MOVING TARGET

Roelof Mostert fought back from near-tragedy twice and used running to get his life back.

- RYAN SCOTT

An ordinary 6 am run on a public holiday turned traumatic when Roelof Mostert was shot in the back as he fled for his life. He already had a relationship with running as therapy, to help him through other challenges; but now he needed it more than ever. RW's Ryan Scott sat down with Mostert to hear his harrowing story - and his plans for the future.

RW: Have you always been a runner?

● RM: I was always good at sports as a child - I just assumed all kids were good at sports. The teachers at that time only really invested in children whose parents invested in the school; I could never figure out why all the kids who sucked at sports always made the teams, and I didn't. And in those days, running was never on my radar.

But after years of trying to excel in sports of any kind, I eventually gave in to the powerful pull of peer pressure, joining countless other emotionally brittle, lost young men desperately trying to find their place in this world; once ground up and spat out by the education system, I joined the working class and found solace at the bottom of a brandy bottle.

So I only started running at 28 to remedy the incapacitating toll that self-medicating was taking on my life.

RW: Tell us what happened that fateful morning.

● RM: It was around 6 am; I was out on a taper run in preparation for my first race of the season, the Tsitsikamma Ultra Trail. I was living in Hout Bay then, and usually, by 6 am, the road I ran down is swarming with cyclists. But it was a public holiday, and Empire Road was dark, and colder than usual, and eerily quiet.