Wondering how to start running? Before you search for “free training plans” or figure out which running shoe is best, rewind a bit and find your inspiration. Here, read about Bubbles Zitumane‘s beginner runner journey, from slow and steady to long-distance aficionado. She believed she couldn’t call herself a runner – and still aced two half-marathons in one year. Here’s how.
“I thought I couldn’t be a runner because I wasn’t slim or fast”
Coming from a family of slim and fit “insane runners”, Bubbles assumed that running wasn’t for her. “I had a bigger body type than my siblings and my mom, and I just believed that running was for certain kinds of people,” she reflects. As an adult, she moved to Cape Town – the promised land for runners – and met a neighbour-turned friend who (surprise!) ran ultra trail races. The friend invited Bubbles on a run. “It was so interesting for me in my brain because I was like, ‘Well, she looks at me, and she thinks that I can run. That’s so crazy because I don’t look like a runner.’ I had this idea that runners had to look a certain way,” Bubbles explains.
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Even more surprising? “She changed my perception of what running had to be,” Bubbles says. To her – and maybe many others – a runner is lithe, fast. “I thought I had to go fast, so every time I ran, I would go fast and burn out… and then I hated it, because I thought, ‘I can’t do this’.” But her friend went with Bubbles and ran alongside her, at a slow pace, where running felt doable – maybe even fun. And, through her steady efforts, Bubbles was introduced to a community of runners. “I was like, ‘I really like these people. This thing is really hard, but if they like it and they’re good people, then there must be something in it,” she reasoned.
How Bubbles Fell In Love With Running
Then, a funny thing started to happen. The flood of happy hormones after each effort started changing the way Bubbles did things – things she never liked before, like running. “I started really enjoying moving; I enjoyed the freedom and ease that running gave me, because I could literally just put on my running shoes and walk out the door,” she says.
By 2024, Bubbles had set her sights on a brand-new goal: running a half-marathon. It meant her running needed more intentional effort; Bubbles started showing up week after week and started identifying herself as a runner. “I don’t have to look a certain way. I am doing it. So I might as well call myself the thing that I’m doing,” she says.
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Through her consistency and kilometres logged, the way she looked at and thought about herself shifted. Physically, she now tackled feats she was previously afraid of, like hiking Lion’s Head, notorious for its steep peak. “I was able to try out new sports and new things. I felt a lot more confident in myself,” she says. Added to that, negative thinking patterns gave way to positive ones, ideas that were rooted in evidence of hard-earned achievement. Every tough run she’d completed allowed Bubbles to set her sights on something else – like starting a business or acing her professional architect exams. “I did all of this – and the only thing that changed is I started running. It’s so crazy; I was able to achieve all these things, and I was like, ‘I probably could do that too’ – and then I did.”
How To Start Running: Tips From Bubbles
- Go slower than you want. “I think the one thing that held me back is that I thought I had to go fast. So every time I ran, I would go so fast and burn out and say, ‘I hate this because I can’t do this’.”
- Consistency creates confidence. “I had set the challenge to run a half-marathon and that meant that my running had to be more consistent. I was like showing up week after week, and I was like, ‘Hey man, I actually can call myself a runner!”
- Question your beliefs. “Once I started being more consistent with running, I could release the beliefs that I had to be a certain way [to be considered a runner]. I was like, ‘I am actually doing it, and not in the body that I thought was the ‘perfect’ runner’s body.”
- Try guided runs. “I did do walk-run-walk-run, and I used the Nike run app. Coach Bennett is my favourite person on earth, and I love him so much.”
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This story, as told to Michelle October, was first published in the March/April 2026 issue of Women’s Health Magazine South Africa.
