Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 94, May 2017 | Page 14

Ma IN THE LEAD
Jet-fuelled Jenna
One of the highlights of the 2017 Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon was Jenna Challenor finishing second overall and first
South African in the women’s race, in her debut ultra-marathon, but few people know how hard she had to work just to be
able to line up for the race. – BY SEAN FALCONER
R
unning a 56km ultra-marathon for the
first time and finishing as runner-up is
an incredible athletic feat in itself, and
Durbanite Jenna Challenor deserves
credit based on that alone… but
achieving that on top of being a mother
of three young girls, having to overcome an injury in
the weeks leading up to the race, and overcoming the
disappointment of only just missing out on the Rio
Olympics a few months earlier, make Jenna’s feat all
the more remarkable. And she did it with a smile on
her face most of the way – it was only in the last few
kays that the strain began to show on her face!
Sporty Roots
Jenna grew up in a running family – her mom has
done 10 Comrades – and ran middle distance at school
while also doing lifesaving. She was part of the SA
team, alongside future husband Brett, that won the
Lifesaving World Champs in New Zealand in 1998.
She studied teaching, but decided to concentrate
on photography as a job once her three daughters,
Nicolette, Rylee and Tao, were born, as it allowed
her to spend more time with the kids and still run
competitively. That saw her win multiple KwaZulu-
Natal provincial championship titles at 10km and the
half marathon, as well as in cross-country, and she
competed for SA in cross country in 2009. Then in
2013 Jenna finished third in the SA Half Marathon
Champs and booked her spot in the SA team for the
2014 World Half Marathon Champs in Denmark.
In 2015 she joined the KPMG Running Club, and
having focused on the marathon in recent years,
Jenna says she felt the time was right to step up to an
ultra. “I’ve always wanted to run the Old Mutual Two
Oceans Marathon, and the Comrades, and this year
the opportunity arose to run Oceans as a tester and
see how my body will respond. The great news is that
I felt absolutely fine, and I really loved the run, even
though I was a bit nervous before the start about the
extra distance.”
Interestingly, she says that extra distance and slightly
slower pace actually allowed her to enjoy the run
more. “People often ask if I saw the scenery in this
race or that race, but you don’t get to look at the
scenery in shorter races. At Oceans, the pace is slower,
so you can take in the incredible views and the crowd
support along the route. I will admit I was worried
about the extra distance, as my longest training run
was only 44km, but I used the crowd support to get
me through it, and the kilometres just kept coming.
The last few kays were a bit hard, because that’s
when the extra mileage hit me a bit, but what a
feeling running into that finish! And then the incredible
messages of support started coming in from the whole
of SA. As I said to my husband Brett, if coming second
Jenna moved up into second place around the 27km
mark when she overtook Tanith Maxwell, and says she
only realised she was second when the ‘2 nd Female’
bicycle went with her. “I really didn’t expect that, but I
just backed myself to stick to my plan. I didn’t know the
gap to the Belarus leader, or how far behind me Tanith
was, and I didn’t know Caroline Wörstmann had pulled
out, I was just running my own race and enjoying the
moments. That’s because I didn’t have a goal position
or time in mind, I just wanted to stick to my plan
in my debut. I had taken all the pressure off myself
because you can do that in your debut… there are no
expectations on you, and you can just test it out.”
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ISSUE 94 MAY 2017 / www.modernathlete.co.za