Seventy and Still Racing: How One Runner Reached a Rare Milestone

Blanche Moila crossed the finish line of her 100th SPAR Women’s Challenge 10km race in Tshwane at 70 years old, clocking 58:16 in the 70+ age category and finishing second for Savages Athletic Club. That moment placed her among only five athletes ever to complete 100 races in the series, alongside Sonja Laxton, Ronel Thomas, Janene Carey, and Grace de Oliveira.

The number alone is striking. What it represents is something else entirely.

More than four decades ago, Moila became the first Black woman to earn Springbok colours in athletics, a distinction that carried weight far beyond sport. Now, at 70, she has no intention of stopping.

“Running has taught me that age has no penalties,” she says. “We live in the eternal present. I am 70 years old and still find expression through running. The body we have, and the shape it is in, is in part a product of lifestyle.”

Her entry into running came by chance while she was studying to become a nurse. A hospital sports day, involving both staff and patients, introduced her to the sport through a mentor named Dr Shorty Moolla. Something clicked immediately. In her first women’s 10km race, she finished third in 39 minutes. Within a year of training, she knew she had found her calling.

“I believe running chose me,” she reflects. “I might add, tongue in cheek, but I chose my parents wisely. Those athletic genes.”

The discipline became woven into every part of her life. During 45 years working in a hospital, Moila maintained a perfect attendance record, never missing work due to illness. Running was never simply about medals or times. It became a way of living.

Her path unfolded, though, during a deeply different era in South Africa. As a Black woman competing during the apartheid period, she encountered people who did not believe she belonged at the front of the field. She faced verbal abuse from those who objected to her running ahead of other athletes. The myths surrounding women in sport were equally entrenched: that women would become muscle-bound, would struggle to conceive children, that perspiring somehow detracted from femininity.

“I just held my head up and ran faster, proving I belonged on those podiums,” she says. “When given lemons, make lemonade.”

When she received Springbok colours in 1984, the significance extended well beyond personal achievement. “It was a big deal to me, not because I was the first Black woman, but because I realised it afforded me a platform to encourage more women in diverse cultures to view running as a wholesome sport with health benefits,” she explains.

Racing in the colours of KwaZulu-Natal Athletics, she collected national titles across multiple distances, challenging deeply entrenched assumptions about who belonged in sport. The landscape has shifted considerably since then. Today, women from diverse cultures participate, compete, and form communities around running. More are being recognised for achievements across different sporting codes. Moila points to initiatives like Kass Naidoo’s gsport4girls awards as instrumental in that transformation, helping elevate the profile of women in sport and create opportunities for the next generation.

What sustains her now, she says, is straightforward: the health benefits running delivers and the positive mindset it maintains. It also provides stress relief in ways few other activities can match.

“The SPAR Women’s Challenge resonates with me as it speaks to the elevation of women in distance running,” she says. “It celebrates women by promoting inclusivity of walkers and runners of various levels of fitness, from the social to the competitive, all while raising awareness for vital social causes.”

She has remained loyal to Nike since 1984 and encourages other athletes to value the people who support them. She is also keen to see more opportunities for individual sponsorship open up to women in sport.

By contrast, the sport she once had to fight her way into has transformed around her. Her personal best of 33:58 in the 10km now sits well behind the times elite athletes are running. “If you look at it, elite athletes are now running 32 or 31 minutes, and it just shows the depth and talent we have in South Africa,” she says. “It’s really satisfying, and I’m just so excited about it.”

“I just love running; every finish line I cross is a celebration,” she says. “The SPAR Women’s Challenge is a big deal to me. I crossed the finish line with contentment and gratitude for the strength I still have to complete the distance. I was overwhelmed by the occasion.”

Her advice to the next generation of South African women in sport is clear: see your talents not as limitations, but as opportunities. “Run with a purpose, using one’s God-given talent to make a difference in others’ lives.”

The next SPAR Grand Prix 10km race takes place in Gqeberha on Saturday, 26 September, followed by the final race of the 2026 series in Johannesburg on Sunday, 4 October. The series remains open to women of all ages and abilities, which raises a question Moila’s career quietly answers: how many more finish lines are still possible?