Young, fast, going for gold
Cover runner
TONI MCCANN is 25-years-old and has just started her international running career. She's racing the Golden Trail Series this year, after showing her mettle on SA soil in races like the Otter African Trail Run and Ultra-Trail Drakensberg.
MY BEST FRIEND and I raced each other at Friday cross-country meets. We were always secretly-not-so-secretly competitive with each other. This rivalry followed us all throughout junior school, and my need-to-win mentality pushed me to train harder, work harder, run faster – even though it was mostly in my head.
That is until I got too cool to care in high school and I stopped running altogether. The friendship fizzled as a result of my ridiculous need to win (it's all good, we are still friends), and so did my passion for running.
This was a hard lesson to learn as a child, and one that I am still getting to grips with. Competition is great and it pushes you to strive for more and to be the best version of yourself, but that’s where it should stop. Comparisons and unhealthy competition with others to the point of it giving
