Grabbing Gold at Two Oceans Marathon, Collen Makaza, Former 50KM IAU World Champ

Collen is a multi-distance athlete who has a 10 kilometer personal best (PB) time of 29 minutes. He has a half-marathon (21.1 km) of 63 minutes. Collen's marathon time, 42.2 km, is 2h15 which he achieved in 2009. He has a 52 km time of 3h03 and is the current 50 km IAU World Champion, which he achieved in Ireland on 29 August 2010 and ran a time of 2 hours 47.

In 2009 Collen was 2nd in the City to City Ultra Marathon (50 km).

He is also the record-holder for the fastest time through half-way of the Comrades Marathon, in which he achieved a time of 2 hr 34 in 2009.

Other records include in 2010 he broke Stephen Muzhingi's Chatsworth Ultra Marathon Record by 1 minute and was also 11th at 2 Oceans, Cape Town.

Being "Mr Pace" as he is affectionately known back in his home town of Chitungwiza, (Zimbabwe) he is just that, with a PB 10km time of less than 30 minutes and a marathon time of sub 2H15.

Collen Joined the Formula 1 running club as an Elite Athlete and began training for the 2010 Two Oceans Ultra, alongside Stephen Muzhingi. The aim was for both to run within the top 5 at Two Oceans. This was to be Collen's main race for the year, 2010. The team traveled from Durban to Cape Town on the Tuesday for the race on the Sunday, ample time to acclimatize and relax in the Mother City, Cape Town.

This would be his first major race with new Sponsors, Nike and 32GI. Collen was in top shape and, I would even err on the side of caution by saying he was in the best shape of his career.

The race started in cool slightly wet conditions, and the first 20km is relatively flat. He knew there would be stiff competition from the Lesotho athletes running in Mr.Price colors.

The first half was relatively quick, but this is to be expected at a race of this nature in the almost perfect running conditions. The main bus consisting of all the potential top 10 men was flying along and as the notorious climb up Chapman's Peak started, Makaza surged in order to see how the Lesotho boys were. They then turned the heat on and pushed hard up the climb. Muzhingi and Collen were working together but could not answer the speed up the hill of the Lesotho runners.

The lead pack split up and Makaza worked hard to stay in contention, but was lacking speed, and was left in 10th position. He entered the stadium and was making his way to the finish line, and with the crowd noise and cheering he could not actually hear that the 11th placed runner was catching him. Once he was caught he tried to speed up but the momentum of the other athlete allowed him to pass Collen with about 20 meters to the line.

Thus Collen ended in 11th place and out of the prize money. Ge was gutted, distraught and for a while inconsolable. His disappointment was felt by all at the finish, as you could see what this meant to him. In his eyes he had failed, but in the bigger picture this was a huge learning curve for him, and he vowed to bounce back and not make the same mistakes again. He will win Two Oceans in time to come.

Thus he proved all his critics wrong when he went to Ireland in August and became the IAU World 50km Champion, beating a star studded international field. Great things are destined for Collen!

Collen is the Race Director for the Mr Pace Marathon, which is held in Chitungwiza, Harare, Zimbabwe, in December each year and 2010 will see the 3rd annual running of this event.

The inaugural event saw +- 500 participants and in 2010 the field size doubled to just over 1000 entrants.

The event consists not only of a marathon, but caters for the youth and social runner who is just looking to keep fit and participate in a well organized event which includes a 10 km/fun run.

A recent report in Iafrica.com states that

"...local long-distance runner, Collen Makaza, who is the organiser of the competition, is expecting the event to attract a large field of athletes as some of the country's renowned road runners have expressed their interest in taking part. "We have people from Binga who have shown interest in taking part in this event.

"We used to run in South Africa in this type of race but we did not have such a competition in Harare so we decided to come up with this race as we want to take the sport to the people in the ghetto."

Makaza said the 10km road race has been designed for the juniors as part of their efforts to develop promising young athletes.