Forget linear success stories. Jenna Challenor’s journey through the world of running is a masterclass in tenacity, love and the messy beauty of rebuilding when everything falls apart. At 43, this Durban girl, sporting all-rounder, and mom of three has built a professional running career spanning over a decade, with achievements that would stop most runners in their tracks.
Her career highlights are impressive, including representing South Africa at the World Half Marathon Champs in 2014 and World Marathon Champs in 2017, placing second (first South African!) in her debut Two Oceans Ultra in 2017, and earning a gold medal (sixth place) in her Comrades Marathon debut in 2019.
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The Finish That Changed Everything
But it’s perhaps her 2022 Comrades finish that captured the world’s attention. After slipping in the final 400 metres, with her legs “absolutely broken,” she found herself unable to get up. “I was a hundred percent there, a hundred percent with it. I knew exactly what was going on, but my body wouldn’t respond. So it was so scary.” She tried to get to her feet but couldn’t. “It was like my quad section from my knee to my hip was missing… and I’d fall back down.”
After someone declined to help her up – which would have led to disqualification – she made a decision: “Do you know what? I’ve lost all dignity with all these falls. Let me just crawl and let me look up and smile so my family knows I’m okay.”
The moment became iconic. “I’m actually quite proud of my crawl. Always will be. I love that everyone embraces it. I love that it inspired so many people. I love that I had people screaming at the TV for me to get up. I walk into a shop and still to this day… people will say ‘Oh my word, you’re the girl that crawled.’”
But that now-famous finish was only the start of a much deeper struggle.
“I wasn’t injured. I was sick.”
About ten days later, when she laced up for her first post-race run, something felt very wrong. “It felt incredibly hard. And a month later, at a 10K race, I had absolutely nothing in me. I was struggling.”
Blood tests and scans followed, leading to a brutal diagnosis: her autoimmune disease had been triggered, likely by the stress of COVID and Comrades. The symptoms were overwhelming. “My left hand was paralysed. I could hardly use it. It had zero strength. My heart rate would be sky high. I would run 3km and have to sleep for five hours afterwards. I was just in bed, sleeping and sleeping and sleeping. And it was just… yeah, it was brutal. Absolutely brutal.”
The emotional toll was just as deep. “I was so sick… I honestly think I slept eight months away. He [her husband] literally had to take the reins on absolutely everything from the kids to schools to his business… I felt absolutely useless. I must admit, I didn’t know if there was a purpose to my life then or to me living.”
But her support system never let go. “My children and my husband were so patient. Not once did my husband ever tell me to “stop it now” and “just get over myself”. I owe it to them. They held me together and slowly, slowly raised me up to get me back to doing what I love.”
“I wanted to try and defy the odds.”
Even when she began to recover, life had another twist. A torn medial meniscus forced her into another tough decision. The surgeon recommended immediate surgery, warning she may never run Comrades again. But Jenna made a choice few would dare: “I said, ‘Okay, well, I don’t want to operate now. I want to try and roll the dice, see if I can train through this pain and then run Comrades and operate afterwards.’ So that’s exactly what I did. For seven months, I trained with a torn medial meniscus. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. It wasn’t fun. It was a silly idea.”
She made it 58km into the race. “That’s when I called it, because it just was not going to be possible.”
A week after Comrades, she had surgery. “My doctor said to me he doesn’t know if I’d be able to run 21km pain-free. So it wasn’t exactly like he was saying, ‘The operation was massively successful and off you go.’” Still, Jenna chose to focus on the present. “I just actually love running, and I just want to run. And if it means I can’t race ultramarathons, I’ll deal with that.”
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“This gave me purpose when I felt like I had none.”
During her recovery, Jenna found new purpose in coaching a kids’ group called Jet Fuel Juniors.
“I started coaching a small group of athletes… and I absolutely love it. It gave me so much purpose, especially when I was really down. It lifted me up. It made me feel like I was good enough. It made me feel loved.”
She adds, “You don’t have to be a good runner to come and run with me. If you just want to run because you like it and you’re the slowest runner in the pack, that’s absolutely fine.”
Jenna’s goal isn’t just to coach. “I want to develop a passion in these kids to love running… If you don’t love it, you’re not going to want to do it.”
“I’m not chasing a win.”
As she returns to racing, Jenna has a new mindset. “I’ve always been a person whose mind has been stronger than my body. If my mind wanted to do something, my body would follow. Through these last two and a half years, my body was too sick to follow. And that for me was a massive learning curve.”
She’s softer now. But in new ways, stronger than ever. “I had to learn to be patient with myself. I had to learn to listen to my body. I had to learn that I couldn’t just override it with my mind.”
Asked how she would describe this chapter, she doesn’t hesitate: “Grace, grit and gratitude.”
“I’m just running on so much gratitude now. Gratitude for life, gratitude for health. I lost my health for so long… I’m going into my races with a very different mind. Not just a mind to go win… but with a mind that I’m just so grateful to be here.”
“I’ve met so many versions of myself – strong, broken, negative, positive, underground… I just want to enjoy it. That is a huge win in my books now.”
