RUNNING STRONG

This Roodepoort mom has lost half her body weight - and she's just done her second Comrades

- MELON RADEBE

IF YOU'D told her a few years ago she'd compete in back-to-back Comrades Marathons she'd never have believed you.

At her heaviest Carli van Niekerk weighed 130kg and found herself out of breath performing the simplest tasks. Even getting up from a chair was a struggle as it would cling to her body.

She tried plenty of diets and every weight-loss programme under the sun but nothing seemed to work.

"A lot of people will say, 'Love yourself and be happy in your body'. But from personal experience I know you can put on a happy face and say you're happy and accept your body, but deep down you don't," Carli (46), who lives in Roodepoort, Joburg, tells YOU.

"And you don't really love yourself." Her turning point came in 2011 when she watched her husband, Leon (45), rolling around on the lawn and laughing with their children.

"Tears started to run down my cheeks because I realised then that I was living life as a spectator. I'm sitting on the sideline and I'm watching other people enjoying and living their lives and having fun." It hit her that if she really wanted to start living and not simply existing she had to shake things up and make a change.

Carli had gastric bypass surgery, which initially aided in weight loss. But without changing her lifestyle she ended up gaining some of the weight back. Then one day she decided to give a parkrun a try - and that was a game-changer for her.

Fast forward to the present and Carli has just finished her second Comrades Marathon, running alongside 24 000 other competitors to complete the gruelling Durban to Pietermaritzburg slog.

"I experienced some dizziness during the first 35km, I took some supplements and it settled a bit," she says. "Then I started cramping but I managed to get through that."

In the last 6km of the race she was cramping again but she was determined to keep going.