How Megan Merzkirch Ran a Lightning Fast 5K!

Running gives me a sense of freedom and I find it relaxing. I started running because I wanted to run the Comrades Marathon.”

Meet Megan Merzkirch

Megan is a South African living in Germany.

She has run sub 4:30 marathons but always with starting out too fast and then battling towards the end.

Megan was able to run her first Comrades by using the Coach Parry Bronze Training Programme and she says that she did far better than what she thought possible:10:26.

When she joined us she set her goal to run a comfortable Marathon with a time closer to 4:20 to 4:15.

The first training Megan completed was a zero to 21K which she found in a Runner’s magazine.

She ran Comrades in 2019 and always thought that she would stop running after she reached that goal…

Megan REALLY enjoyed it and now running is an important part of her life.

“Running is good for coping with stress and has taught me to be kind to myself.”

Megan’s Recent Achievements

Megan recently ran her FASTEST 5Km! She managed to achieve her Personal Best of 22 minutes and 22 seconds.

“I am pretty chuffed about it!”

Last year Megan was also able to run her fastest 10Km, she ran it in 45 minutes and 41 seconds.

Joining Coach Parry

I Joined Coach Parry in September 2019.”

Megan was first training for Comrades 2019 by following the Coach Parry training plan on the Comrades website. She had such a wonderful run and that’s when she decided to continue running and thought what better way to do that than to continue with Coach Parry to have more structure?

Biggest Contributor To Megan’s Success

I try and be very consistent in my training.”

Megan says that the strength training had helped her stay injury free.

What’s Next For Megan?

She tells us that her next goal is now to run a sub-4-hour marathon.

I have entered the Florence Marathon in November”

Difficulties Along Megan’s Way

I have been under a lot of stress lately and this was affecting my running.”

So Megan thought it might be better to run for slower times than to not run at all.

She did train for a sub-4-hour marathon in April and the training went well but the week before the race she got Covid 19 and couldn’t run…

I then decided to race a half marathon in May which I then also couldn’t run because of a family emergency. So I was really chuffed to now run such a fast 5 km!”

Another difficulty for Megan is staying motivated and consistent when there is so much other stuff happening.