MY RUNNING LIFE

ORDINARY RUNNERS doing EXTRAORDINARY THINGS

- RYAN SCOTT

Mandisi Dyantyis is an award-winning trumpeter, jazz musician, composer and vocalist. Energetic, and impressively accomplished, he’s not only an acclaimed musician: he’s also an avid long-distance runner.

Mandisi has released two exceptional jazz solo albums, and sells out large venues. His works as a musical theatre director have toured worldwide, including at the Royal Opera House and the West End in the UK. He wrote music for Rise: The Siya Kolisi Story, and in the US for a ballet about Nina Simone, Nina: By Whatever Means.

As a working musician and dynamic stage performer, Dyantyis’ health and a healthy lifestyle are important for his performances. He sees running and his music career as essential to each other.

Runner’s World: What came first – music, or running? 

Mandisi Dyantyis: The formal part of running feels like it came a bit later… but I’ve always been a runner. I remember people having to come and fetch me from training to go to band practice.

So there was always running; but the structured part of training came later, because I started getting into road running only when I got to Cape Town for varsity