Leboka Noto is a Lesotho national and a serial gold medalist at comrades. He boasts an incredible record indeed. He has completed 11 comrades marathons and has collected 4 gold medals, 1 Wally Hayward medal (awarded to runners from position 11 to ones that completed under 6 hours) and 7 silver medals all run under 7 hours.Below are his gold medal times:
2006 5:47:29 10th position
2007 5:35:27 5th position
2010 5:48::45 9th position
2012 5:33:31 3rd position (and 1st veteran home)
Now those are pretty impressive times aren't they. However what impresses me most is the fact that this is a guy who holds down a full time job as a miner and does 12 hour shifts at least 5 times a week. Despite this, he's able to fit in 70km long runs alone unassisted and with no scheduled water breaks. In future posts we will talk about solitary long runs and how they contribute to mental endurance especially for ultra marathoners. One can attribute he's impressive results to his background, coming from Lesotho (a small Kingdom in the heart of South Africa) which lies 2000 meters above sea level, high altitude training has definitely benefited him. In my future posts I will talk about high altitude training and how it has contributed to superior results by Basotho, Kenyan and Ethiopians runners.Boulders, Colorado lies 1600 meters above sea level is a favourite training destination for a lot of American middle and long distance runners.
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