SA 10km champ Tayla Kavanagh aims to boost road times with track focus
Road Running
Tayla Kavanagh in action during the Absa Run our City Series in 2025. She will be looking to raise the bar over the 10km distance this year – starting with the series opener in Gqeberha on March 1.
Image: Action Photo
SA 10km champion Tayla Kavanagh has decided to focus on track events this year, with the aim of building speed and achieving faster times on the road.
Kavanagh dominated the women's event at the ASA 10km Championships in Mangaung in November, as part of the Northridge Mall Marathon. She lived up to the pre-race hype, in the absence of close rival Glenrose Xaba, to win gold for KwaZulu-Natal Athletics (KZNA) in 33:05.
The victory was part of a breakthrough season over the 10km distance for the comeback queen, whose promising early career was blighted by injury. Kavanagh became the fourth-fastest South African 10km female runner of all time and dipped under 32 minutes twice last year – including a career-best 31:41 en route to victory at last year’s Sanlam Cape Town Marathon 10km Peace Run.
The diminutive runner, who also won the SA 10km title in 2021 when the national championships were incorporated into the Absa Run Your City Durban 10K, has now picked up where she left off.
On Saturday, January 24, Kavanagh opened her season by clocking an impressive career-best 9:00:21 to win the 3 000m event during the first KZNA league meeting at the Kings Park Athletics Stadium in Durban.
"This year, I will be focusing quite a lot on the track. Track is something I need to work on as it doesn’t come naturally to me. I don’t come from a track background," she said. "I want to challenge myself in order to develop as an athlete. So I'm going to do more track, hopefully 5 000m and 10 000m. I'm hoping to get some speed and translate that speed to the road.”
The 24-year-old will get an early indication of whether the strategy is working when she takes part in her first road race of the season – the Absa Run Your City Gqeberha 10K in Nelson Mandela Bay on Sunday, March 1.
“The goal for the first race of the season is to lay down a good solid foundation. I surprised myself with what I can do by ending the year in Cape Town the way I did. I didn't take part in the race last year but looking at the times it shows that the race was fast. I'm hoping Glenrose will run to see if we can challenge each other this year as we did last year. I get the best results when I just run. If I'm calm and relaxed, I run at my best,” she said.