Bester's Bigger Picture
The header image is an extract of an article that appeared in the now defunct SA Runner/TriCycling magazine circa July 1991. Nick Bester had just won the Comrades Marathon and journalists were keen to get an insight into his preparation. One key factor was a Pretoria psychologist, Dr. Andre Roux, who was profiled in this interesting piece by Ross Fraser entitled "It's All in the Mind."
+++++
As 2016 Comrades Marathon champion David Gathebe was reeling off sub-3min kilometres into Durban, Nick Bester was interviewed by the SABC Comrades Marathon commentary. As a former winner of the world’s most prestigious ultra-marathon, Bester was quizzed for insight on his own experiences of "low-flying" into eThekwini, in particular his memorable 1997 duel with Charl Mattheus.
“I just imagined that I was a kamikaze pilot,” related the Pretoria “Ysterman” who was – and still is – known for exceptional fitness level and muscular physique, not to mention his penchant for exceptional training sessions. With this in mind, Bester’s insight into what was going on inside his head on that day some nineteen years ago could be surprising given his seemingly “gung-ho” approach to training and racing. Dig a bit deeper and one discovers an extremely pragmatic and “out of the box” individual, not afraid to explore alternative avenues to achieve athletic excellence.
A couple of months ago, Bester posted this video on social media. The almost-twenty minute flick captures Comrades 1997 through the ideal racing mind of Bester. The Afrikaans narration delves into the premeditated sensations that the athlete should be feeling during various points in 89km slog to the coast. It is all about composure and flow, real “new age” stuff to the uninitiated but certainly worth viewing.
While sports psychology is fairly commonplace today, this practice was in its infancy in South Africa back in the early-1990s. Guts and glory predominated over a more cerebral approach and it was around that time that certain practitioners of this medical discipline gained fledgling prominence in the soon to be Rainbow Nation. Enter Dr. Andre Roux (pictured above) who, along with Ken Jennings, showed what could be achieved by working on mindset and mental toughness in a holistic manner. Bester sought out Roux’s services in preparation for his 1991 victory, incidentally the year the marked the end of the Bruce Fordyce-era. One particular snippet that stood out for me at the time Roux's was identifying that Bester was physically and mentally sharpest at around 2pm daily. Doctor and patient therefore had to work around this discovery and getting Bester into this “zone” during actual races.
But then Bester was always an athlete apart, especially when it came to sheer versatility. Take his 1991 Comrades victory for instance: his buildup included the South African elite canoe triathlon circuit while his post-Comrades duathlon season culminated in a tenth placing at the ITU World Duathlon Championships that November. Only the likes of Albe Geldenhuys, Ben Jansen Van Vuuren and later Jan Van Rooyen – incidentally all fellow Pretorians – were the closest in terms of multi-athletic scope and ability. Any race, any place and they could indeed "place."
Interestingly, Bester rates his three runner-up Comrades placings (1994, 1996, 1997) as his best in terms of complete athletic performance, where he was able to extract everything in terms of body, mind and spirit. Whether dueling with Mattheus with Kingsmead in sight or chasing down the likes of Dmitry Grishin and Alberto Salazar up into Pietermaritzburg, Bester seemed to relish the role of the hunter. Tales of extraordinary training sessions perhaps masked his true attention to detail in terms of weight training, nutrition, use of a heart-rate monitor and sports psychology. Nick Bester was clearly way ahead of his time.
Kamikaze pilot?
For sure, with a little red meat, “Yster” and “Vasbyt.”
And a strong mind of course.
