valley of a thousand hills. So it's very tough. But the reason for this comes from the fact that South Africans were not allowed to compete intentionally till 1993 when Nelson Mandela was released from jail. So the Comrades became very popular because that was the only big race and it was televised. All the best South Africans were competing against each other.

All the ultra distance events became popular and were televised, across every sport from running and cycling to canyoning and triathlon. Seeing South Africans competing in these events made the general public want to compete too. That's why still today the Comrades Marathon is the major race in South Africa. This race is not like the regular marathons. It is more than double the distance.

If you win, you earn a lot of prize money, sponsors and you are made for life. It’s that type of money. This is what happened to me after I won it. I became a household name and was able to attract sponsors and make business. I am working in this position because I won the Comrades.

Don’t you think it is very peculiar that ultra distances were televised in South Africa decades ago, while now ultra running is finding it very hard to land on television due to its length?

 That is the history and what is drawing the people and the sponsors. In 2027, the Comrades will celebrate 100 years and it will be special. We will recreate the race as it was 100 years ago, with the finish line in the streets and not in the stadium. I am very excited about this.

You have been the head of the Nedbank running club for 17 years, but how did this start?

At the end of my running career I met up with two of the directors of the Harmony gold mine here in South Africa. They told me we want our employees to be fit and run comrades. So I started the club in 1999. In 2000, the running club only had 5 members, myself, Willie Mtolo, winner of the 1992 New York Marathon in 2:09, Zethulele Sinqe, winner of the South African Marathon championships in 1986 in 2:08, Albe Geldenhuys, top 10 in Comrades and Neil Schalkwyk, top 20 in Comrades. This is how we started. In the first 8 years we expanded to other provinces and produced Comrades winners.

Winners feelings at Comrades

In 2008, Harmony was sold and the new owners said they were not interested in sponsoring the running clubs anymore. At that time we had 2,000 members across South Africa. Luckily, I was introduced to Nedbank, who has sponsored the club since then, and we were able to reach 4,500 members and expand to Ethiopia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

During these years, I built connections with international runners who came to run with us. Elite athletes know about us and we are interested in them. For example, Piet Wiersma who won Comrades last year stayed 3 weeks at my house and I trained him for the race. We look after their stay in Africa and provide support during the race. International runners know we operate as a team. 

98% of our members are social runners who simply run for the love of the sport. We focus a lot on development. We have coaches in all the provinces and we go to rural areas to look for young talents. We make sure we don’t develop talents only for Comrades but also for shorter distances. From the SPAR 10 kilometers series to then half marathons and beyond. But the general runner wants to go from 10k to 90k immediately. As a runner you can’t just run long, you must run fast.

The Nedbank Running Club expanded during the years with clubs in each province of the country and abroad.  How do you make sure that each club operates and shares the same values?

The main thing for me is teamwork. It's not me. It's my team. A great team. 

All those clubs started with me 25 years ago and most of them have their own committee that didn’t change since then. There is a chairman, a club captain, a social person, a coach and a development officer. So, I don't even have to tell them what to do. 

We also incentivize them because we sponsor them money wise, not only with products, but we sponsor them with money that we receive from the sponsors.

I created a 30-point plan that they have to adhere to. For each point they satisfy,  they receive a certain amount of money. A weekly time trial, one point. A club run on a Saturday for all members, one point. And so on. They shouldn’t focus too much on the elite runners, but on the everyday runner.

Team Green leading the pack

Organizing races is part of the activities of each branch of the club. How does the race organization work?

Time trials are organized every week. Usually the distance is 5k, sometimes 6 or 8, and the times are recorded and published on our website. On the weekends, we have a training run where members train together.

On top of these, each club needs to organize at least one race affiliated to Athletics South Africa. Some clubs do 6 or 7 during the year. The distances vary from 10k to marathons. Two weeks ago, one of our clubs organized a marathon with more than 6,000 runners.

One of the club objectives is to focus specifically on women and youth, including athletes with disabilities. How have you been able to help these categories through the run clubs?

We are one of the few clubs in South Africa that focus on development. We have specific development clubs. This means we find athletes below the age of 16 years, coach and help them. At the same time, we had a women only club for years, before opening it to everyone.

Sponsors play a major role in athletes development by providing products. Biogen gives us supplements. Futurelife sends us a very healthy porridge. Another very important product is water. In South Africa there are some areas where you mustn't drink tap water. Thirsti Water helps us in this sense. Then, Nike gives us loads of products, both performance and lifestyle.

What do you think the Nedbank Running Club means for its members?

I think it means they feel very proud. I can see members being proud of being associated with elite athletes at winning the races. But they also feel proud about the kids.

You know what you get. If you want the license number or you want a kit. It's there. It is courier to you. It's quick to join quickly to get your license number. The most important thing is that they are proud to be a Netbank running club member.  

In your 25 years leading this Running Club, how did you see running changing in South Africa?

There's a big difference. We are getting more black and colored runners in the club. They are the majority, while in the past it was the opposite. We're also getting a lot more social runners. The past was more elite, but now it's a club for all walks of life, especially social athletes.

Elite runners are not the majority anymore. There are only five or six clubs that contract elite runners in South Africa and they fight each other for the best talents being developed from the other clubs. They don’t develop athletes but simply “buy” them.

If you look at the results, we are the best elite team in South Africa. If you look at the money, we are not the richest. So, our athletes leave to go to richer clubs to maximize their careers. I don’t blame them. If someone leaves, we try our best to replace him or her with someone else.

How do you support elite athletes as part of NedBank Running Club?

 It's not a loose relationship. It's a fixed contract. The athletes sign a contract with my company. My company owns all the sponsor relationships. I take the funding and the products and I distribute it to the elite athletes. 

There are three tiers of athletes: A, B and C. The A team will get a salary per month to look after their needs. All their race and travel expenses are covered. They have incentives and bonuses based on results. They receive products from our sponsors. These athletes regularly place in the top 10 of races like Comrades and Two Oceans.

The B team is supported with products and race expenses, but doesn't get a salary. They must have a proper job and we support them in such a way that one day maybe will become part of the elite. The C is our development team. We support them based on their needs. It might be shoes or race entry fees.

Within each club there are the same tiers of athletes that get supported. So clubs need to invest part of the money we give them into their development teams.

What is the relationship between the main national teams that you oversee and the local clubs?

If we see an athlete from an A team in a club performing well we move it to the main teams. For example, Lloyd Bosman was winning every race in his area so I invited him to join the main team. He entered the Two Oceans and finished second overall. 

The A team has 30 athletes, the B team more than 200. While team C is ad hoc.

How do elite athletes approach racing abroad compared to the main national races in South Africa?

 We have athletes running abroad. Meseret Mengistu won the Paris Marathon, for example few years ago. Usually athletes are invited to international races through agents. They will have their expenses covered, but, to be honest, we already have money allocated to that with the salaries we provide them. 

If they get invited they have to run in a Nike kit and not in ours so we don’t gain a lot of visibility. We allow the athletes to do it but, of course, we don’t gain a lot of exposure. Our kits respect the rules of World Athletics so they could use it. In the end, South Africans don’t look at international races that much. They want to watch Comrades.

After 25 years of running this club, what is your proudest achievement?

 I'm proud that I'm able to help people that don't have anything. I am able to help athletes by paying the entry fee to a race that they might go to win and with the money they can live for the next week. So my proudest moments are not seeing my elites winning races, but helping people without food to have something. Even supporting them with products or food to bring on the table. My proudest moment is supporting athletes that don’t have anything.